(11.09.2026) 2027-2028 wird Österreich einen nicht-ständigen Sitz im UN-Sicherheitsrat innehaben, arbeitet aktuell an einem neuen Nationalen Aktionsplan zu Frauen, Frieden und Sicherheit sowie verabschiedete kürzlich seine neue Afrika-Strategie 2026–2029 verabschiedet. Alle drei Ereignisse bieten Österreich die Gelegenheit, seine Beziehungen zum afrikanischen Kontinent und zu afrikanischen Akteuren neu zu gestalten.
Das VIDC fungiert als etablierter Akteur im Bereich der Friedens- und Sicherheitspolitik und versteht sich als kritischer Beobachter für diese Prozesse. Ein Aspekt der oft übersehen wird, sind die Zusammenhänge von Instabilität, Konflikten und Korruption. Aus diesem Grund schildert die Anti-Korruptionsexpertin, Leena K. Hoffmann, inwiefern Korruption den (Post-) Konfliktgesellschaften beeinflusst und welche Anti-Korruptionsmaßnahmen nötig sind. Der nachfolgende Text ist nur auf englischer Sprache erhältlich. Das Interview wurde von Miriam Mona Mukalazi (VIDC) durchgeführt und ist in voller Länge hier abrufbar.
“It is crucial that we
move away from the myth that corruption
is an entrenched Global South problem,
and instead recognise how global financial
rules, secrecy jurisdictions and professional
services keep these systems running.
The consequences are very real: they produce
and reproduce deprivation and, in many cases,
violence in different parts of the world.”
How do you define the Global South?
The Global South is a fluid shorthand used to refer to countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and parts of Asia and Oceania (excluding countries like Japan, South Korea, Isreal, Australia and New Zealand). It is more of a political and economic term than geographic one and tries to describe a category of countries that are emerging or developing and often have a shared history of marginalization in the global system, colonialism or unequal relations with countries under the Global North label which refers to developed, industrialised and high-income countries. The Global North covers nearly all of Western, Northern and Southern Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific countries like Japan and Oceanic countries like Australia. The Global South/North labels are both imperfect and have been criticised for their inconsistency but are still used in an attempt to explain global historical power and economic relations.
Why do we assume corruption is only a problem of the Global South?
Public debate around corruption often encourages us to think of it as something that happens “over there”. When I write about corruption in Nigeria or Kenya, it is easy to point to the visible evidence: hospitals without basic supplies, or young people protesting, politicians who abuse their power. This type of evidence is less immediately visible in the Global North, which makes it easier for Northern states to present themselves as “clean saviours”. The reality is far more complicated and deeply interconnected.
Systemic or grand corruption is a global system that relies on financial, legal and political infrastructure across multiple jurisdictions. Put bluntly, much of what we label as “corruption in the Global South” relies on enabling and support services in the Global North. For every dollar looted from a national budget or diverted from the treasury, there is usually a bank, law firm, trust provider or real estate broker in a Northern financial centre ready to receive and launder it. These professional enablers turn the theft that drives protests at home into globally mobile capital. Many of the leading providers of financial secrecy – shell companies, opaque trusts, anonymous vehicles – are found in G7 or OECD countries or their dependent territories. This secrecy makes it extremely difficult for authorities in the Global South to identify beneficial owners or to trace and recover stolen assets.
“Corruption generates the kind of illicit wealth
that keeps militias and personal armies afloat
and well-armed. At the same time,
corrupt governance fuels grievances
that can spark conflict or provide a ready
– and, for some, compelling but tragic –
justification for non-state actors
to turn to violence. “
It is also important to remember that the largest component of illicit flows is not “cash in suitcases” but the manipulation of trade and tax rules. Multinational corporations, often headquartered in the Global North, use aggressive transfer pricing and profit-shifting to move their earnings out of African and other Southern economies where resources are extracted or goods are produced. When this happens, Africa’s taxable base and foreign reserves shrink, infrastructure gaps widen, and public investments stall.
We also know that many countries in the Global South lose more each year in illicit outflows than they receive in aid. Africa, for example, is estimated to lose around USD 88.6 billion annually to illicit financial flows, far more than it receives in official development assistance. This haemorrhaging of capital creates a perverse situation in which many African states have low tax bases and foreign reserves but high levels of debt and dependence. Their fiscal fragility, institutional capture and shrinking civic space are all facets of the same underlying problem.
If we bring this back to conflict, wars tend to reorganise economies around illicit supply chains. We see this around gold from Sudan, timber in the DRC, drugs and other “conflict commodities”. These goods do not stay in circulation locally; they are exported to places like the UAE and on to wider global markets, feeding consumer demand and financial systems in the North and elsewhere, while fueling instability in the zones of their extraction. The profits are then laundered through the same global financial channels that move entirely legal capital, but which are also used to move illicit funds.
Interview
Leena K. Hoffmann holds a PhD in African Studies from the University of Birmingham. She is an anti-corruption researcher and the co-founder of Luxembourg for Transparency (L4T). She is a member of the International Council of Transparency International and a former investigator at Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency. With over 15 years’ research experience and advising international organisations, her work focuses on how social norms and networks sustain systemic corruption, the political economy of insecurity and how integrity reforms can support peace and accountable governance.
Miriam Mona Mukalazi is leading the Africa Policy Programme at the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation.
You can read and downloard the full interview here.