Anti-corruption fight must be intensified as Copenhagen readies for international conference
The Danish capital, Copenhagen, where temperatures have started dipping to the regions of 11 to 18 degree Celsius is warming up to host the largest anti-corruption conference in the world.
The 18th edition of the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) will be attended by about 2000 participants including heads of state, civil society actors, the private sector and journalists, from October 22 to 24, 2018.
Holding under the theme: Together for development, peace and security: Now is the time to act, the main objective of the conference is to tackle corruption. According to the International Monetary Fund, globally close to $2 trillion is lost to corruption through bribes, and that costs economies of countries, including hampering growth and exacerbating poverty.
“Today’s polarized politics fuels many evils: populism and extremism, violence, human rights violations, trafficking and illicit money, environmental destruction and forces migration. Corruption, in increasingly complex forms, is eroding fair and democratic governance across the world. Violence against activists, journalists and citizens who speak out against injustice and corruption is on the rise, all too often with impunity. These dangerous trends call on all of us, from north to south, to work more forcefully towards sustainable development, security and peace,” says part of the welcome note of the conference programme.
The dangers that corruption and its ripples poses to the rest of the world cannot be overemphasized. The poor, disadvantaged and marginalized, whistleblowers, journalists are all at the receiving end of the horrors and dangers that corruption and what it brings pose to all humanity.
The call by the organisers which must be followed with action, should see a fierce, but calculated resistance to corruption – it must be a fight that should be on gains made from past experiences and new insights from challenges and failures of the past, but nevertheless a fight that must be carried on with unison and determination, a fight that must be sustainable and aimed at concrete results, because the poor, especially, and victims of the growing inequality that corruption breeds cannot wait much longer.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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