Priority Themes

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Corruption is a global epidemic. Its impact can be particularly devastating on developing countries which lose billions of dollars every year - according to the World Bank estimate between USD 20 - 40 billion -  through corrupt acts such as bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation or other diversion of property or abuse of functions. These monetary losses
undermine good governance, weaken a state's accountability to citizens and drain development resources. Switzerland has a fundamental interest in ensuring that no illicit assets of politically exposed persons (PEPs) enter its financial center.

The scale of the problem is vast, and solutions are made more complicated by the diverse range of stakeholders involved, including government officials in developing countries and financial centers, banks, private companies, development organizations, law enforcement officials, civil society and the media. Over the past decade, international bodies have recognized that preventing and detecting the theft of public assets, and supporting attempts to recover and return them, must be integral to broader development efforts to improve governance and fight corruption.

Switzerland's proactive policy has made it an international leader in this domain.
The Swiss Asset Recovery policy is based on five pillars:

1. Prevention
2. Identification
3. Report & Freeze
4. Legal Assistance
5. Restitution

With the ultimate goal to contribute to preventing corruption as a major obstacle towards development, SDC puts a particular focus and engagement on prevention by tackling corruption on the ground, as well as the restitution of illicitly acquired assets to the country of origin in a transparent and accountable way .​

​​Focus and Contribution from the SDC Global Institutions Divison

• Strengthen international standard setting & review on anti-corruption with policy dialogue, core funding to strategic partners and participation in technical meetings.

• Engage in policy coherence in Switzerland with respect to issues of fighting corruption and asset recovery

• Strengthen international standard setting of asset recovery with benchmarking, core funding to strategic partner and participation in expert meetings

• Establishment of new and monitoring of current SDC restitution cases and development of a data basis of best practices.

• Engagement with ongoing initiatives (e.g. StAR, ICAR, Transparency International, U4) and participation at international think tanks (e.g. OECD Anti-Corruption Task Team).

• Promote development and policy coherence aspects to anti-corruption and to asset recovery debate in Switzerland (e.g. participation in intergovernmental groups)

• Explore opportunities for enhanced collaboration with regional Divisions in fostering prevention, detection and investigation of corruption and support to asset recovery in partner countries
  

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