Washington -- A U.S. initiative to shut out corrupt high-level officials from the global financial system, deny them safe havens and recover and return proceeds from their crimes has been announced by the Bush administration.

"Our objective is to defeat high-level public corruption in all its forms and to deny corrupt officials access to the international financial system as a means of defrauding their people and hiding their ill-gotten gains," President Bush said in an August 10 statement.

The National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy, as the initiative is called, is aimed at mobilizing the international community against large-scale corruption by high-level foreign public officials and coordinate global efforts to end it, according to a White House fact sheet.

A kleptocracy is a government in which officials seek status and personal gain at the expense of the governed.

Briefing reporters in Washington, Under Secretary of State Josette Shiner said the initiative builds on existing U.S. policies, including the 2004 executive order to deny safe haven to corrupt officials, and commitments made at the July Summit of Group of Eight countries in St. Petersburg, Russia.

But she said the national strategy takes the fight against high-level corruption to a new level by involving U.S. foreign partners and financial institutions in more robust efforts to develop best practices for uncovering and seizing stolen funds, enhance information sharing and ensure greater accountability for development assistance.

According to the fact sheet, the administration also will beef up investigation and prosecution of U.S. private companies that bribe foreign officials and money-launderers that facilitate flows of embezzled money through the international financial system. In addition, it will seek to develop and promote mechanisms to uncover, capture and return stolen funds to their rightful owners.

In recent years, U.S authorities have returned millions of dollars to Peru and Nicaragua that had been embezzled by those nations’ former leaders.

Shiner said the initiative is part of U.S. drive to engage with all institutions that can have a role in eliminating high-level corruption, including the World Bank, which recently has launched an aggressive anti-corruption campaign.

According to the World Bank, $1 trillion is paid every year in bribes and according to the United Nations, over $400 billion has been looted from Africa alone and stashed away in foreign countries.

She said that, ultimately, kleptocracy is a development issue because high-level corruption undermines economic development and renders the fight against poverty ineffective.

The administration does not have a list of former foreign officials and those that are still in power that will be targeted under the new initiative, she said.

"What we are saying today is we are putting kleptocrats on notice," Shiner said. "We want the world to not be a safe place for kleptocrats."

Identifying such corrupt officials, with help of U.S. international partners, will be one of the first actions of an interagency team headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, she added. 

The full text of the president’s statement and a White House fact sheet are available on the White House Web site.