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Recovery of stolen wealth

CSO have been campaigning for years against odious and illegitimate debts and for the restitutions of funds that have been embezzled by corrupted elites from the South and lodged in Northern bank accounts with the consent of Northern governments. According to the World Bank, “25 percent of the GDP of African states are lost to corruption every year, amounting to $148 billion, but the problem is seen in all continents. Corrupt money associated with bribes received by public officials from developing and transition countries is conservatively estimated at $20 billion to $40 billion per year—a figure equivalent to 20 to 40 percent of flows of official development assistance (ODA)”. But up to now, very little attention has been given to this issue by the international community. In September 2007, the World Bank launched the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative jointly with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC). Through research and knowledge management, the Bank intends to become a centre of expertise on the stolen assets issue, including establishing good practices from countries with experience of the issue. The key elements of the Bank’s work in this area are outlined in a report entitled  Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative: Challenges, Opportunities, and Action Plan . This is a major step and as such has been welcomed by CSO that see an important opportunity to strengthen their campaigns against odious debts and creditor co-responsibility. Nevertheless, the StAR initiative is mostly focusing on the corrupted side of the problem while not paying enough attention to the supply side, being the northern banks and tax havens through which these stolen assets have been chandelled. Eurodad will follow the developments out of this initiative.