Senior Specialist, Financial Investigations

Senior Specialist, Financial Investigations (Green Corruption programme) – Malawi
Place of work: Lilongwe, Malawi
Employment rate: 100%
Start date: 1 January 2026
Contract type: 2 years
Other: region
Citizen or resident of Malawi or another African country in the Basel Institute on Governance

The Basel Institute on Governance is a hands-on centre of competence dedicated to promoting good governance and countering corruption for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. Established in 2003 in Basel, Switzerland, the Institute works with partners worldwide to advance knowledge, practice and policy on anti-corruption, asset recovery and business integrity. With field operations worldwide, it has some 150 staff covering 32 nationalities. The Basel Institute is an Associated Institute of the University of Basel.

The Basel Institute’s Green Corruption programme focuses on applying our in-house expertise and experience in relation to the prevention of corruption and the enforcement of anti-corruption and anti-money laundering standards to the environmental sector. The programme covers corruption and financial crime related to the illegal trade in forestry and timber products, fish, mining, as well as energy transition governance including critical minerals.

About the project: Mainstreaming Malawi’s progress in tackling environment-related financial crime and corruption
With funding from the United Kingdom (UK) Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) through the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Challenge Fund, the project addresses corruption and money laundering in Malawi’s wildlife and forestry sectors by supporting law enforcement (“follow-the-money”) and corruption prevention efforts. This includes bolstering nascent casework and integrity building with key public agencies such as the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Department of Forestry and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions. This new project builds on achievements and relationships already established under a previous project.

Job description

The Senior Specialist will assist investigators and prosecutors in building environmental corruption cases, primarily through training, mentoring and case analysis support.

Key responsibilities

Representation

• Represent the Basel Institute’s Green Corruption programme in Malawi with government agencies and civil society partners engaged in law enforcement partnerships.
• Coordinate other programmes of the Basel Institute in Malawi.

Casework and capacity building

• Promote best practices on financial investigations to agencies directly or indirectly impacting the fight against environmental crime.
• Provide technical assistance to prosecutors and investigators directly through the dissemination of criminal analysis products with a financial focus.
• Develop and deliver training in criminal analysis financial investigation techniques to prosecutors and investigators in Malawi as per identified needs at relevant partner agencies.
• Develop and transfer financial investigation tools in close coordination with partner agencies.
• Mentor investigators in the use of financial investigations and support the partner agencies in the investigation of major cases.
• Embed financial investigations as a key priority in environmental crime cases in partner agencies.
• Support partner agencies in assessing needs in Case Management Systems (CMS) and work with an IT-specialist in piloting solutions to better connect illegal wildlife trade cases initiated by environmental agencies with the Department of Public Prosecutions’ CMS.

Administrative

• Maintain and update all project files, in particular case-specific files.
• Draft relevant operational and other project reports as required in the context of this technical assistance project as set out in the project log frame.
• Fulfil administrative requirements in accordance with the Basel Institute’s staff and administrative regulations.

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