The European Commission has restated its commitment to tackling corruption, both within member states and in partner countries that benefit from EC assistance, as a recent report found that most Europeans consider graft a major problem in their country.
At the beginning of this year, Members of the European Parliament launched a cross-party initiative (http://www.stopcorruption.eu) to strengthen the EU fight against corruption. The petition targets graft in the EU and countries the EU works with, in particular developing and natural resource-rich countries. The initiative seeks to break the links between the financial sector and corruption, end impunity and strengthening EU and worldwide anti-corruption capabilities.
And, on the occasion of the international anti-corruption day earlier this month, the European Commission reiterated its determination to step up the fight against graft both within its member states and in the countries that receive EC aid.
The EC’s commitment followed the publication of a Eurobarometer survey, produced by the Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission, which found that European Union citizens attach importance to tackling corruption.
Some 78 percent of survey respondents said they consider corruption to be a major problem in their own countries. However, in a positive finding, almost one third of those surveyed said they believed that the European Union has helped to reduce corruption in their country.
The World Bank calculates that global corruption is valued at US $2.6 trillion a year, or 5 percent of the world’s total GDP. Bribery alone, according to the World Bank, is worth US $1 trillion a year or roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of the African continent.
The Commission has long stated that corruption is an obstacle to development and is taking a number of measures to tackle graft in the countries which receive EC technical assistance and aid.
By mainstreaming anti-corruption measures the EC seeks to build institutional capacity and thus, ideally, reduce fiduciary risks or misuse of funds. The EC acknowledges that corruption cannot be addressed in isolation but rather as part of the overall support to democratic governance reform processes.
The EC support to anti-corruption through external aid programmes and projects, which in general always includes a technical assistance component, could be categorised as follows:
• Support to the reform of public administration (capacity-building in the area of management, transparency, accountability, monitoring, internal audit)
• Support to the improvement of the business and investment climate/ environment and customs reform
• Support to the management of public finances (in particular in the case of budgetary support to the partner country)
• Support to justice/security sector reform (e.g. legal reform; reform of recruitment, payment and promotion systems; access to justice)
• Support to the fight against economic/financial crime (capacity-building for law enforcement and judicial authorities, as well as specialised bodies such as Anticorruption Commissions)
• Support to civil society/media and parliaments to exercise its stimulation and control function.
To read the full Eurobarometer survey click here:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/doc_centre/crime/corruption/doc_crime_…
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There so many examples we can demonstrate you that giving developing countries money without educating all the Responsible of developing countries that corruption is dangerous, money laundering and financing terrorism are dangerous too. Please, have a look about what happened in so many countries. In those countries, all the International Community mobilised their energy and money to help developing countries to rise from its natural disaster or its military or civil war. The fact is that, most maybe all the international money would disappear because of corruption or fraud. Nowadays, we couldn’t say that we didn't know that fact of corruption. Doing nothing is more disaster than doing anything. Poor People at the first time will be happy about the international mobilisation. But this happiness will be quickly transform in anger, rage, big disappointment when all the promises given by the international community disappear because of corruption made by few peoples. This anger will also be towards the international community which gives promises which never happened. EFAI's aims are to train, advice, and control National Institutions to fight against those principals damages of corruption, money laundering and financing terrorism. It's like building a house without foundations, the international community could do whatever they want, could give all the money they would: if there no basis about ethic, compliance involve in the management of National Institution, please believe us, no progress is possible.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
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Kind RegardsBlaise STEPHENEFAI (Ethic of Financial Activities and Organisations)