Nairobi, 17 June 2026 – The Association of African Anti-Corruption Authorities (AAACA) has launched the Africa Anti-Corruption Studies and Research Centre (CEREAC), a new continental institution dedicated to anti-corruption research, policy development and capacity building. The Centre was launched in Nairobi during AAACA’s 8th Annual General Assembly, hosted by Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).

A continental hub for evidence-based solutions

CEREAC will act as AAACA’s research and analytical arm. It is expected to generate data and insights on the drivers and enablers of corruption, and to support context-specific responses across Africa through research, policy advice, training and knowledge sharing. According to the EACC, the Centre has legal personality as well as administrative and financial autonomy.

Kenya’s Attorney General, Dorcas Oduor, presided over the launch on behalf of President William Ruto. In the President’s speech, read on his behalf, he called for African-led, evidence-driven answers to the continent’s corruption and governance challenges.

This Centre embodies an important truth: that the fight against corruption requires not only investigators, prosecutors, auditors, and judges, but also researchers, economists, data scientists, governance experts, policy practitioners, and academic institutions capable of generating evidence-based solutions to increasingly complex governance challenges.

President William Ruto, in a speech delivered by Attorney General Dorcas Oduor

From Bujumbura to Nairobi

EACC Chief Executive Officer Abdi Mohamud recalled the steps that led to the launch. AAACA members first decided to create the Centre at their 5th General Assembly in Bujumbura, Burundi, in June 2022. It was formally established in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 2023; Kenya was unanimously chosen as host country in January 2024; and the final resolution to launch it in Kenya was adopted in Algiers, Algeria, in July 2025.

EACC Chairperson David Oginde said the Centre would help close knowledge gaps and design interventions suited to Africa’s governance realities. AAACA President General Hisham El-Rakaybi called for sustained cooperation among anti-corruption agencies to tackle corruption and illicit financial flows.

The Assembly, which opened on 16 June, brought together delegates from 45 anti-corruption institutions in 43 African countries. It was the first time Kenya had hosted the Assembly since the Association was created.

Why it matters

For CERC, the creation of a continental research centre is an encouraging signal: it recognises that lasting progress against corruption depends on solid evidence and on cooperation between public institutions, researchers and civil society. CERC looks forward to contributing to this growing African research community from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Source: Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), Kenya – “Continental anti-corruption research centre launched in Nairobi”, 18 June 2026. Photo: EACC.