Guidelines for assessing capacities
The capacities needed to perform the functions of this module mainly relate to research (both on corruption and corruption risks and vulnerabilities), policy evaluation, and communication and cooperation with a broad range of actors and stakeholders including public institutions, think- tanks, and civil society.
| Capacities | Main issues |
| Enabling Environment | |
| Credibility and impartiality: Capacity to undertake objective assessments | The ACA should be trusted as a credible source of expertise and objective assessments. Functional (and ideally organizational) independence is required to undertake objective policy evaluation; in the absence of such, evaluation can be outsourced to a credible, independent actor. Sample questions:
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| Engage stakeholders: Engage other state bodies and non-state actors in the exchange of information and cooperation (including outsourcing of research) | Existence and practical functioning of legal / procedural frameworks to facilitate research collaboration between relevant state bodies – e.g. of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) for cooperation and information sharing between ACA and others – in particular integrity and audit institutions, as well as law enforcement and investigative units (ensuring ACA’s access to relevant classified information, for research and analysis purposes) |
| Engage stakeholders: Engage other state bodies and non-state actors in the exchange of information and cooperation (including outsourcing of research) | Operational mechanisms for consultation and engagement of non- state actors in corruption / integrity assessments and policy evaluation (evaluation of the national AC Strategy); examples of effective cooperation; Sound and effective PR and communication strategy of the ACA as assessed through interviews with relevant stakeholders. Sample questions:
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| Legal framework: Conducive legal framework (in particular with regard to assessment of corruption vulnerabilities in other institutions) | Legal provisions and operational mechanisms regarding ACA’s mandate on corruption risk assessments should be in place; a legal requirement for public institutions to undertake such assessments can also help. Ideally, provisions should be in place to enable the use of information (including non-public / classified) gathered by investigative units or agencies, and to facilitate research collaboration between relevant government bodies. Sample questions:
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| Organizational level | |
| Data collection and processing: Collect information from a range of stakeholders, process the input received from various sources and produce analysis and reporting | Institutional arrangements, structure, internal division of responsibilities/ functions of the agency allowing the performance of this function:
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| Data collection and processing: Collect information from a range of stakeholders, process the input received from various sources and produce analysis and reporting | Business processes linking the work of different units within the organization (in particular research/evaluation unit with investigative unit if present); Adequate knowledge management and information management structures as well as the ICT for the storing and processing of the information and data collected. Sample questions:
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| Engage stakeholders: Cooperate effectively with other agencies – both national and international – and experts | Internal system ensuring the frequency and quality of the interaction with the other agencies; Functioning modality for outsourcing specialized research, including a pool / roster of researchers and experts able to support the work of the ACA and quality control mechanism. Sample questions:
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| Communication and outreach: Effectively engage the public and disseminate outputs from research, assessments, evaluations | Utilization of communication tools: website with up to date information regarding researches and assessments; utilization of the traditional media and of social media tools. Sample questions:
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