16th IACC

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were put forward in 2000 by world leaders as a comprehensive set of development commitments to be met in 15 years. Yet no clear transparent and accountable monitoring system was established either globally or nationally. As we are one year away from the 2015 timeline, many goals are off-track. Corruption has been pointed to as one of the key factors undermining progress and raising the costs of meeting targets globally and at the country level.

Corruption has taken different forms and been well-documented for how it creates an obstacle to development: explicit (overcharging on procurements, the theft of state resources, etc.), implicit (bribes demanded to go to school or receive medical treatment, fee charges for legally free services, etc.) and hidden (sexual exploitation by teachers of students, high rates of civil servant absenteeism, etc.).

Yet the current monitoring of MDG progress looks at indicators based on outputs and not process indicators, which would help to identify such breakdowns. Moreover, monitoring does not happen in real time, making it hard to identify problems when they first arise. Nor are there clear consequences for when governments miss a target or incentives for when they reach one.

As the world looks beyond 2015, it is essential to learn from these experiences and develop a monitoring system that is open and allows for accountability on actions. It needs to leverage technological innovations in recent years that allow for real time, disaggregated data collection and analysis. In this way, corruption can be flagged when it arises, impunity stopped, and its negative impact on development outcomes mitigated." "The session aims to make the link that for corruption-free development to be a reality, efforts are needed to better monitor the inputs, processes and outputs in order to identify risks and problems at early stage.

The session will specifically:

1. Identify current strengths/weaknesses of the accountability and monitoring framework for the MDGs




2. Discuss data innovations that could improve the quality and availability of information and monitoring of progress.




3. Draw on best practices for effective, open and accountable monitoring systems.




4. Discuss potential models for a monitoring system for new post-2015 commitments

Malaysia’s Experience in dealing with Governance and Corruption

The Malaysian government recognizes the need to improve governance to support the country’s economic transformation to a high-income model and becoming a developed nation by 2020 under the Economic Transformation Program (ETP). In tangent with the ETP and public expectation, the Malaysian government embarked on an ambitious Government Transformation Program (GTP) to deal with eradicating corruption and improve governance.

The challenge for Malaysia as an aspiring nation to reach a higher standard of living for her citizens is to institute radical changes where measures can be institutionalized and sustained through a series of progressive improvements. The strategic approach must be comprehensive and holistic so that every area of government administration is girdled on good governance, not just at the top but also at the grass root and frontline where the public will have productive experiences with the civil service.

The public sector unlike a corporation offers services that are wide, ranging from education, health care and environment protection to security and defense, agriculture, infrastructure development etc. Every type of service provides its own specific issues and problems that may require tailor made solutions. What approach does one employ to deal with this vast array of challenges? How does one gain the commitment and participation of all key stakeholders? Who are the champions and drivers of change in each ministry or agency?
In this session, the speaker will share the Malaysian government’s experience in dealing with corruption and instilling good governance in the Malaysian public sector through an integrative and holistic framework.

Korea's Anti-Corruption Strategies and Experiences

Korea has successfully transformed itself from an aid recipient to a donor country with its rapid economic development. But, in the course of such dramatic growth, we also experienced negative side effects such as collusive ties between politicians and businesses. Corruption became one of the factors hindering the further growth and development of Korean society.

For systemic responses to corruption, the Korean government has been promoting various anti-corruption policies by enacting "the Ant-Corruption Act" in 2001, as well as by establishing "the Korean Independent Commission Against Corruption" in 2002, which is the predecessor to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.

As Korea's national anti-corruption body, the ACRC carries out a range of measures to prevent and control corruption, including formulation of anti-corruption policies, improvement of laws and institutions, measurement of corruption risks, anti-corruption training, and protection and rewards for whistleblowers.

However, there is still much to be done to meet the expectations of people about the public sector’s integrity. The Korean government is harnessing every capacity to straighten out misguided and corrupt practices and systems of the past and setting fighting against corruption as one of the major priorities of the administration.

According to the Corruption Perception Index of TI 80% of the cooperating countries of German Development Cooperation could be classified as highly corrupt (defined as reaching 40 or less points). Assuming that this applies to Development Cooperation generally, donor agencies are facing many challenges. Their work is influenced by external risks (such as corruption within partner institutions) and internal risks (such as administrative processes and aid modalities vulnerable to corruption). Over the years donor institutions have found measures to respond to some of these challenges, but what is often missing is a comprehensive corruption risk management system.

This session will focus on corruption risk management systems – theoretically (conceptualization) and practically (implementation). The key message of this session is: Corruption Risk Management Systems do not end with identifying potentially weak spots but need to find the right mitigation measures and responses to rectify these.

Inputs from the panellists will move from a holistic, more theoretical level, e.g. the identification of indispensable elements of corruptions risk assessments and management systems,  to sharing lessons learnt and best practice among donor agencies. This enables a discussion of both theory and practice while at the same time addressing specific risk and their potential solutions.

