FAQs

• Uprooting corruption: Global security demands a global response

  Key Topics: Global governance, peace and security, kleptocracy, conflict/fragile states, international agreements, national commitments, effective implementation

  The Global Challenge: Many Governments from around the world have fallen short on their anticorruption commitments and pledges; poor governance allows autocratic leaders, kleptocratic regimes and organised criminal networks to strengthen their hold on power and the global economy, at the cost of democracy, human rights and global security. What needs to be done to reverse the global wave of kleptocracy, especially where it is being fuelled by corruption? How are corrupt practices contributing to the rise of extremism and incitement to violence? How can we further foster the effective implementation of commitments made through the growing number of global platforms like the Summit for Democracy, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the UK Summit, the UN General Assembly Session on Corruption and the Open Government Partnership?

• Defending the defenders, those who uncover the truth and the victims of corruption and the violations of human rights

  Key Topics: civil society space, restrictions on freedoms of expression and assembly, journalists under threat, impunity on violence against civil society actors, defending the truth, speaking up in difficult environments

  The Global Challenge: The fight against corruption has gained momentum globally. Yet the corrupt are fighting back by clamping down on democratic rights and freedoms, imposing stronger-handed regimes, stepping up surveillance and stoking division and extremism. Today more than ever, those who exercise their right to question the powerful, to demand free and fair elections, to mobilise or speak out against injustice are being silenced by coercive means – sometimes paying with their lives. What strategies and actions can we use to defend people’s rights and freedoms, against all forms of injustice and violence?

• Building the path towards a fair and sustainable future

  Key Topics: Sustainable development, public funds, emergency responses, COVID Pandemic, social justice, economic justice, health, education, safety, equality, business integrity

  The Global Challenge: Corruption impacts citizens in their everyday life, siphoning resources needed for public goods like infrastructure and health systems, inhibiting small business and economic prospects. In short, corruption erases hopes for equal opportunities and fair future, standing in the way of realising the global aspirations contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This, in turn, makes it all the harder to cope with the unparalleled impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inequalities. People and communities living in already vulnerable conditions suffer the most. Everyone in our societies – from business leaders to activists to government reformers – has a role to play in advancing greater social justice. What are the major corruption challenges blocking the road for the future we imagined at the beginning of the new millennium? How are citizens driving innovation? Where can grassroots action drive momentum in the global fight? How can we energise existing partnerships to confront corruption as an impediment to pandemic recovery, quality infrastructure, climate progress, etc.?

• Overcoming corruption in a race against the climate crisis

  Key Topics: Climate change, climate funds, a greener and carbon-neutral planet, natural resources management, extractive industries, environmental defenders

  The Global Challenge: The climate emergency is the biggest and most urgent challenge our societies are rallying behind, but corruption hampers these efforts. From undue influence of the fossil fuel industry over climate policy development to misspending in climate finance projects, corruption has been undermining the economic and social transformation needed to tackle the climate crisis. What’s worse, corruption continues to enable environmental crimes, and often kills environmental defenders. If we don’t fight corruption, we will never reach the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping the planet's temperature from rising above 1.5°C. How can the international community stop corruption from enabling environmental devastation and derailing climate action?

• Ending dark markets, criminal networks, and cross border crimes

  Key Topics: trafficking, cross border corruption, organised crime, criminal networks, environmental crimes, endangered species, freeports, illicit trade, law enforcement, sanctions, international agreements, and cooperation

  The Global Challenge: The global demand for scarce, endangered, or forbidden goods and services, which often are acquired through trafficking, is steadily on the rise. Fuelled by corruption, the profits often are dirty and blood money. Criminal networks are the first to profit from this demand by creating dark markets and exploiting everything from human beings and endangered species to drugs and arms, from counterfeit merchandise or rare antiquities to precious natural resources.

  Trafficking is a devastating business that knows no territorial boundaries. But people living in vulnerable conditions, weak states, and particularly in resource-rich yet fragile environments, are the first to suffer the harm inflicted by criminal networks, including death, while the consequences are often global. What is holding back law enforcement, how are criminal networks innovating and where are today’s most critical hotspots? What are institutions around the world doing to fight back?

• Fighting Greed, kleptocracy, oligarchs, money laundering, and their enablers

  Key Topics: Illicit finance, beneficial ownership transparency, secrecy jurisdictions, crypto currencies, foreign bribery, asset recovery & repatriation, legal loopholes, grand corruption, beneficial ownership transparency, international cooperation

  The Global Challenge: Greed drives the insatiable, and often corrupt, pursuit of wealth, money and power. The enablers are specialists that willingly engage in corrupt practices to ensure the impunity of kleptocrats and oligarchs. Accountants, bankers, real estate agents, luxury goods brokers -to name a few, are often implicated in complex schemes to obscure ill-gotten fortunes.

  After years of self-sabotage, the game-changing Panama Papers and subsequent revelations, and the increasing threats to national security have prompted several countries to take real steps to curb the flow of dirty and blood money, though much more is to be done. Where have we successfully exposed and prosecuted complicit enablers? How do we ensure the adoption of international best practices in these sectors? How are countries cooperating to crack down on money laundering? How can the industries and businesses partner in developing safeguards to prevent law breaking enablers?