6th Regional Integrity Week in Latin America - Mainstreaming Business Integrity for Development

Over 2,000 people registered to attend the 6th Regional Integrity Week of the Alliance for Integrity in Latin America, titled "Mainstreaming Business Integrity: Gender, Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" and co-organised by the Global Compact Colombia.

The Regional Integrity Week brought together enterprises and organisations committed to business integrity in Latin America, including more than 100 speakers from the civil society, public and private sector as well as academic and international institutions. Participants exhanged knowledge on issues relating to business integrity in the region as it affects other aspects of sustainable development including Gender, Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda. In a bid to address different perspectives on the issue, Alliance for Integrity invited its partner organisations and supporters to establish parallel sessions on varying topics of interest.

The three-day event opened with the launch of Alliance for Integrity's gender-related business integrity products, including an infographic on the gendered impact of corruption in business, a guide on how to include gender equality in designing compliance programmes and a workshop format for women entrepreneurs titled "Ethics as an added value in negotiation. These can be found on our gender topic page."

In over 15 sessions of learning, participants were able to share ideas on how to strengthen corruption prevention efforts in the areas of sustainable development addressed throughout the event. The parallel workshop sessions established unique and innovative spaces for exchange. The sessions also showcased flagship event formats at the Alliance for Integrity, one of which was a conversation that brought students from five Latin American countries to explore multi-stakeholder alliances for a business education with integrity.

Furthermore, partners and supporters of the Alliance for Integrity from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay presented proposals for their side events, allowing them to explore topics of growing relevance for integrity: collective action, the relationship between integrity with gender equality, human rights, climate change, education and good governance. The Regional Integrity Week also recorded more than 120 success stories from participants, who found both the information and the discussion in the sessions relevant to the development of their organisations.

Recognized as a highlight event for the Alliance for Integrity, the Regional Integrity Week in Latin America fosters dialogue, defines new paradigms and shapes new multidisciplinary debates, while strengthening ties for the prevention of corruption in the region. This event also demonstrated the region's commitment to integrity as it brought together diverse actors from multiple sectors. Ecuador will host the 7th Regional Integrity Week in 2022. 

Find out more on the Integrity Week and main learnings from the previous edition.

Author: Camila Ponce