13.04.2016
On April 13, 2016, the global initiative, Alliance for Integrity, officially launched its activities in Brazil. The event took place in São Paulo and was attended by over 70 representatives of civil society, government agencies and the private sector.
In his opening speech, Dirk Brengelmann, the Ambassador of Germany in Brazil, acknowledged the efforts of the initiative in “joining and complementing forces” in the promotion of integrity. Following this, Dr. Carlos Higino Ribeiro de Alencar, Executive-Secretary of the Controladoria Geral da União (CGU) spoke about the efforts of the public sector “to create an environment of transparency and integrity”. The country director of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Wolf Dio, underlined the relevance of the initiative and gave insights into the activities of the Alliance for Integrity in Brazil, paying particular attention to the Alliance for Integrity’s training programme, ‘De Empresas Para Empresas’.
Additionally, Thomas Timm, Executive Vice-President of the Brazil-Germany Chamber of Commerce and Industry, stressed the importance of addressing corruption, especially within small and medium-sized businesses.
In the following high level panel encompassing different Brazilian partners of the Alliance for Integrity, challenges and opportunities in the field of anti-corruption and compliance in Brazil were addressed. The Director of the Alliance for Integrity, Noor Naqschbandi, concluded the event by summarizing the tone of the afternoon with a quote of Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success”.