The Working Group reached consensus on the draft High Level Principles on Corruption related to Organized Crime, a landmark for the global rule of law.
The first meeting of the Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG) was held this week.
The ACWG is considered a premier forum to shape anti-corruption policies at global level and one of the most dynamic work-streams of the G20. Since its establishment in Toronto in 2010, the Group has enabled the adoption of 21 sets of High Principles and standards, guidelines and compendia in the form of policy documents.
The Group has been chaired by Alfredo Durante Mangoni and by Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The priorities of the Italian Presidency in this track are ambitious and innovative: grasping a better knowledge of corruption through more accurate measurement methodologies, a clear understanding of the new forms of corruption, such as those related to organized crime, and an enhanced prevention in new risk areas like sport. All these work-streams have seen significant progress at this meeting.
The Presidency has been supported by distinguished keynote speakers in some thematic sessions: Paola Severino held the opening speech, the President of ANAC Giuseppe Busia addressed the topic of measuring corruption through the monitoring of public procurement while Franco Frattini, Chairman of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance, attended a panel featuring also FIFA President Gianni Infantino and a videomessage by IOC President Thomas Bach.
The Working Group reached consensus on the draft High Level Principles on Corruption related to Organized Crime, a landmark for the global rule of law and the Italian legal diplomacy. The threat of corruption exploited by criminal groups to infiltrate the public sector and the legal economy is a cross-cutting issue between the two main international legal instruments in this field: the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC).
The meeting hosted the launch of a dedicated website (mentioned above) collecting all the resources adopted by the G20 on anti-corruption over the years, in order to raise the visibility to the outcomes and make them more accessible to the public and the civil society. Equally important, in a spirit of inclusiveness and coherence with the multi-stakeholder approach, has been the session of dialogue with the Engagement groups Business20, Civil20, Think20 and Labour20.
The ACWG avails itself of the technical contribution by the International Organizations, namely UNODC, OECD, IMF, World Bank and FATF.
The last day, the Presidency promoted a joint G20 ACWG-Financial Action Task Force meeting to discuss new ways of strengthening beneficial ownership transparency for anti-corruption and anti-money laundering, including procurement transparency in the age of digital transformation. The European Commission, Egmont Group, Europol, Moneyval, Open Government Partnership (OGP) and Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) were lead speakers. The last meeting of this kind was in October 2016.
Among the follow-ups, the Presidency plans to kick off the discussion on the Anti-Corruption Action Plan 2022-2024, that will take into account the outcomes of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Corruption (UNGASS).
