Prime Minister Imran Khan on Poverty, Financial Accountability, and Transparency at high-level UNGA panels

Prime Minister Imran Khan delivered statements at two high-level panel events for the United Nations General Assembly, namely the High-Level Panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI), and the High-Level Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN).

The High-Level Panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency & Integrity (FACTI) at UNGA brought together FACTI panel chairs and high-level representatives from member states to present an interim report. This report identified major gaps in the implementation and the systemic shortcomings of the existing international frameworks for tax cooperation, anti-corruption, and anti-money laundering. This high-level forum also discussed the priority actions for addressing challenges in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the panel, Prime Minister Imran Khan stated that “Each year billions of dollars illicitly flow out of developing countries. My government came with a robust public mandate to get rid of this menace from our country”, arguing that while his government took numerous measures on the domestic level, a multilateral framework of international cooperation would be required to “bring the perpetrators of financial crimes to justice”. The Prime Minister added that the FACTI figures on corruption and financial crimes were “staggering”, stating that $1 trillion are extracted by “white collar criminals” on an annual basis, with $20-40 billion in bribes alone, and over $7 trillion “parked in safe haven destinations” across the globe. This is reflective of his stance on internationally perpetuated mechanisms of corruption, which allows billions of dollars to flow out of developing countries, and into safe havens abroad.

The High-Level Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) Side Event at the UNGA was hosted by the Governments of Pakistan and Chile, and UNDP, on behalf of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN). This event addressed the multidimensional impact of COVID-19 on those who are living in multidimensional poverty, and introduced innovative uses of MPIs as policy tools to creatively redefine policies and drive efficiency, targeting, and coordination during the COVID-19 crisis.

Prime Minister Imran Khan articulated that “poverty imposes massive human suffering, it is the most pervasive violation of human rights” and that “it is also the cause of socio-economic instability, and of most political and social problems across the world”. While the Prime Minister noted that global poverty had “visibly declined over the past thirty years”, he argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has “triggered the worst global recession in over a century” with 100 million people likely to be pushed back into poverty because of the decline in economic activity, stating that “a decade’s development could be reversed”.