How can inequalities in the world be effectively reduced, if the issue of resource deprivation through corruption and misappropriation of public funds is not raised at the national and international levels?
This is the question asked by a group of NGOs on the eve of the G7 summit in Biarritz (24-26 August).
The fight against inequalities in the world is one of France's priorities for this summit, whether it is to reduce wage gaps or inequalities in access to basic services such as education, health, food, housing and drinking water (see EUROPE 12311/1).
In a statement, the NGOs Sherpa, Transparency International (France) and the Coalition Biens Mal Acquis du Canada regret that the G7 do not plan to address the issue of returning ill-gotten assets to dispossessed populations “thus missing the opportunity to support the fight against corruption in the global fight against inequality and to include civil society in the dispossessed countries”.
Every year, between $20 billion and $40 billion, equivalent to 20 to 40% of total annual international development assistance, is stolen from developing countries, they point out.
The leaders of some of these countries are accumulating considerable wealth by embezzling their countries' public funds and engaging in corrupt practices. They invest these illicit assets in the very same G7 countries, in bank accounts, luxury goods or even real estate. African real estate investments are widespread in Quebec.
NGOs remind G7 countries of their international commitments to fight corruption and return assets and “invite G7 countries hosting a significant proportion of the world's ill-gotten assets to develop a legal framework for the return of these assets, so that the returned funds will once again serve the public interest and not private interests”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)