Vienna (Austria), 9 July 2020 – The Second Vice-Chair of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) at its twenty-ninth session, Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel, participated in the Integration Segment of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), held virtually on 6 July 2020 under the overall theme of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) “Accelerated action and transformative pathways: realizing the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development. Shared Responsibility to Recover Better from COVID-19”.
The 2020 Integration Segment brought together the key messages from the subsidiary bodies of the Council and the United Nations system on the 2020 theme of the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) and discussed action-oriented recommendations for follow-up and feed into the HLPF thematic reviews.
The CCPCJ Second Vice-Chair addressed the Council at the panel session on “Leaving no one behind in the context of COVID-19 and the decade of action and delivery”, alongside other panellists and lead discussants: José Antonio Ocampo, Chairperson of the UN Committee for Development Policy; Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa; Anita Bhatia, Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, Sustainability and Partnerships and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, UN-Women; Lois Michele Young, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States; and Perks Master Clemency Ligoya, Chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries.
“It is no secret that COVID-19 exacerbated the socio-economic vulnerabilities exploited by criminal networks to scale up their activities. It also placed a heavy burden on Member States’ ongoing efforts to prevent crime, strengthen criminal justice institutions and promote the rule of law”, said Ambassador Ebrahimkhel. “In a time of this global unprecedented crisis, we should be guided first and foremost by the principle of ‘leaving no behind’.”
She also highlighted the importance of strengthened international cooperation, based on the principle of shared responsibility, to detect, prevent, prosecute and combat all types of transnational crime, to provide access to justice for all and to build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, while tackling the negative effects of the COVID-19 crisis.
