Last month, Never Again Coalition's Financial Accountability Analyst, Kelly McDermott, attended the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Washington, DC. Please read more about Kelly's key takeaways from the conference including how to reduce opportunities for corruption and increase the costs of corruption. NAC is a member of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT) where we work with other organizations to combat corrupt financial practices that often fuel kleptocrats' persecutory policies.
The International Anti-Corruption Conference was held in DC, December 6-10, 2023. This conference is held every other year in various locations around the globe and was well attended by delegations from all over. The conference is sponsored by the host country and Transparency International. There were several strong themes that were consistently referenced throughout the plenum and breakout sessions. In order to fight corruption globally many participants spoke about the need for transparency. Open contracts, government finances, corporate payments, ownership of personal assets were all mentioned, as well as the absolute necessity of transparency on the beneficial ownership of companies. The US was praised for its recent decision to do away with anonymous beneficial ownership but the conference attendees saw this as an important step in a long process to true accountability, globally and publicly. The ability of civil society, journalists, local governments and law enforcement to ascertain who owns what and to be able to track money is critical in stopping illicit flows and beginning the process of accountability and the repatriation of stolen assets.
Another primary theme of the conference was the need to clearly define goals and delineate what behavior is being targeted for change. Along with this is the recognition that multiple stakeholders must be involved for actions against corruption to be truly effective. This means beginning by empowering local organizations and people with knowledge of a situation to be involved in policy decisions and actions, but also includes involving international financial institutions, corporations, and multilateral cooperation from interested governments and agencies. If the goals are defined clearly and the net of actors working to implement them is broad enough then there will be higher compliance and success.
There was much discussion of asset seizures and the process of asset returns, which are currently a very small fraction of assets stolen. The war in Ukraine and the focus of western governments to try and use seizures to pressure Putin and generate revenues for the rebuilding of Ukraine has focused attention on the practical application of existing laws and procedures and how they can be made more robust and functional. In this sense corruption has been successfully linked to national security.
Probably the best summary if the overarching theme is threefold: how to reduce opportunities for corruption, increase the costs of corruption, and incentivize good behavior. To achieve this, in addition to the above specific areas, the focus is on better utilizing and enforcing existing laws, working better across agencies, looking for potential pressure points and being organized to the extent that when an opportunity presents itself there is a go to plan for how to take advantage of it already developed.