U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) recently introduced a bipartisan bill that would increase America’s efforts to fight global corruption.
“Global corruption is often at the root of conflict, humanitarian suffering and political crises,” Sen. Young said on Monday. “In places like Afghanistan, Yemen, and Venezuela, corruption has undermined the rule of law and stood in the way of humanitarian aid reaching those in need.”
Sen. Young cosponsored the Combating Global Corruption Act of 2019, S. 1309, with bill sponsor U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) on May 2. The legislation is designed to identify and combat corruption in foreign countries; to establish a tiered system of countries regarding their levels of government corruption and efforts to combat such corruption; and to assess United States assistance to designated countries to advance anti-corruption efforts in those countries and better serve United States taxpayers, according to the congressional record.
“I am proud of this bipartisan effort to combat corruption around the world by standing with the world’s most vulnerable and holding those in power responsible for their actions,” said Sen. Young.
If enacted, S. 1309 would require the U.S. State Department to author and publicly distribute a report summarizing the extent of corruption in countries worldwide and to assign tiered classifications based on certain minimum standards of governmental efforts to combat corruption.
For example, the tiers would be listed as Tier One for when a government complies with the minimum standards; Tier Two if a government is trying but falls short in meeting the minimum standards; and Tier Three for when a government is not making any efforts to comply with the minimum standards, according to a summary provided by Sen. Young.
S. 1309 also would specify measures to be implemented by the State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to increase transparency and accountability for how the United States provides foreign assistance to Tier Three countries, according to the summary.
Such measures would include conducting corruption risk assessments, creating corruption mitigation strategies, and establishing investigative mechanisms for allegations of misappropriated assistance, among others.