The War against Kleptocracy: The Stolen Assets Recovery Program

The NYTimes reports on the Stolen Assets Recovery Program(pdf):

The World Bank and the United Nations announced Monday that they were setting up a system to help developing nations recover assets stolen and sent abroad by corrupt leaders that amount to an estimated $40 billion a year.
“There should be no safe haven for those who steal from the poor,” Robert B. Zoellick, the bank’s president, said in presenting the plan with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon...The problem of stolen assets is most acute in Africa, where an estimated 25 percent of the gross national product of states is lost to corruption, he said.
The new system will work to build the capacity of developing countries to track stolen money going overseas and to emphasize ways that financial centers can better detect and deter money laundering...Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance minister of Nigeria, who oversaw the return of $505 million to her country from Switzerland, said the new plan would help countries like hers by denying corrupt officials a foreign place to hide the money.“It means that people who are corrupt will know that any money sent out will be sent back to the countries from which they came,” she said.