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10:01 GMT
BRUSSELS, June 29 (KUNA) -- The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and its African partners met in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday to discuss how to strengthen cooperation in the fight against fraud and corruption.
Participants included representatives from North, South and Central Africa, as well as from the Forum of General State Inspectorates of Africa and the respective EU Delegations, said OLAF in a press release Wednesday.
OLAF can investigate allegations of fraud against European Union funds wherever they occur, either within or outside Europe. Currently in its tenth edition, the so-called "Pilot Group" meeting was organised to strengthen the cooperation between OLAF and investigative authorities in Africa and establish new channels of cooperation between a range of bodies across Africa and the EU, it noted.
OLAF cooperates with a large number of partner organisations in non-EU countries to ensure that EUآ’s external dimension of its policies reaches its intended beneficiaries, without being diverted by fraud and corruption, it said.
The meeting between OLAF and its African partners, which took place this year on 27-28 June in Brussels, is part of a series of meetings which was launched in 2007.
The Pilot Group was created to strengthen the cooperation between OLAF and African national authorities, as well as to enhance EU-Africa and trans-African cooperation. (end)
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