From this session donor organisations can get ideas on how to integrate anti-corruption systematically into their strategic planning and implementation, and how to address the most common challenges. Other stakeholders like civil society organisations learn how they can contribute to donors’ effective risk management and the implementation of mitigation measures. Large civil society organisations who support in-country projects can share their experience on how they address risk management issues in a corruption-prone context.

Jesper Johnson, U4: Jesper Johnson will give an overview over an ideal corruption risk management system and how it translates into the project cycle.

Elizabeth Hart, Independent consultant and University of Washington: Elizabeth Hart will introduce some of the findings from her study on common integrity guidelines for OECD member states. She will focus on the use of risk assessments and how those translate into risk management approaches.

Uwe Wolff, BMZ: Uwe Wolff will present the BMZ Anti-Corruption and Integrity Strategy which is binding for German Development Cooperation. Amongst others the strategy aims at protecting development funds by using a risk-based approach. The strategy also focusses at engaging all relevant stakeholders including civil society.

norPhil Mason, DfiD: Phil Mason will present the latest ideas around Joint Donor Responses. Reporting mechanisms and investigations are one element of corruption risk management systems. Yet when looking at Joint Donor Responses one often punishes the very systems on national level one has supported before and which have become effective.

Lise Stensrud, NORAD: Lise Stensrud will present the experiences of NORAD with “dismantling/breaking down corruption” in aid programmes. NORAD conducts thematic reviews for some of their programmes where they analyse the full programme cycle, identifying possible corruption risks and mitigation measure

What Australia, the US and the UK have in common? They are among the most popular destinations for allegedly corrupt individuals seeking a safe haven for themselves and their ill-gotten gains.

For far too long, corrupt individuals have been allowed to freely enjoy the proceeds of corruption through the purchase of luxury goods and real estate abroad, the use of diplomatic passports and investor’s VISA programmes.

Just last year, a series of scandals involving supposedly corrupt officials hiding in foreign jurisdictions were uncovered, including for instance the son of Kyrgyzstan’s former Prime Minister who owns and resides in a £3.5 million mansion in the UK, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea’s officials purchases of luxury assets and visits to Australia, irregularities in golden visa schemes in Latvia and Portugal, and China’s “fox hunt” for corrupt officials who have fled to Canada, the US, and South Africa, among others.

The G-20 and non-governmental organisations have called on countries to impose travel restrictions on individuals suspected of corruption, believing that, if sufficient guarantees are put in place, these measures can act as a sanction as well as disincentive. Similarly, non-governmental organisations have called on governments to align their “investor programmes” with denial of entry procedures and to ensure that these programmes follow a commonly agreed integrity criteria and due diligence process.

In 2016, the G20 is expected to publish a common set of criteria with a view to endorsement at the 2016 Summit. This will be the first set of international guidance on the issue and therefore crucial to ensure the effectiveness and fairness in the use denial of entry on the grounds of corruption allegations.  This session aims to contribute to this debate by exploring how denial of entry can be used as an anti-corruption tool while respecting individuals’ rights and discussing what should be considered as adequate criteria for denying an individual entry.

Since 2009, the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) has been working to raise awareness about a sexualized form of corruption that the IAWJ calls “sextortion.” Sextortion occurs when people in positions of power – government officials, judges, educators, law enforcement personnel, border guards, employers, or others – extort sexual favours, instead of money, in return for something that is within their power to grant or withhold, such as a visa, favourable court decision, good grade, dismissal of a traffic ticket, passage across a border, overtime at work, etc. Though such abuses of power for purposes of sexual exploitation might be prosecuted as corruption, sexual harassment, or even rape, too often they are not prosecuted at all.

The IAWJ would like to see anti-sextortion efforts institutionalized within the civil service by incorporating sextortion in government standards of conduct and accountability and judicial codes of ethics.

Strategies for accomplishing this include:

1. Review and make specific recommendations with respect to codes of government accountability and ethical standards, identifying gaps and clarifying that sextortion violates those rules and standards.
2. Develop curricula modules and other targeted tools for the training that those entrusted with power receive about their professional and ethical obligations.
3. Integrate sextortion materials into training developed at the national level for civil servants, judges, court employees, police, and law enforcement personnel.

One of the biggest contributors to impunity for sextortion is that people often do not see it as corruption. When a District Attorney in Wisconsin barraged a domestic violence victim with text messages proposing a sexual relationship, the Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) initially found that, although inappropriate, the communication did not appear to involve professional misconduct. Would the same conclusion have been reached if the request had been for money? Months later, after the texts became public and there was a public outcry, the ethics inquiry was reopened and OLR found 11 possible violations. When a person who has been pressured for sex by a government official or other authority seeks help, it matters greatly whether the person from whom she seeks redress sees sextortion as a legal wrong.

The IAWJ’s vision for change is that cases like this, whether they take place in rich countries like the USA or poor ones, will not fall through doctrinal cracks. Officials charged with attorney discipline – or police discipline, or any other professional codes or rules of conduct – will not turn a blind eye to this kind of abuse of power. Thus, the most important action that can be taken to affect sextortion is to get people to recognize it as an unlawful and unethical abuse of entrusted power.

