The United Nations launched on September 17 a new partnership between the World Bank and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help developing nations to recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders and invest those funds in effective development programs. According to the UN News Service the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, the Executive Director of the UNODC Antonio Maria Costa and World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick keynoted on the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative at the UN headquarters in New York.

"The launch of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative is a major step forward in our collective efforts to address the serious problem of corruption," said the Secretary General in his remarks.

The text of press release