Civil society needs to work together to push for evidence-based global, regional and national reforms to make asset recovery accountable, transparent and work for systemic change. This priority aims to continue our coordinated work with civil society for these reforms and ensure that voices from the Global South are given greater priority.
Background
The past four years have seen civil society organisations come together for the Global Forum for Asset Recovery and other international conferences and events, as well as part of case-specific advocacy groups. It has also seen us lead a coordinated effort to develop Global CSO Principles. Despite this, there are still barriers to cooperation, particularly between civil society organisations, where there is still a big over-representation of civil society from financial centres in events and in coordination groups.
What we’re doing
Our work in this area includes convening civil society across borders on asset recovery, supporting civil society actors to build their networks through meetings and events and through expanding our databases of engaged actors and individuals. It also includes raising issues at international events, supporting civil society from the Global South in these fora and empowering their voices at the global level.
Global Forum for Asset Recovery
The Global Forum for Asset Recovery, which took from the 4-6 December 2017 in Washington D.C., was the first globally focussed intergovernmental forum on stolen asset recovery. We set out a series of recommendations for that.