International Forum on Public-Private Cooperation on Integrity

Since September 2017, the Alliance for Integrity has an office and staff in Mexico so it can provide a closer follow-up to the tools and services offered by the initiative in the country and region. As one of its first activities an International Forum on Public-Private Cooperation on Integrity was held. This Forum brought together around 60 actors representing companies, chambers and business associations, representatives of civil society organisations, academia, international organisations, and officials of the Mexican and German governments.

The objective of the Forum was to promote public-private dialogue to identify, promote and disseminate alliances in favour of integrity. During the event, the launch of the Mexican version of the publication No eXcuses! took place. The handbook was adapted to the Mexican context as well as legislation by the Alliance for Integrity’s Working Group in Mexico. No eXcuses! presents the ten most common excuses which an employee or entrepreneur can face when resorting to an act of corruption. It also offers arguments how to disprove these.

The forum was opened by Noor Naqschbandi, Director of the Alliance for Integrity and Martina Vatterodt, Counselor for Cooperation Policy at the German Embassy in Mexico, both of them encouraged the participants to keep working for business integrity, and invited them to make the most of the discussions at the forum.

After them, Marita Brömmelmeier, Country Director of GIZ in Mexico, shared some interesting remarks of how for international cooperation the combating of corruption must be seen as a transversal task for any development programme.
Throughout the day, more than 20 speakers shared their points of view of what are the global and regional challenges in anti-corruption and how the new technologies can contribute to integrity.

The Forum can be seen as another starting point of the Alliance for Integrity’s commitment to strengthen business integrity in Mexico and to build up a multi-stakeholder network in Mexico to counteract corporate corruption.