ABU DHABI – The UN anti-corruption conference opened on Monday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The conference calls for intensified efforts to prevent and combat corruption in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
“As we enter the Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals, we must unite against corruption to stop the drain on resources caused by illicit financial flows,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his message to the eighth session of the Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption.
The executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Yury Fedotov, warned against the role of corruption in facilitating crime and other threats, calling corruption “the sinister enabler of some of the worst problems we face.”
“By preventing and curbing corruption, we can nip corruption’s contribution to instability in the bud … By stopping the abuse of public trust for private gain, we can restore a much-needed trust and invest in our future,” he said.
The UN Convention against Corruption, with 186 parties, is the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument.
Every other year, the states parties to the Convention meet to review the implementation of the Convention and to discuss how the world can better tackle corruption.
The conference, which brings together more than 1,300 participants around the world, is expected to consider some 15 draft resolutions and topics including asset recovery, international cooperation, and the preparations for the special session of the UN General Assembly against corruption scheduled for 2021, according to the organizers.