Collective action initiatives are considered an innovative new governance approach that pools the resources of various stakeholders to produce mutually beneficial outcomes. Commitments are typically accompanied by affirmative rhetoric, praising collective action initiatives as particularly effective, innovative and participatory. However, there is little substantial proof of the benefits of collective action initiatives and even experts disagree on how effective and legitimate they are.

The aim of this panel discussion is to provide an evaluation of opportunities and limits of collective action initiatives.

Furthermore, the event will address the following questions:

• Do collective action initiatives help stakeholders to overcome their narrow self-interest in favor of the common good?

 

• Is the claim that collective action initiatives are particularly inclusive and participatory valid? Or can powerful actors with well-organized political interests impose their narrow political priorities?

 

• Who are the stakeholders in collective action initiatives? Who is excluded?

 

• Do collective action initiatives produce effective outcomes? Or does the compromise mirror the smallest common denominator?

 

• How and by whom should collective action initiatives be evaluated/monitored?

 

• How can we ensure the credibility of collective action initiatives are credible?

 

• What are specific promises and pitfalls of collective action initiatives in the area of business integrity?

The session will look at the largely hidden, but integral part that banks and other service providers play in enabling corruption. It will examine how the flow of dirty money around the world simply could not happen without the role played by the bankers, lawyers, accountants and others facilitating it, and the devastating human cost they contribute to. 

Drawing on shocking examples and seminal investigations around the world, it will explore the extent to which banks are failing to uphold the rules that require them to spot and report when corrupt officials are trying to launder money through them.  It will examine if and how we should hold senior executives personally responsible for these failures.  More broadly it will discuss what can be done to make sure the financial sector and others play a more robust role in preventing corruption and other forms of money laundering. 

For more details on this crucial area in the fight against corruption, see the briefing:

https://www.globalwitness.org/reports/banks-and-dirty-money/

The Defense and Security sector is one of the most opaque sectors of government, yet it wields significant powers and engages in a broad range of activities that create opportunities for corruption, both petty and grand. With corruption in defense establishments there comes loss of public trust and the undermining of operational effectiveness, for example, when defective or inappropriate equipment is purchased. In an effort to better understand these risks, Transparency International UK has developed the Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index, which for the first time evaluates how countries perform in reducing corruption in five key risk areas. This index provides governments, armed forces, civil society and citizens with an important tool to not only identify where corruption manifests in the defense and security sector but also how to advocate for the reforms needed to end the danger it brings.
This panel will begin by providing an overview of the specific issues the Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index evaluates and how civil society can use this information to shape advocacy and engagement strategies. The audience will then hear the real-life experiences and lessons learned of a civil society organization that used the Index to effect change in its defense sector. Following the panel discussion, the audience will break into groups to have a more in-depth discussion with representatives from TI chapters from around the world to develop their own strategies of effective practices and institutional controls to address the 5 corruption risk areas identified in the Index. Through these discussions, participants will learn practical lessons on how civil society can constructively engage and support initiatives to enhance transparency in defense/security budgeting and how to successfully advocate for reform to combat corruption in their own countries.


Opening Panel Discussion

Katherine Dixon, Defence and Security Programme Director, TI United Kingdom

Saif Alhaddi, Advocacy & Outreach Officer, TI Yemen

 

Breakout Session Facilitators

Katherine Dixon, Defence and Security Programme Director, TI United Kingdom

Amira El-Sayed, Civil Society Lead, TI United Kingdom

Zoe Reiter, Americas Regional Program Manager, Transparency International

Chantal Uwimana, Africa Regional Director, Transparency International

Maj. Nathan Kearns, Defence Institute of International Studies, US Department of Defence

 

Breakout Session Problem Owners

Political Risk: Achraf Aouadi, TI Tunisia

Operations Risk: Peter Conze, TI Germany

Financial Risk: Carlos Hernandez, TI Honduras

Personnel Risk: Ronald “Lucky” Menoe, TI South Africa

Procurement Risk: Dedi Haryadi, TI Indonesia

The oil, gas and mining sectors are prone to corruption, thanks largely to the high financial stakes and weak oversight. Of the 427 cases reviewed in the 2014 OECD Foreign Bribery Report, 19% came from the extractive sector; of the 176 cases prosecuted under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 23% were oil sector cases.

Delving into actual cases of extractive sector corruption can help generate smarter response strategies. However, relative to the scale of the problem, this kind of empirical analysis is in short supply, and is discouraged by several factors: the cases are technical and complex, they often do not end in straightforward verdicts, and they involve very powerful governments and companies.

This panel forms part of an effort to address this gap. NRGI will present early findings from its analysis of 30 oil and mining corruption cases to identify common trends, such as the activities of middlemen or “fixers” often present in corrupt deals, or how local content provisions can be manipulated to benefit well-connected individuals. Global Witness will offer evidence from its ample body of case research to show how secret corporate structures can enable corrupt practices. A representative of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) will provide an update on EITI activities in the Asia-Pacific region, and highlight specific kinds of EITI reporting (e.g. on state-owned company spending, license awards, etc.) that may reduce corruption risks.

