Statement of the Executive Director
on International Anti-Corruption Day

9 December 2016

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The G20 estimates that 90 trillion US dollars in infrastructure investment is required between 2015 and 2030 to support global growth and development. To protect this investment corruption's destructive impact should not be ignored. There needs to be a wholehearted and determined contribution to global anti-corruption efforts from the world's public and private sectors.

Corruption is a direct threat to infrastructure investment. It does not discriminate and impacts rich and poor countries alike; but it is the vulnerable and the weak who suffer most. If we do not unite to successfully eliminate corruption, we risk economic growth being slowed and prosperity muzzled. Corruption also corrodes much needed credibility and trust in the rule of law and criminal justice systems and wastes valuable resources.

Goal 16 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda on peaceful and inclusive societies seeks substantial reductions in corruption and bribery. To achieve this, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has created a comprehensive approach that includes the UN Convention Against Corruption and its cutting edge peer review mechanism.

Thanks to the 2030 Agenda, there is now a growing recognition that crimes such as corruption no longer haunt the periphery of the world's sustainable development activities. Efforts against crime and corruption are now at the centre of this work.
At the local level, UNODC works with countries to offer technical advice on invaluable legislative reform and to help build capacities in the area of law enforcement and successful prosecutions. But change cannot come without the active engagement of the private sector to create a zero tolerance culture, especially in supply chains. Policies should promote private sector competition, and fees for services should be reasonable and affordable.

On the International Anti-Corruption Day, I invite all countries, inter-governmental organizations, and civil society to join the UNODC/UNDP campaign titled, "Corruption: An impediment to the Sustainable Development Goals." We must end corruption now.