Side-Event at the 6th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption

“Tackling corruption through public-private dialogue” was the theme of the side-event organised by the Alliance for Integrity in cooperation with UNODC at the 6th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). The panelists included: Datuk Mustafar Ali, Deputy Chief Commissioner (Prevention), Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission; Yonn Sinat, Assistant to the President, Anti-Corruption Unit of Cambodia; Hamilton Fernando Cota Cruz, Director Integrity Promotion, Office of the Controller General of Brazil (CGU);and Noor Naqschbandi, Director, Alliance for Integrity.

Core issue of the debate was how to engineer an open and frank public-private dialogue on corruption and business integrity. The discussion highlighted that as Governments are embarking on rigorous anti-corruption reforms based on the recommendations from their UNCAC reviews, also the private sector is scaling up its efforts by cooperating with industry peers to level the playing field and create fair competition based on the collective action principle. New collective action initiatives, such as integrity pledges and various types of working groups and multi-stakeholders committees, are being created.

The speakers discussed the public sector activities in Cambodia, Malaysia and Brazil aimed at promoting cooperation between the public sector and the businesses in fighting corruption. The panel also explored the incentives for companies to participate in a structured public-private dialogue and highlighted the success factors and challenges of collective action initiatives in the area of business integrity.

The panel contributed to defining the role of state actors, businesses, civil society and development partners in the promotion of business integrity, and agreed on practical recommendations to foster sustainable public-private dialogue for combating corruption and develop trust between the business community and the public sector. The necessity of engaging specialized NGOs in the public-private dialogue, creating the right set of incentives highlighting the benefits of anti-corruption for businesses and producing detailed strategies and guidelines for the public private dialogue were highlighted as priorities.