Other speakers will delve into a single country’s experience. A civil society leader from Afghanistan will discuss how corruption has affected that country’s burgeoning mining sector, and the negative impacts it has brought. A senior official from the anti-corruption commission in Indonesia will draw lessons from several cases of oil and mining sector corruption, and discuss how they have been tackled to date.

Drawing on real-world cases, the speakers will tackle questions including: 

• Which parts of oil, gas and mining sector governance (e.g. license allocations, regulation, revenue collection, etc.) are most prone to abuse, and what kind of losses result from these various cases?


• What kinds of extractive sector corruption can be prosecuted, and which are rather sites of impunity?


• How do public officials abuse transactions to benefit their personal or political interests? What tools are at their disposal, such as secrecy jurisdictions, enabling professionals, etc.?


• How do various types of companies engage in corrupt transactions? How do the mechanics differ when the company serves the interest of a public official, as opposed to a company pursuing its own agenda via corrupt means?

 

The content of the discussions will help anti-corruption fighters (from ministries, ACAs, civil society and media) tailor their work to reflect the actual mechanics of oil, gas and mining sector corruption, and will identify gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will host a panel discussion on the topic “Fighting corruption by authorities – What worked and what went wrong.” at the 16th IACC in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

This workshop is designed to bring together current and former anti-corruption practitioners from Asian region and an international expert on corruption to share not only their experiences and observations in regards to time- tested anti-corruption strategies, laws and regulations that have been implemented or put in place in their organizations as well as some concerns or pitfalls which should be reviewed and avoided by all anti-corruption authorities.

Synopsis:

Efforts in fighting corruption by Anti-Corruption Authorities (ACAs) vary from one country to another. Some are more successful than others and some have failed to live up to expectations. Why this so? Are there areas where ACAs need to revolutionize their practices? Have those ACAs which have been successful in the fight against corruption done enough? If so, why are there still corruption? Apart from factors like political will, strong legal frame work, social society engagements or cooperation from people, what else does an ACA need to do in order to revolutionize current strategies and measures put in place domestically and internationally?

The aim of this panel discussion is to provide an evaluation of strategies and limitations in fighting corruption by authorities.

Objectives:
With this invaluable wealth of knowledge and insights imparted at the Conference by the anti-corruption fighters, the workshop hopes to achive the following objectives:

• To identify effective domestic and international measures and plans in meeting challenges


• To unfold success stories and the problems faced by ACAs and learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to improve our current and also future strategies


• To indentify whether the claim that fighting corruption by authorities are particularly inclusive and participatory valid? Or can powerful actors with well-organized political interests impose their narrow political priorities?


• To identify who are the stakeholders in ACAs. Who is excluded?


• To identify by how and by whom should ACAs be evaluated/monitored


• To identify how can we ensure the credibility of initiatives of ACAs


• To identify what are specific promises and pitfalls of initiatives of ACAs in the area of business integrity

Exploring the Open Government Partnership

This session will offer an introduction to and reflection on the Open Government Partnership. In a 2 hour conversation with key government and civil society open government reformers – many of them OGP champions from the early days - it will take stock of where we are after 4 years and use those insights to sketch the challenges and opportunities for the next four years.

Leading questions to guide reflection include: What does the global OGP report card look like? What have been the core challenges to tackle? When is a platform like OGP the right tool and when not? Have governments really opened up policy making? How do we get more complex topics into the Action Plans? Are citizens already seeing a difference in their lives? Are there patterns of success (or failure) that are starting to emerge?

Leading questions for looking ahead include: What are the global trends ahead that we need to take into account? How can we counter the threat of closing civic space? How do we spread the virus of openness – how do we get more ministries, more civil servants and more politicians engaged? How about judiciary? Parliaments? Local government? Cities? How do we get more politically challenging topics into the Action Plans?

In summary: an open and energetic conversation both among panelists and with audience on where we are and where we can head with OGP and with open government reform across the globe.

Speakers:

1. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto (Former Head of the President's Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight, Founder of the Indonesia Institute of Deliverology (IDeA))
2. Richard Bon Moya (Under Secretary of the Philippines Department of Budget and Management)
3. Nikhil Dey (Social Activist, MKSS, India)
4. Giorgi Klidiashvili (Founder and Director, Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, Georgia)
5. Elizabeth Ungar (Executive Director, Transparency International Colombia and TI Board Member)
6. Paul Maassen (Director, Civil Society Engagement, OGP Support Unit)

Discussants:

1. Vitus Azeem (Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative)
2. Natalia Soebagjo (Executive Director, Centre for the Study of Governance & Chair of Transparency International Indonesia Board)
3. Eduardo Bohorquez (Executive Director, Transparency International Mexico)
4. Anastasiya Kozlovtseva (Manager, International Relations Department, Transparency International Ukraine)
5. Samuel Rotta  (Sub-Director, Proetica, Peru)

