World leaders currently meeting at the G20 Summit in New Delhi,India Saturday deplored terrorism and money laundering and described terrorism as one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.
The leaders including Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu,US President Joe Biden and the host,India Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, adopted what they called ‘The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration’ in which they condemned terrorism in “all its forms and manifestations, including those on the basis of xenophobia, racism and other forms of intolerance, or in the name of religion or belief, recognising the commitment of all religions to peace.”
Tinubu,in an address at the summit spoke of Nigeria’s determination to play a major role in the G20 and contribute to shaping a more equitable world.
He spoke on a day the African Union (AU) was admitted as a permanent member of the G20.
The G20 leaders in the Declaration pledged to support “ the increasing resource needs of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and FATF Style Regional Bodies and encourage others to do the same, including for the next round of mutual evaluations.”
They added:”We remain committed to the timely and global implementation of the revised FATF Standards on the transparency of beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal arrangements to make it more difficult for criminals to hide and launder ill-gotten gains. We welcome the ongoing work of the FATF to enhance global efforts to recover criminal proceeds, in particular, the progress made by the FATF towards revising its standards on asset recovery and reinforcing global asset recovery networks.
“Efforts to increase the effectiveness of international cooperation should be strengthened to deny terrorist groups safe haven, freedom of operations, movement and recruitment, as well as financial, material or political support.”
Similarly, they vowed to support the FATF’s initiative “to accelerate the global implementation of its standards, including the “travel rule”, and its work on risks of emerging technologies and innovations, including decentralised finance (DeFi) arrangements and peer-to-peer transactions.”
The Travel Rule is a set of guidelines designed to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
They also adopted a green development pact to accelerate the steps needed to tackle the challenges of environment and climate change.
They said:”Recognising that the prosperity and well-being of present and future generations depends on our current development and other policy choices and actions, we resolve to pursue environmentally sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development in an integrated, holistic and balanced manner.
“Mindful of our leadership role, we reaffirm our steadfast commitments, in pursuit of the objective of UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), to tackle climate change.”