G20 ACWG second meet concludes with agreement on 3 high-level principles

The second meeting of the G20 Anti-corruption Working Group (ACWG), which began on Thursday, came to a conclusion on Saturday with the delegates zeroing in on three high-level principles for future summits. 

These principles include promoting the integrity and effectiveness of public bodies and authorities responsible for preventing and combating corruption, reinforcing law enforcement-related international cooperation, and strengthening mechanisms for asset recovery.

According to an official statement, the three-day debates were also dominated by issues such as fugitive economic offenders, formal and informal channels of information sharing, and institutional frameworks for combating corruption and mutual legal assistance. Both asset recovery and fugitive economic offenders have remained issues of top priority for India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi tabled his nine-point agenda around these issues in 2018, during Argentina’s G20 presidency.  

The agreement on the three principles also sets the tone for the third and final leg of the ACWG meeting which will be held at Kolkata between August 9 and 11. In this third meeting, India will also host the first-ever in-person Anti-Corruption ministerial meeting, where ministers (and equivalent post holders) from each member nation will be attending.

Over the course of three days, the meeting — which was chaired by Rahul Singh, Additional Secretary, DoPT, Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini, Head of Task Force, Italy, and Fabrizio Marcelli, Minister Plenipotentiary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Italy — saw the participation from 90 delegates of 20 member countries, ten invitee countries and nine international organisations including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), INTERPOL, and the International Monetary Fund. 

The meeting also became an occasion for the delegates to experience the culture, traditions, and cuisine local to Uttarakhand. They took part in a Ganga Aarti conducted at the ghats of the Ganges in Rishikesh and attended performances by local musicians and artists on the banks of the river.