The aim of the session is to explore the factors giving rise to impunity in the construction sector and to discuss practical measures aimed at overcoming them. This will be achieved through meeting the following objectives:

1. Summarise the challenges of fighting corruption and improving integrity in the construction sector
2. Explore lessons from recent practical efforts (e.g. CoST and Open Contracting)
3. Explore the different perspectives of government, industry and civil society with regard to the challenges

Corruption in construction costs lives and wastes money. Poorly constructed buildings cause ill health and in extreme cases, such as when they collapse, injury and death. Wastage results in poor infrastructure and services which impacts disproportionately on poor and marginalised people. Impunity is the result inter alia of (1) opaque systems and procedures; (2) every construction project being unique; (3) it being easy to hide shoddy work and (4) complex supply chains and contractual relationships.

The session will appeal to policy-makers and practitioners from a range of different perspectives including: (1) investors: (2) contractors, consultants and others working in the industry: (3) CSOs which are active in public service delivery, governance and specific industry sectors (e.g. water and sanitation and transport); (4) those involved in data management and (5) trade unions.

The discussion will produce practical suggestions aimed at rooting out impunity and improving integrity. The suggestions will be written up and widely circulated amongst those who could potentially put them into practice. CoST will share them with the 12 countries currently participating in the programme and depending on their relevance, use them as the basis for briefing notes and incorporate them into the various tools and approaches used to build capacity in participating countries. Panellists will be encouraged to write blogs and incorporate the suggestions into their own work.

This panel will examine the state of whistleblower protections for government workers around the world and the vulnerabilities of the journalists on whom they rely to give voice to their disclosures. The speakers will identify processes that seem effective, as well as those that do not appear to work so well. The panel will present a series of recommendations for strengthening the protections provided to public sector employees in different settings and describe how they might best be implemented.

We recognize that whistleblowers in different sectors – defence, intelligence, finance, health care, transportation, etc. – require different protection measures, but we believe that certain safeguards are fundamental. A whistleblower must have access to an independent adjudicative forum in which to bring a claim of reprisal and access to a free press that gives voice to the whistleblower's disclosure.

As governments around the world privatized and outsourced functions once performed by the public sector, public expenditures became more difficult to monitor. At the same time, globalization increased the geographic reach of much economic activity, so that criminal conduct now frequently transcends national borders. As privatization spread in sector after sector the public interest at the international level came to be represented and defended only by whistleblowers and journalists. Protections for both, however, are often confined to national settings and are inadequate as shields from reprisal.

In brief, illegality, corruption and fraud can be obscured by moving the actions behind the shield of proprietary information, moving the proceeds offshore, or both. The public therefore depends on whistleblowers for information about misconduct and fraud, but transnational measures must be established to protect them and to disseminate the news of their disclosures.

In essence, international measures to restrain corruption (the transformation of public resources into private wealth) are often weak, and information about international fraud is difficult to access. Whistleblowers and journalists have thus become important instruments of accountability, but new mechanisms are needed to protect them in transnational settings.

We expect to speak to investigators who operate at an international level, especially those who work for international organizations and ethics officers at multinational corporations. We also hope to reach investigative journalists and representatives of civil society organizations.

Between 2000 and 2013 it is estimated that at least 49 million hectares of land in low and middle income countries has been leased to companies, or is under negotiation. Additional studies (such as the 2012 World Bank report Rising Interest in Farmland Investments ) concluded that demand for land was highest in countries with weak governance. As competition increases to control and exploit land, and the natural resources on and below it, the attractiveness of corrupting such processes for personal gain also increases. Although such problems are frequently occurring in countries which have previously experienced “resource curse” type impacts from poor governance of other natural resource assets (eg. forest, oil gas and mining sectors), governments and policy makers have been slow to respond to the challenge of corruption in the land sector.

The global rush to acquire large-scale areas of land for investment purposes evident since 2008 is increasingly linked to significant negative impacts on access to and control over natural resources, food security, human rights, and the environment. These so-called “land grabs” have been plagued by secrecy, with associated deals often made without the knowledge or consent of affected communities, who are thus unable to hold governments or investors to account. This fosters an environment where corruption and state capture becomes the norm, especially in countries where rule of law is weak, and is resulting in resource-curse type governance failures in the land sector. However, policy makers and regulatory agencies have yet to adequately understand the land grabbing – corruption nexus or respond to it; a gap which this panel attempts to address.
The aim of this session is to build an international evidence-base for how civil society, governments and the international community can tackle the conditions of corruption and impunity that exacerbate the phenomenon of land grabbing and its detrimental impact on communities and the environment.

