Falling short of significant financial assistance, the G8 is stepping up mechanisms for Arab Spring countries to recover ill-gotten assets banked abroad, reports Ezzat Ibrahim from Washington In the aftermath of the Camp David Summit early this week, G8 countries left the future of supporting Arab Spring countries in the hands of the United States, the new chairman of the league of top industrialised nations. The G8 meeting confirmed earlier reports that Camp David would not see a detailed plan emerge to help the governments of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Jordan, that all are encountering growing economic challenges that could delay the processes of political transition. The summit avoided pledging significant funds and instead called for concerted efforts to enhance transparency and economic governance in these countries. The G8 agreed to set up a fund for assisting Arab Spring transitions with an initial capital of $250 million. The G8 club had lowered last year's Deauville Summit funding expectations through the creation of a new action plan to help Arab Spring transitional countries. A US State Department release on the Deauville Partnership explains future efforts to help the Middle East and North Africa region: "The Partnership's efforts on finance focus on economic stabilisation, near-term job creation, and economic governance to help the Partnership countries move towards sustainable and inclusive growth. Specifically, the Partnership is launching a Capital Markets Access Initiative, creating a new Transition Fund, and promoting assistance by International Financial Institutions (IFI) in a coordinated and effective way." The G8 underlines the need for these countries to "fundamentally reorient their economies to address their high levels of unemployment, weak rule of law, and deteriorating public services." To meet these challenges, members of the Deauville Partnership have proposed a new, grant- based Transition Fund to help countries implement critical reforms. The areas of interest include economic governance, trade, investment and integration, and institutional reform. Partnership members agreed to establish the fund "to support a combination of diagnostic analyses, technical advice, and initial implementation of targeted policy initiatives and reforms that have strong demonstration effects," according to the State Department release. Indeed, the fund will have broad support from G8 and Gulf donors, and is expected to be operational later this year. Member countries in the Partnership include Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, and Libya, the G8, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey. The international financial institutions include the African Development Bank, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Arab Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and other international institutions. Also, US President Obama and other G8 leaders adopted an ambitious "Asset Recovery Action Plan", focussing on facilitating the recovery of monies stowed abroad via corruption. Another US statement indicates that, "The Action Plan signals the G8's highest level political commitment to cooperate on asset recovery." On the other hand, the statement calls for a two-way process of cooperation: "Concerted international effort to pursue stolen assets fights impunity, but requires cooperation from both countries requesting assistance and those which may have jurisdiction over stolen assets," the statement said. G8 sources confirmed that Egypt, Libya and Tunisia have requested assistance from the US and other G8 partners to recoup assets and that the G8 would support the launch of the Arab Asset Recovery Forum to foster greater cooperation and capacity building. On Monday, 21 May, the United States issued the US Asset Recovery Guide to enhance transparency through publishing materials related to its assets recovery laws and procedures. G8 countries pledged to take more steps to enhance available legal measures, such as adopting forfeiture tools that apply when the victim jurisdiction cannot secure a conviction, making investigators and prosecutors available, where possible, to work side- by-side with transition counterparts to develop cases, and support capacity building by training officials and helping to draft new laws. Concurrently, the G8 has asked transition countries in the Middle East and North Africa to take precautionary steps to fight corruption, including pursuing legal and policy reforms to strengthen preventive measures against corruption and increasing the investigative and prosecutorial tools available to trace and pursue stolen revenues, foster sound management of investigations and returned funds, through approaches such as establishment of task forces to strengthen coordination and of structured central funds to manage returned assets for the benefit of the country. With G8 support, the Arab Forum on Asset Recovery will promote coordination and follow- up with leaderships in the region. G8 and transition countries agreed to hold the forum's inaugural meeting in September, with support from the World Bank/UNODC Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative. According to the new American guide, "in order to recover the proceeds of corruption that are either held in the United States or moved through the United States, a foreign jurisdiction first must be able to identify the assets or assist the United States in identifying the assets. There are a variety of mechanisms through which the United States can assist in the identification and tracing of criminally derived assets. The first step available to a foreign jurisdiction in identifying assets in the United States is often to request informal investigative assistance." Upon proper request, "US financial institutions are required to search their records and identify whether the institution has established an account or conducted a transaction on behalf of the individual, entity, or organisation that law enforcement reasonably suspects -- based on credible evidence -- of engaging in significant money laundering activities."
