Why corruption matters – and what we are doing about it

A corrupt politician in a country far away wears an expensive watch and owns a car costing many times his annual salary.

Why should we care?

Corruption matters because it undermines the rules-based international system; slows economic growth; and generates instability.  All this harms countries, and peoples, around the world.  Every year, corruption costs a staggering $2.6 trillion.

Imagine what could be achieved for global growth and welfare if those funds were spent on schools, hospitals, roads or universities.  Instead, corruption squanders resources on a tragic scale.  This impoverishes us all.

The UK sees the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna as a key organisation in leading the fight against corruption internationally.

We all need to pull together to defeat corruption. The British Government will do all it can to help this struggle as part of a worldwide anti-corruption programme worth around £45 million.

So I was delighted to sign off a UK anti-corruption funding package to UNODC last week worth around £8million.  The package will fund practical support to UN Member States to implement the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) over the next few years in selected regions.

By tackling corruption across the board, we hope to strengthen the resilience of countries to resist corruption by focusing on areas such as financial investigations, anti-money laundering, public sector transparency, whistle blowing protection and civil society and advocacy; and by supporting the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in key countries.

This work with UNODC is another example of the UK’s commitment to the rules-based international system.  We hope that, by disincentivising corruption, designing out opportunities for corruption and recovering illegally gained assets, it will make it a riskier for corrupt politicians and officials to take bribes; make it easier to catch them when they do; and so help to reduce corruption, worldwide – benefiting all of us.