Advisory Group Mexico sets up action plan for the country in 2019

On 6th March 2019 the members of the Alliance for Integrity’s Advisory Group in Mexico gathered for the second time. The meeting was hosted by Siemens Mexico, the organization of Juan Ignacio Díaz, Advisory Group Vice Chair. During the meeting, the members discussed and approved the strategies that will be adopted by the initiative in Mexico throughout 2019. The main objective of the strategy is to design the model for a success story that can be replicated in various small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the country.

As a first point, Marco Pérez, the Alliance for Integrity’s Network Manager for Mexico and Colombia, welcomed Jose Octavio López, the new President of the Consejo de Participación Ciudadana, who will from now on take over from Mariclaire Acosta as the organisation’s representative in the Group’s meetings.

After that, Pérez presented the global goals and the main lines of action of the Alliance for Integrity. Increasing the number of success stories, becoming more sustainable, putting focus on gender-specific issues when it comes to integrity, and improving the cooperation among regions – to mention a few –, is what the initiative is aiming to accomplish within the next few years. The members of the Advisory Group agreed that compliance must be active and dynamic to achieve all these goals. Moreover, they considered the inclusion of a public officer in the Advisory Group as an important aspect. “It is time for the government to join the private sector in the fight against corruption. Both sectors should complement each other”, Vice Chair Ignacio Díaz explained.
Subsequently, Pérez put forward the activities the Alliance for Integrity has designed and planned to be carried out in Mexico and Colombia throughout 2019 in order to reach the initiative’s objectives. Activities such as DEPE training sessions, train-the-trainer workshops, Advisory Group meetings, Alliance for Integrity’s Global Integrity Week and a global study on gender and integrity were among the highlights.

Moreover, the Advisory Group discussed how to build the Vision 2025 for the Alliance for Integrity. The most important question the members were asked was, what must be done in the future to move from capacity building to real behavioral change in the private sector in Mexico. The members of the Group emphasized the importance of recognition as a motivating factor for the implementation of integrity and compliance measures in SMEs. Furthermore, it was mentioned that women should be empowered because they have the potential of being change agents in the battle against corruption. These aspects will be fed into the discussion at the next meeting of the global Steering Committee of the Alliance for Integrity by the Chair and Vice Chair of the Advisory Group Mexico in April.

Afterwards, Marco Pérez presented the agenda of the Alliance for Integrity’s Global Integrity Week, which will be carried out from 2nd to 4th April in Mexico City. The Global Integrity Week will include a Global Meeting of Trainers, a Meeting of the Regional Working Group Latin America as well as the Alliance for Integrity’s Global Conference. The Global Conference will focus on “Implementing Business Integrity into Practice – Pathways to Impact” and bring together experts on the subject from across the world. Advisory Group members were invited to join the conference and also to support it.

Finally, the members of the Advisory Group agreed on next steps to be taken. One of these was the agreement to invite experts to the meetings who are no members of the Advisory Group, so that they can share their point of view and provide input to the discussions held.