KABUL - The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today called on Afghan leaders to make greater use of the legal system to fight corruption during a national event marking Anti-Corruption Day.

Noting that laws, institutions and structures are already in place in Afghanistan, UNAMA called on Afghan leaders to “re-double political will” to fight corruption.

In a speech delivered by interim Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, UNAMA also urged Afghans to “push their leaders to strive for effective governance and a consistent rule of law” and to hold accountable the country’s institutions and its authorities.

Corruption was identified as a key concern of citizens across the country who took part in the Afghan People’s Dialogue on Peace, a series of small group discussions with women, youth and minority group, organized by civil society group and facilitated by the UNAMA Human Rights Unit. Quoting from the outcome document from the Dialogue, Mr Weisbrod-Weber said Afghans identified corruption “as one of the main obstacles to sustainable peace in Afghanistan” and called a weak legal system which perpetuates it as “cancer of Afghanistan.” Download a copy of the outcome document in English, Dari or Pashto, here.

The speech was given at a high-ranking event attended by President Hamid Karzai and Azizullah Lodin, the Director General of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOO). The HOO was established by presidential decree in 2008 to oversee the implementation of the national anti-corruption strategy, and to establish measures to combat corruption.

Today’s event comes one week after an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, in which the Government of Afghanistan pledged to fight corruption “more effectively” and reform government institutions making them “more efficient, transparent and accountable.”

Afghanistan has been working with UN offices, particularly, UNAMA, the United Nation Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on practical assistance to increase Afghanistan's capacity to prevent, control and fight corruption.

In 2004, Afghanistan signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2004, ratified by a jirga or traditional gathering of Afghans three years later.

Most recently, the UN supported the establishment of a Monitoring and Evaluation Committee to advise senior Afghan officials. Click here to read more about the Committee.

UNODC and UNDP this year developed a joint global campaign, focusing on how corruption hinders efforts to achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and impacts education, health, justice, democracy, prosperity and development.

“When desperately needed development funds are stolen by corrupt individuals and institutions, poor and vulnerable people are robbed of the education, health care and other essential services,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for International Anti-Corruption Day, which is observed annually on 9 December. “All of us have a responsibility to take action against the cancer of corruption.”

By UNAMA Kabul