Examining Trends in Africa's Anticorruption Landscape

In November 2024, South Africa became the first African country to assume the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20), a term that ran from December 1, 2024, through November 30, 2025. As part of those duties, the country chaired the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG), kicking off implementation of the 2025-2027 Action Plan, adopted by the G20 in Brazil in 2024. In October 2025, the ACWG released its Chair’s Statement, highlighting a range of efforts undertaken during the year to advance the following priorities:

• Strengthening the public sector by promoting transparency, integrity, and accountability;

• Increasing the efficiency of asset recovery measures, in particular the management of seized assets;

• Enhancing and mobilizing the inclusive participation of the public sector, private sector, civil society, and academia to prevent and combat corruption; and 

• Enhancing whistle-blower protection mechanisms.

Several months removed from this historic G20 presidency, to learn more about how that agenda is playing out in Africa in particular, I spoke with Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, Founder and Executive Director of the African Center for Governance, Asset Recovery, and Sustainable Development, Postgraduate Researcher at the University of Sussex, chair of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) Victims of Corruption Working Group, and formerly Special Adviser to the President of Nigeria on Justice Sector Reform and International Relations. Critically, Ibekaku-Nwagwu was the lead drafter on several G20 ACWG reports: on capacity-building for asset recovery and on whistleblower protection.

Given that much of Ibekaku-Nwagwu’s work centers on decisions to return stolen assets to, or withhold them from, their countries of origin, I was particularly curious to hear her views on asset recovery. She told me that the situation is far from ideal. She explained that in 2003, UNCAC established that asset return should be a fundamental principle of international law, but in practice, compliance has remained discretionary. She explained that often, rather than being returned directly to the origin countries, funds identified in bribery investigations are channeled through UN- or World Bank-managed trust funds. Such mechanisms were designed for money to be used to support citizens in countries with corrupt leadership. But, she explained, even when regimes do change, the funds don't always follow, or the return process can take years.

Overall, Ibekaku-Nwagwu told me, while she considers the G20 ACWG a critical tool for raising awareness, it falls short of holding countries accountable for their achievements. To increase pressure on African countries to take concrete anticorruption action, she would like to see the African Union and the African Development Bank be more vocal. That is particularly the case, she said, given that most African countries are not G20 members and often have their interests sidelined in these large multilateral fora.

I was also interested in hearing Ibekaku-Nwagwu’s views on China's growing role in Africa, and the nexus among Chinese investment, corruption and kleptocracy. Here, she deviates somewhat from what is considered “accepted wisdom” in the West. She acknowledged, “The perception is that Chinese companies don’t play by the rules,” but also said that “proving it isn’t always easy.” She told me that Nigeria has prosecuted some Chinese individuals for illegal mining and visa violations, but outright corruption cases remain few. Part of the difficulty, she noted, is structural: US and European governments have prosecuted their own companies for corruption, but whether China would pursue similar accountability for the activities of their own companies overseas is a different question.

Finally, I was curious how Ibekaku-Nwagwu sees the impact on Africa of US developments in the past year. Here too, her assessment is quite measured. In her view, the FCPA enforcement pause has been “more of a political signal rather than a practical shift.” She pointed out that US DOJ investigations into illicit activity have continued. Further, she said, “Countries in emerging markets have not let down their guard, and African anticorruption agencies have not stood down.” Constraints, she said, “arise only when they need the US to provide additional information.” Meanwhile, the UK and EU anticorruption agencies continue their own work, she noted. She told me that “countries are cooperating with each other, and the extraterritorial force the US once provided can be substituted through multilateral channels.”

In her view, the USAID withdrawal has been the more disruptive development, particularly for anticorruption NGOs, while state anticorruption bodies have been less affected. Funding gaps are being addressed, albeit to a limited extent, through the UK's FCDO, the African Union, Germany's GIZ, and the OECD. While European and UK resources don't match USAID’s resources, there are ways to leverage their expertise, and they have been able to fill development funding gaps in a number of critical areas.

Marc Schleifer

Governance, Democracy and Economic Development Expert