Value Added of Partnership in the Fight Against Corruption

• NCJ Number: 189410
• Author(s): Peter Langseth Ph.D.
• Date Published: March 2001
• Length: 53 pages
• Corporate Author: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• Sale Source: United Nations Publications
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Austria
• Note: Global Programme Against Corruption: Conferences

Annotation

This paper promotes an anti-corruption strategy for countries that rests on economic development, democratic reform, strong civil society, and the presence of the rule of law.

Abstract

According to the Centre for International Crime Prevention's Program Against Corruption, the purpose of a national anti-corruption program is to increase the risk and cost of being corrupt; build integrity to change the rules of the game and the behavior of the players; eventually ensure the rule of law; help countries recover illegal assets abroad; and empower the victims of corruption. This paper promotes a coordinated effort based on new partnerships to develop joint strategies for implementing international and national anticorruption policies and measures. Stronger partnerships are needed between multilateral and bilateral agencies, governments, local media, and national and international non-governmental organizations for the purpose of educating citizens and raising public awareness of corruption and how victims can fight it. National criminal justice systems, international donor agencies, and private-sector regulatory agencies must develop international legal instruments that will facilitate the recovery of large amounts of money looted by corrupt people from poor developing countries. The public, the media, the private sector, religious organizations, and the government at the national and municipal levels must strengthen checks and balances and build integrity that can counter and prevent corruption. Further, support must be mounted for the development and implementation of international legal instruments that will enhance the curbing of money laundering and the recovery of funds looted by corrupt leaders and banked abroad. In this connection, multilateral and bilateral agencies, recipient governments, and international media must make it politically unacceptable for financial institutions to ignore regulations that can curb money laundering. A 48-item bibliography and 51 references