Ukraine must, in its own interest, get down to actively combating corruption, which is endemic in the country, in view of a massive influx of aid for reconstruction, believes the head of the United Nations Development Program. The fight against corruptionprevents the theft of his own people“, told AFP Achim Steiner, on the sidelines of the Lugano conference. The latter allowed Ukrainian leaders and their allies to draw, Monday and Tuesday, the outlines of a future reconstruction of the country ravaged by the Russian army. “Corruption ultimately is a theft, of national development, of the treasury and ultimately of the people of the countryinsists Achim Steiner.
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“Good governance”
Achim Steiner recalls that one of the skills of the UNDP, present for decades in Ukraine but which had to review its priorities with the war and its procession of displaced persons and refugees, is “good governance“. “We have anti-corruption support systems that we provide to governments, but we do so at their invitation“, he explains. “It is in Ukraine’s interest to be seen as proactive in this area” because he “there is a significant amount of funding that will come from abroadto raise the country.
In Lugano, Denys Chmygal, the Ukrainian Prime Minister promised that “we will not only fight corruption but make it impossible“, thanks to “digitization to limit as much as possible the human intermediaries able to give in to temptation.For Achim Steiner, UNDP can “very quickly to strengthen this confidence in Ukraine’s ability to manage this” and “the level of international trust“. To do this, the UN agency can rely on its “collaboration with Ukraine on topics like accountability, transparency, use also of digital technologies for e-government platforms“.
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In its 2021 report, the NGO Transparency International ranks Ukraine 122nd out of 180. This is better than in 2014 (142nd), and better than Russia (136th), but still very far behind its neighbors members of the European Union where the worst placed, Bulgaria, is in 78th place.
left behind
The UNDP official, active in more than 170 countries and territories around the world, notes like many of his colleagues in charge of UN aid organizations that the justified attention given to Ukraine should not be forget the rest of the world, also affected by the indirect consequences of the Russian invasion. “As a global community, we face not only the fallout from the Covid 19 pandemic, but also the extraordinary pressures that come with rising prices and rising costs of living, for example in food markets , energy and capital“, insists the manager.
“All of this is escalating into an extraordinary financial crisis“, he underlines. “Many developing countries are at the limit of what they could borrow, their public budgets are stretched and yet they must continue to deal with one crisis after another.“.
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“For the UN in general, this is a very difficult time“, he continues. When “some of the richest countries in the world are starting to cut their development aid this is a tragic signalfor countries in the South who worry about being left behind, he warns. “Many of our humanitarian appeals in countries like Yemen or Syria, (where there are) long-standing conflicts, are not even 40% funded“, he adds. “We are actually cutting rations, we are closing health posts, we are literally stopping support for some of the most needy people in the world“.
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