G-20 leaders reaffirm commitment to deny safe havens to economic offenders

Noting that corruption is a global challenge, leaders of the G-20 countries on Saturday reaffirmed their commitment to fight against the menace and deny safe haven to economic offenders.

"We will continue practical cooperation to fight corruption and reaffirm our commitment to deny safe haven to persons sought for corruption and their proceeds of corruption consistent with our G20 and international commitments and our domestic legal systems and will work more closely on asset recovery cooperation," said a joint statement issued after the end of the two-day summit here.

Earlier today, India's sherpa at G-20 summit, Suresh Prabhu, called on the need to tackle corruption by all member countries to combat foreign bribery.

"India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been championing that we need anti-corruption measures at the global level. So, fight against corruption should be done by all G-20 countries by combating foreign bribery," he told reporters.

Each G-20 country should have a national law in force for criminalising foreign bribery as soon as possible, the joint statement said.

"We look forward to the scoping paper on international cooperation dealing with serious economic offenders and recovery of stolen assets in relation to corruption to be prepared by relevant international organisations. In addition, we also welcome the work on the linkages between corruption and gender being undertaken by relevant international organisations," it added.

In the last few years, India has been taking up the issue of economic fugitives at the international level to seek global action against those who stash money in tax havens.

On climate change, G-20 leaders said that they will strive to foster inclusive finance for sustainable development, including public and private financing mobilisation and alignment between them, as well as innovation in a wide range of areas for low emissions and resilient development.

"Climate actions at all levels with broad participation, including by non-state actors, will be the key to realising such a paradigm shift. In further enhancing this effort, as appropriate to each country's circumstances, we will look into a wide range of clean technologies and approaches, including smart cities, ecosystem and community-based approaches, nature-based solutions, and traditional and indigenous knowledge," the joint declaration said.

The G-20 leaders stressed on the need to enhance efforts to support actions and cooperation in adaptation and disaster risk reduction for the most vulnerable communities, particularly, and to elaborate further and foster coherence between mitigation action, adaptation measures, environmental protection, and resilient infrastructure.

"By 2020 we aim to communicate, update or maintain our NDCs, taking into account that further global efforts are needed. We emphasize the importance of providing financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in accordance with the Paris Agreement," it said.