SMRs and AMRs

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

World Bank and U.N. to Help Poor Nations Recover Stolen Assets

By WARREN HOGE
New York Times

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 17 — The World Bank and the United Nations announced Monday that they were setting up a system to help developing nations recover assets stolen and sent abroad by corrupt leaders that amount to an estimated $40 billion a year.

“There should be no safe haven for those who steal from the poor,” Robert B. Zoellick, the bank’s president, said in presenting the plan with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Mr. Zoellick estimated that the overall cross-border flow of global proceeds from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion was $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion annually, and said that even a small portion of that could provide financing for much-needed social programs.

He said that every $100 million recovered could pay for immunizations for four million children, or provide water connections for 250,000 households, or finance treatment for a year for more than 600,000 people with H.I.V. and AIDS.

The problem of stolen assets is most acute in Africa, where an estimated 25 percent of the gross national product of states is lost to corruption, he said.

The new system will work to build the capacity of developing countries to track stolen money going overseas and to emphasize ways that financial centers can better detect and deter money laundering.

(Continued here.)

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