The session will aim to produce strategies for:

1. Fostering stronger transparency, accountability, and participation mechanisms that benefit and involve communities most affected by land grabbing, particularly those communities whose livelihoods, cultures and wellbeing are built around customary land tenure regimes;




2. Building and strengthening international advocacy efforts to support the above that are built on a strong evidence-base; and




3. Enabling governments, multi-lateral and bi-lateral agencies and other international institutions to identify key lessons from anti-corruption measures in the extractives and natural resource sectors, which would be relevant for addressing corruption in the land sector" "The increasing global commercial demand for land for food, fuel (eg. biofuels), fibre and financial speculative purposes, is causing devastating social and environmental impacts. Land acquisition deals are frequently concluded in secret and owners of the land are rarely even informed, let alone being given the chance to provide informed consent. The impacts are not just economic; cemeteries as well as important religious and cultural sites are also being cleared to make way for commercial investments.

The youth play a pivotal role in the fight against corruption. Not only does a significant part of the global population comprise of the youth, but they also tend to be involved in many different aspects of society, such as school and the workforce. This can result in a higher rate of susceptibility or exposure to bribery and corruption.

Simultaneously, history has shown that some of the world’s largest and most impactful social movements have been initiated by dynamic youth taking a stand against social grievances stemming from corruption matters. Youth participation in social movements can provide important and innovative insights, such as the appropriation of “new media” tools. These have played a significant role in effective and swift collective mobilisation by the youth, especially in more recent times, such as the Arab Spring. Many young people have the desire and capacity to transform the world and often develop powerful concepts and use sophisticated aesthetic forms to call out or identify systemic corruption.

This session will provide an open platform for the youth to share and shed light on their experiences, and how, based on their challenges and successes, youth action against corruption can transpire and expand across contexts. The panel speakers will discuss the following:

Understanding youth mobilisation, activism and social movements in different contexts; learning from the examples of Tunisia and Malaysia;

1. Effective methods in demanding accountability from policy makers;


2. Ensuring the sustainability of youth action and social movements;


3. National, Regional and International solutions toward youth empowerment, social movements and creating a more conscious youth demographic in the fight against corruption.

Today’s reality is that criminal and illicit networks have expanded their tentacles to all parts of the world, corrupting public and market-based institutions alike. Their activities threaten not only the interdependent commercial, transportation, and transactional systems that facilitate free trade and the movement of people throughout the global economy, but jeopardize governance structures, economic development, security, and supply chain integrity. Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion dollar criminal activity that has evolved into a security threat. The high tech weaponry and aggressive tactics used by poachers and the syndicates and corrupt officials that support them threaten civilian security. Wildlife trafficking is a lucrative form of transnational organized crime (TOC) and conservative estimates place this top-ranked illicit trade at billions of dollars annually. Illicit trafficking in wildlife fuels corruption, threatens the rule of law, and destabilizes communities that depend on wildlife for biodiversity and eco-tourism revenues. It is fueled by high demand for wildlife products, high profits, and low risk for detection or meaningful punishment

This will be the first ever high level session held within the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) to focus on wildlife trafficking. The high level panelists for this session bring decades of expertise on international anti-corruption and law enforcement work. This panel will discuss ways corruption fuels wildlife trafficking, particularly in the supply chain and transport sectors, and how governments and international partners can combat corruption related to wildlife trafficking, including through strengthened laws, capacity building through training, and ensuring arrests lead to prosecutions. The panelists will discuss what is being done and what more the global community can do to improve its efforts to combat the corruption involved in wildlife trafficking. To safeguard these iconic yet critically threatened species, we must make anti-corruption a central focus of attack all along the global supply chain, and target converging threats more holistically, and comprehensively.

The aims/objectives of the panel “Bringing Business and Government Together to Fight Corruption: The Business Ombudsman Institution” are to explore the role of the business ombudsman institution and other similar mechanisms in tackling corruption and levelling the playing field for business.

The session will bring together established experts in the field to discuss their experiences of business ombudsmen institutions  and the High-Level Reporting Mechanism (HLRM), the successes and failures as well as their thoughts on how these institutions can best be designed and strengthened to help reform-minded governments to clean up the investment climate in their countries. Discussions will focus on the underlying reasons for the required structural changes. In order to make any reform recommendations, the first step is to have a clear and evidence-based picture of the structures and processes that enable people to act with impunity. Impunity can only exist where a justice system has become dysfunctional; hence it is important to identify those risks that undermine the delivery of justice. Also, the panellists will demonstrate the benefit of mobilizing other stakeholders in the identification of risks and subsequent monitoring of reforms. They will build on real experience in the field to show how such institutions could facilitate improvements in the investment climate, including a greater degree of accountability of the government.

Whether through large-scale social mobilizations, as exemplified most vividly in the Arab Spring, or through numerous cases of bottom-up incremental change achieved through the concerted actions of citizens and their communities, the potential of civil society to challenge corrupt regimes has been confirmed repeatedly over the past decade.

However, we believe that one of the biggest challenges facing the future is how to harness the energy and potential of collective action by citizens and translate it into institutionalized participatory mechanisms to hold governments accountable and end impunity.

Therefore, this session will address the question of how to formulate, develop and implement context sensitive and sustainable mechanisms to enable people to undertake collective action against corruption.

