Som juryordförande i WIN WIN Gothenburg sustainability award är det roligt att presentera 2021s tema ”anti- korruption”. I 20 år har juryn letat goda exempel på vad som är möjligt för att skapa en hållbar utveckling. Men inför nästa år vände vi på frågan. Vad är det som bromsar vår omställning mot ett socialt och miljömässigt hållbar samlevnad på jorden? En stor bromskloss är korruption.
Så här summerade vi motiveringen:
Around the world, corruption is one of the biggest obstacles to sustainable development. Corruption can be defined as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” and occurs in many ways, including government employees stuffing their own pockets with money set aside for environmental and sustainability projects and the bribing of state officials to get around legal restrictions.
In countries characterized by widespread corruption, citizens are often forced to pay for healthcare they are legally entitled to receive for free. Important medicines are sold on the black market and people without enough money and friends in the right places never secure the most influential jobs. Corruption usually strikes the most vulnerable people the hardest.
Corruption is also detrimental to the environment, as large-scale bribing can give environmental criminals the political power to hinder inconvenient environmental legislation. Also, corruption on a smaller scale can effectively render various rules and laws useless.
The scientific community and organizations such as the UN and the World Bank agree that the costs to society of the rampant corruption around the world are enormous, although they are difficult to quantify with any reasonable precision. Some attempts have been made, however. For example, Interpolrecently estimated that natural resources worth at least 100 billion US dollars are lost every year due to corruption-related activities. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg –the total costs to society and the world are much higher. Thus, successful sustainable development at a global scale will require focused efforts to combat corruption.
Against this background, the jury for the WIN WIN Gothenburg Sustainability Award is now accepting nominations of people or organizations that by effectively fighting corruption have contributed towards the achievement of one or several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The jury expects nominees to have created change that will inspire others and to have shown what is necessary and possible on our journey toward a sustainable future.
Sista datumet för att nominera är 17 januari 2020