SECRETARY KERRY: Therefore, the second great challenge that we face together today is overcoming
the virulent bad governance that persists in too many places – the failed and failing
states I’ve talked about.
We need to do this because we need to build a strong, sustainable, global economy that
unlocks opportunity, rather than stifling it.
Any government’s most basic duty – you all, I’m sure, have debated this at length
in one class or another: the rights of man and the evolution of human power on Earth
and governance – the most basic duty is to meet the needs of your citizens.
When governments are fragile and leaders are incompetent, or worse, dishonest, when the
gap between rich and poor grows and the space for basic freedoms shrinks, when corruption
is not an aberration but an entrenched part of society, the needs of citizens cannot be
met.
Weak or corrupt governance invariably leaves young people caught up in the race between
hope and frustration.
And it’s absolutely essential that hope wins that race.
Think about it this way: Worldwide, there are nearly two billion people who are younger
than 15 years old.
In the Middle East, that includes three out of every ten people.
In parts of Africa, such as Niger and Somalia, the DRC, roughly half the population is under
15.
It matters to all of us whether these kids are going to be able to access education,
have a job, find an opportunity that enables them to be able to contribute to their community
in beneficial ways.
It matters because today’s globalized economy sees a connection – an intimate connection,
in fact – between how we each do and how we all do.
Partly, because from a moral standpoint, giving young people a chance to succeed is simply
the right thing to do.
But guess what, it also matters because these young people are essentially swing voters
in the fight against violent extremism.
We need them to make wise choices, and yet, that is a lot less likely if they grow up
without faith in government, without an education, without the chance for a better life.
And that means that governments have to break down barriers to innovation.
It means making it easier to start up a business.
It means improving the climate for foreign investment.
It means streamlining bureaucracies and preventing military cronies from crowding out private
enterprise.
It means giving women and girls an equal chance to compete in the classroom and in the workplace.
And this is the only way we are going to meet the needs of the modern world – plain and
simple.
It also means making the fight against corruption a global security priority of the first order.
Bribery, fraud, other forms of venality feed organized crime.
Those are your narcotics traffickers, those are your arms traffickers, and those are often
the greatest links to terrorist networks.
They contribute to human trafficking, discourage honest and accountable investment.
They undermine entire communities.
Now, I don’t have any illusions.
I used to be a prosecutor.
I understand that corruption is as old as government itself.
Every nation, including mine – the United States – has wrestled at some point to a
greater or lesser degree with corruption at one point or another.
But today, the cost of corruption globally is exploding, and it’s exploding everywhere.
In the Middle East, a recent survey found that fully one-third of citizens had to pay
a bribe in order to get a supposedly free government service.
In Ukraine, under the previous government, corrupt governance helped trigger an international
crisis that we’re still engaged in.
In Cameroon, a senior inspector of police was arrested for selling local ID cards to
Boko Haram – to the militants coming in from Nigeria.
And just last week in Pakistan, officers seized currency and gold worth nearly 6.5 million
from the home of a senior official in Balochistan province.
Now, the good news is that more and more citizens – citizens around the world are saying no
to this runaway corruption.
We saw this in Guatemala City last year when thousands of citizens gathered in the central
square every Sunday, rain or shine, to protest the venality that they knew was taking place
at the highest levels of their government.
And with the help of some courageous national prosecutors, they exposed a sitting vice president,
and then a sitting president, and they put their country’s political leaders on notice
for many years to come.
Tomorrow, I will have the privilege of attending Prime Minister Cameron’s Anti-Corruption
Summit in London, and we’re going to discuss the various ways that the international community
can help citizens of the world to address this challenge.
For our part, just last week, President Obama proposed new legislation that would, for the
first time, require all 50 states to collect information on shell companies for law enforcement
to be able to use, and shed greater light on real estate transactions in cities like
Miami and New York, which are used too often to shelter illicit funds.
And we have to stop and ask on an international basis how it is that a bunch of generals in
a country like Nigeria, which happened previously, and the new president has run against all
this, and we’re working with him now to change it.
But Nigeria saw tens of billions of dollars taken out of the country.
Those were schools.
Those were healthcare.
Those were infrastructure.
There was new jobs hidden in bank accounts around the world.
Over the last four years, U.S. foreign assistance for anti-corruption programs has more than
doubled.
And today, we’re working in dozens of countries to help build online, automated business registries,
which will reduce both the red tape and the opportunities for graft to hold people up
with a bribe.
We’re also expanding programs that send American judges overseas to share best practices.
And we’re developing better intelligence on kleptocrats and their networks in order
to deny bad actors the profits from graft and more.
Now, I will have more to say about this at tomorrow’s summit, but for now let me just
underscore: Despite recent progress, as a global community, we just are not doing nearly
enough to eliminate this scourge, and that needs to change if we’re going to have a
chance of addressing the concerns of those two billion young people.
Because we all pay for it – you pay for it, we pay for it.
Corruption costs the global economy about $2.6 trillion a year.
That’s 2.6 trillion that could be going towards the infrastructure, towards healthcare,
towards education, towards food security initiatives, or any number of areas where additional funding
is desperately needed.
You can buy a lot with 2.6 trillion.
In fact, that’s about 10 times the total amount the international community spends
each year on all development assistance.
Think what a difference we could make.
Now, the magnitude of corruption that exists today is not just disgraceful, it’s also
dangerous.
There’s nothing more demoralizing, more destructive, more disempowering to any citizen
than the belief that the system is rigged against them and that people in positions
of power – to use a diplomatic term – are crooks who are embezzling the future of their
own people, and by the way, depositing their ill-gotten gains in financial institutions
that claim respectability.
Good, responsible governance is supposed to protect citizens’ future, not pillage it.