First Integrity Week held in Colombia

12.10.2018

Bogotá, Colombia

In recent years, a series of different activities have been carried out in Colombia, such as corruption prevention training workshops, Spanish Webinars, and now for the first time, together with the local network of the Global Compact in Colombia, the implementation partner in the country, an Integrity Week. The Integrity Week took place in Bogotá and the objective was to offer practical tools to promote integrity in the economic sector, providing spaces for dialogue between the public sector, private sector, and civil society.

In addition, representatives of the Chamber of Industry and Production of Ecuador and the Chamber of Industries, Production and Employment of Cuenca, Ecuador travelled to Colombia to participate in the Integrity Week. They are aware of the way in which the Alliance for Integrity works and they hope to join forces with the Colombian economic sector to tackle corruption in the Andean region through collective action.

Three events were carried out during the Integrity Week Colombia. The first was a DEPE corruption prevention training workshop, which was held on Thursday, 11th of October at the Chamber of Commerce of Bogota. A total of 23 representatives from different local SMEs participated; Luz Ayda Otalora from Telefonica Colombia, Pablo Miranda from Siemens Latin America, and Paula Hernández from the Telecommunications Company of Bogotá (ETB) acted as trainers. The SMEs learned about practical cases of how to prevent corruption within their organisations. Daniela Camargo, representative for the 10th principle on corruption prevention of the Global Compact Network in Colombia, shared the importance and the interest of the Colombian companies to create a strategic relationship with the Alliance for Integrity, and together they offered practical tools to promote integrity in the country.

During a breakfast meeting, a total of 16 Colombian trainers used the time for an exchange of experiences amongst one another. Marco Pérez, Network Manager Mexico and Colombia, also took the chance to present recent activities from the global network with the trainers. Some of them were discussed in terms of being replicated later this year or next year in Mexico to foster more regional and interregional cooperation. As part of the meeting, a discussion was carried out to define what should be the steps to follow in Colombia to reach out to Colombian companies and strengthen integrity in the country.

The third and final event of this week of activities was also held on Friday to launch “TheIntegrityApp”. The welcoming messages were given by Ricardo Garzón, Manager of Sustainability and Government in Telefónica Movistar, Colombia, Thomas Heindrichs, Resident Director of GIZ Colombia and Alice Berggrun Comas, Coordinator of the Private Sector and Conventions of the Transparency Secretariat, who said she was optimistic about the potential relationship between the public and private sectors in Colombia, that will work for transparency in the new administration that begins in the country. After the initial messages, there were two inspiring talks about ethical blindness and how any organization, regardless of its sector or size, can do business with integrity. These talks were given from different points of view by Pablo Miranda, Siemens Compliance Officer and trainer of DEPE, and Mariana Jaramillo, Vice President of Corporate Topics Colombia and South America and the Caribbean region, CEMEX S.A..
 

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