Political leaders who were meeting at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India on September 9, 2023 deplored Terrorism and Money Laundering and described terrorism as one of the most serious threats to international Peace and Security. These leaders included Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, US President Joe Biden and the host-Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. They 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, recognizing the commitment of all religions to peace.
In an address at the summit, Tinubu spoke of Nigeria 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. In the declaration, they 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.
The leaders vowed to support the FATF initiative.
According to them, they 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. They welcome the ongoing work of the FATF to enhance global efforts to recover criminal proceeds, especially 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,” they said. As well, they vowed to support the FATF initiative to accelerate the global implementation of its standards, including the “travel rule” as well as its work on risks of emerging technologies and innovations, including decentralized Finance (DeFi) arrangements and peer-to-peer transactions.
Summit is also focused on global climate action.
Travel Rule refers to a set of guidelines designed to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The leaders also adopted a green development pact to accelerate the steps needed to tackle the challenges of environment and Climate Change. Climate change is one of the most debated topics in the world right now. All stakeholders are coming together to create awareness on its dangers and how to reduce Greenhouse Emissions. And global organizations are actively working towards achieving zero carbon footprint.
While recognizing that the prosperity and well-being of present and future generations depends on the current development and other policy choices and actions of everyone, they resolved to pursue environmentally sustainable and inclusive Economic Growth and development in an integrated, holistic and balanced manner. Part of such is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set up by the United Nations. According to them, being mindful of their leadership role, they reaffirm their steadfast commitments in the pursuit of the objective of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), to tackle this.
Some influential world leaders boycotted the summit.
Meanwhile, as some of the most influential and powerful world leaders meet in India for the summit, many others opted out of the meeting. One of them is Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for him accusing him of war crimes in Ukraine. China’s Xi Jinping is also among the absentees, but the Chinese Premier of The State Council, Li Qiang, led the country’s delegation. Also absent are Pedro Sanchez (Spain president) and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (the president of Mexico).
