KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica has an opportunity to develop legislation that protects the country from financial crime while safeguarding the vital work of civil society organisations, according to regional and international experts participating in an online forum on the proposed Non-Profit Organisations (NPO) Act.

Addressing the open forum, Sangeeta Goswami, director of policy and advocacy at the Human Security Collective in The Hague, Netherlands, urged policymakers to ensure that the proposed legislation adopts a focused, proportionate and risk-based approach consistent with the latest standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), rather than imposing the same requirements across the entire non-profit sector, regardless of diversities of size, institutional capacity, capitalisation and source of financing.

The forum, hosted by the Council of Voluntary Social Services (CVSS) in partnership with the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), brought together more than 154 civil society representatives, legal experts and regional and international partners to examine how Jamaica can meet international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards while maintaining an enabling environment for legitimate civil society activity.