The aim of this panel is to bring together practitioners with experience in the use of social accountability mechanisms as anti-corruption tools for an in depth discussion aimed at sharing what works in engaging and enabling the participation of civil society against corruption in a sustainable manner.

Our hope to produce the following:
a) An understanding of context sensitivity. What are the key elements from the local context that should be taken into account when tailoring social accountability mechanisms? (e.g. individualism/collectivism, perceptions of likelihood of retribution for denouncing corruption).
b) An understanding of what specific social accountability mechanisms work better for which contexts.

The panel comprised of representatives from UNDP, Transparency International, Integrity Action and Basel Institute on Governance will share on experiences and lessons learned in the development and application of methodologies to develop and adjust social accountability mechanisms to local contexts with the goal of maximizing citizen uptake and sustainability of the intervention.

The premise is that the best way to empower citizens is by developing institutional mechanisms to counter corruption that take into account:
a) The local norms and values that permeate social relations, and
b) How citizens view their interactions with the state and state officials and therefore how they understand and experience corruption.

This information may then be used to develop social accountability mechanisms that involve socially acceptable participation modes, that make sense and are easily accessible to users, and that are therefore also sustainable in the long run. Case study examples that will be discussed include the Philippines, Serbia, Ghana, Mexico and Tanzania, etc.

How can Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and open data foster people’s engagement and empower citizens to reduce corruption and improve service delivery? The panel will discuss the role of ICTs and open data in enabling and empowering citizens and civil society to hold public officials to account and whether they can potentially serve as instruments for citizens to socially sanction corruption. While they offer tremendous potential to advance the anti-corruption agenda, involving people and reducing the opportunities for corruption, harnessing this potential requires critical conditions in terms of design, implementation, and use. The panel will explore under which circumstances the use of open data and digital technology can be integrated into and leveraged by other interventions to engage people in driving for real change in the delivery of services.

We aim to understand innovative and effective experiences of open data and ICT-enabled approaches to engage and empower people in order to prevent and reduce corruption, identifying solutions and promising practices while also underscoring the main use and implementation challenges. The panel will also address some of the emerging issues and open questions regarding ICTs and open data. Specifically, the session will discuss:

1. Successful open data and ICT-enabled initiatives for improving service delivery, holding public officials to account, and tackling corruption, including oversight, monitoring and prevention.


2. Using ICTs and open data for monitoring and social sanctioning in contexts where service delivery is plagued by corruption and impunity.


3. The critical success factors that are needed for realizing the full potential of ICTs and open data.


4. The role of different actors regarding ICTs and open data for anti-corruption and how they can promote or enable collaboration between citizens and governments to tackle corruption collectively.


5. New approaches using ICTs and open data, and what could be their potential impact for anti-corruption.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is one of the leading examples of global multi-stakeholder transparency initiatives. Established in 2003 and governed by an international multi-stakeholder board, the initiative provides on a national basis insights into revenues coming from extractives in 48 countries in 2015. By offering a participatory multi-stakeholder platform in implementing countries, it not only helps to detect gaps in financials as reported by governments and companies, but also an enabling environment for change. As EITI, the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) is a country centered multi-stakeholder initiative. CoST is designed to promote transparency and accountability in publicly financed construction. It was launched in 2012 after successful pilots in eight countries between 2008 and 2011.

Driven by need and inspirited by the impact of EITI and CoST, new global multi-stakeholder initiatives are currently being established for other sectors. Inspired by procedures and governance of EITI and CoST, these new initiatives seek to follow their example.

The Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) seeks to increase transparency in fisheries access in to strengthening the enabling environment for responsible fisheries management. Announced in January 2015 at a high-level conference in Mauritania – a current conceptual phase is being undertaken consulting relevant stakeholders to establish a credible FiTI standard and to enhance number of countries for implementation in 2016. Besides Mauritania which is committed to implementation in 2016, a number of other countries already show great interest incl. Costa Rica, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Senegal, the Seychelles and several small island nations in the Pacific. The first international high level FiTI conference will take place in Nouakchott / Mauritania on December 14, 2015.

The Garment Industries Transparency Initiative (GITI) aims at promoting transparency as a means to improve working conditions in global garment supply chains. Started in 2013, and guided by a multi-stakeholder Advisory Board, the GITI commissioned two feasibility studies in Myanmar and Bangladesh incl. in-country stakeholder consultations in order prepare national implementation processes starting in 2016. A regional conference in Myanmar on September 8-9, 2015 will bring together representatives from governments, garment producers, buying companies and civil society members and trade unions from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.

The Climate Transparency Initiative (CTI) seeks to increase transparency in climate performance by providing independent and credible assessments by collaborating with multiple-stakeholders. Started in October 2014, CTI is currently preparing a report on G20 climate performance in order to lay ground for a common framework towards a composite climate action index.

This is the first time ever high level session held within the International Anti-Corruption Conference bringing together major global multi-stakeholder transparency initiatives. It will be unique opportunity for cross-sectoral learnings of opportunities and challenges of transparency to increase accountability ending impunity.

