Our letter to Lord Wood: Supporting the ambition of the Illicit Finance Summit

7 October 2026

Dear Lord Wood,

Illicit Finance Summit: meeting with civil society Advisory Group members

We are writing as civil society members of the HMG-appointed Advisory Group for the Illicit Finance Summit to request a meeting with you as you take responsibility for this work. We welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to hosting the Summit and would value a discussion about its ambitions and how we can support its success. 

Illicit finance and corruption have direct consequences for the UK and our partners. They sustain kleptocratic power and hostile interference, strip resources from public services and undermine fair competition and investment. They also enable illegal mining and deforestation, harming communities and weakening efforts to protect nature and tackle climate change. Addressing these flows is therefore central to economic security, effective government and sustainable development.

The Summit offers an opportunity to turn shared concerns into practical commitments. We would particularly welcome your leadership, alongside the FCDO ministerial team, in engaging partner governments ahead of and after the Summit to secure ambitious commitments and establish illicit finance and anti-corruption as continuing priorities in the UK’s bilateral partnerships. We encourage the Government to announce the Summit date publicly as soon as possible to galvanise preparations and maintain momentum.

We believe the Summit should retain a clear focus on illicit finance and corruption, with commitments on gold, crypto-assets, property and asset recovery that deliver tangible change, backed by clear timelines and public accountability for implementation. Meaningful participation by civil society, including organisations and affected communities from the Global South, will help ensure that commitments address the impact of corruption and illicit financial flows, particularly in lower-income countries, reflect their priorities and can be scrutinised after the Summit. We welcome your emerging agenda for the G20 as outlined recently in UNGA and at the Labour Party Conference, and see tackling illicit finance at this Summit as foundational to ensuring that the scaled climate-smart development finance you are striving to unlock has maximum impact.

We also believe it essential to work with ministers in HM Treasury, the Home Office and other relevant departments to secure strong cross-government leadership, with each department engaging its international counterparts and delivering concrete progress at home to underpin the UK’s credibility abroad.

Our organisations bring deep expertise and international relationships. We would welcome a meeting to discuss these priorities, civil society’s contribution and how the Summit can support sustained UK leadership through its FATF, G20 and G7 presidencies.

Yours sincerely,

Susan Hawley - Executive Director, Spotlight on Corruption and Co-Chair of the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition

Tom Keatinge - Director, Centre for Finance and Security, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Maíra Martini - Chief Executive Officer, Transparency International

Duncan Hames - Chief Executive (Interim), Transparency International UK

Thom Townsend - Executive Director, Open Ownership 

Jamie Drummond - Founder, Sharing Strategies & Co-Founder The ONE Campaign 

Julia Yansura - Program Director for Environmental Crime and Illicit Finance, The FACT Coalition (US)