Denmark’s new Minister for Development Cooperation, Ulla Tørnæs, is looking forward to Denmark’s role as host, which she announced on Saturday via video link during this year’s conference in Panama City.
”For several years in succession, Denmark has been rated as the world’s least corrupt country on Transparency International’s index of corruption in the public sector, so we are really on our home ground. It is a little like hosting the world championships in handball in Denmark. Both form a part of our DNA,” says Ulla Tørnæs and continues:
”Corruption in the form of bribery, embezzlement and misuse of public funds etc. is a major obstacle for the establishment of democracy and economic development in many of the world’s poorest countries, which is why we will make combating corruption in developing countries the central focus of the conference.”
Since 1983, the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) has been held as a recurring event. The conference has attracted heads of state and governments, researchers, media and representatives from both civil society and the private business sector.
One of the specific objectives at the conference is to involve a wide range of diverse stakeholders in a dialogue on combating corruption while also applying pressure on countries to commit to implementing specific initiatives within the area of anti-corruption.
Development minister Ulla Tørnæs announced Denmark as the 2018 host nation via video-link at this year’s anti-corruption conference, which took place in Panama on 1-4 December with more than 1500 in attendance. Here the focus areas have included corruption in the financial sector and public involvement in the fight against corruption.
Fact box: Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index is published annually and uses a number of expert sources, e.g. the World Bank, World Economic Forum and Economist Intelligence Unit. Since 2012 Denmark has ranked in first place, the first two years jointly with other countries and in 2014 and 2015 on its own.
For further information contact:
Poul Kjar, press advisor, tel.: +45 41865975
See closing press release of the 17th IACC here.