This panel will share insights into evolution, experience, success factors and challenges of increasing accountability within the scope of the initiatives. It will discuss how the initiatives can help shaping an enabling environment to increase accountability. Following this, panelists will share their experience what conditions need to be met in order make this initiatives driving change.

Outcomes of this session will benefit those supporting multi-stakeholder transparency endeavors. It will also highlight opportunities and challenges of establishing transparency through global multi-stakeholder initiatives. It is envisioned that this session becomes the starting point of a regular exchange of existing initiatives on learnings, synergies, common goals and challenges in order to move global multi-stakeholder transparency initiatives to the next level.

Our world is becoming increasingly urban and data is staggering, by 2050 about 75% of the population will live in cities and it is estimated that most urbanites will be concentrated only in about 600 cities; when nearly 3 of each 4 will be located in developing economies. Cities already account for 60% of the world’s GDP and growing...Urbanization is occurring at an unprecedented speed and pace in the developing world, but it is also happening within a context of weak institutional and governance structures. As a result, certain sectors and services such as infrastructure development, health or education are often prone to corruption, misappropriation and, even worse on terms of quantity: inefficiency.
It is often perceived that local decision-making is at the risk of being captured by special interests, but it is also a fact that local governments are closer to the citizen, and opportunities to control and monitor local spending are often higher at the local level.
Local governments bear the responsibility of ensuring the quality of life of their citizens, but they are also increasingly responsible to respond to the people’s demands for transparency and accountability in managing the city. In the world of today, governing without the citizen is becoming nearly impossible.
But local governments need also help on to face this new challenge too, as many do not have the capacities, resources or legal tools to effectively respond to the citizen’s demand for increased participation in the city matters.
The general perception amongst the development community that local government officers are all corrupt is also not helping a new generation of young and committed local government officers to fight historically and culturally accepted behaviors. Citizens should also help their governments to function better, by checking, controlling and requesting increasing access to information, but the final result of the process should not be to build the necessary trust, as, without trust, govern is difficult, inefficient, if not impossible.
Worldwide, many mayors and governors are battling to establish a new culture of openness and efficiency in the management of their cities. One of the special areas of concern is the procurement of services by municipalities, especially in areas where high technical capacity is needed. The increase of transparency on the negotiations and implementation of Public-Private-Partnerships and the need to include the citizen in the management of basic urban services is, today, a requirement more and more necessary as the provision of basic services is key to battle urban poverty and to ensure universal access and basic quality for the more disadvantaged inhabitants of the city. The other key area is, of course, the construction sector, with specific reference to the long-term consequences that the change in land use from rural to urban has on the future shape of the city. Urban planning and licensing is particularly sensitive to corruption and a new approach to this problem needs to be provided.

The main objectives of the proposed event are:

1. To highlight innovative measures that some local governments are experimenting to improve transparency and accountability in the field of urban planning and the provision of basic services while ensuring access, quality affordability and safety in the provision of basic services, on one side, and the control over the speculative physical development of the city.

2. To discuss how national legislation and policy can influence the local level and what role civil society and the private sector can and should be to help enhance accountability and integrity

The session is co-organized by UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Program) and UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments) with the financial support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Session Sub-themes
A. Informality and service delivery: Robbing the poor of the urban advantage
B. Building urban futures: how to protect the public space in accelerated urbanization processes.
C. The cost of municipal inefficiency versus the cost of corruption. Adequate legislation and appropriate multi-level governance.
D. Contracting out: the risk of public-private-partnerships in a technologically changing world

The session is co-organized by UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlement Program) and UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments) with the financial support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

How are new funding models and cross-border collaborations for investigative journalism affecting investigative journalism’s ability to combat corruption?

Mainstream media continue to back away from funding long-form investigative journalism and are broadening links up with organisations like ProPublica, ICIJ and 100Reporters. These new models (mostly funded by US foundations) are also often in collaboration with civil society organisations (also foundation and a sometimes government funded). There are more cross border collaborations too and great reporting has been done. Real exposure, however, is still a function of teaming up with traditional media even though the social media universe is beginning to act as a growing disseminator of this work.

This session will explore and discuss both the sustainability of this model for investigative journalism and the financial and ethical pitfalls in this approach. Is this a golden age for investigative journalists uncovering corruption? Will foundations keep up their funding? Will working with CSOs, who have their own agendas, skew the journalism? Is this different from the days of media barons setting the agenda or are we still very much party to their personal

The session will also like to tackle the role of the whistleblower: the traditional source and the data dumps. It will look at the role of data journalism in this new connected and visualisable world and how mainstream media can adapt and benefit from cross-border collaborations.

The session will:

• Explore and compare sustainable financial models to ensure investigative journalism remains a strong weapon in the anti-corruption arsenal
• Connect players with different agendas to combatting corruption via investigative journalism
• Assess the viability of philanthro-journalism in the fight against corruption