Jakarta (Antara Bali) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended a commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day at the State Palace on Monday.
A number of Indonesian ministers and other high-ranking officials were also in attendance at the annual function. The United Nations has designated Dec. 9 as the International Anti-Corruption Day. This year's campaign, "Zero Corruption - 100 Percent Development," aims to reinforce the idea that development can thrive only when societies tackle the root causes of corruption.
The joint campaign launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) focuses on the corrosive effects of corruption on development, highlighting that the crime undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to human rights violations, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organized crime and other threats to security to flourish.
"Corruption is a barrier in the way of achieving the Millennium Development Goals and needs to be taken into account while defining and implementing a robust post-2015 development agenda", United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in his message to mark the occasion. (*/M038)
