14 June 2014

Dakar, 26-28 May, 2014 — Chaired by  the President of Senegal H.E Macky Sall, and organised by  the UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN), UNODC, the World Bank, the Center for the Studies and Action Research on Governance, Open Society Institute for West Africa(OSIWA) and the Governance and Peace Programme of USAID in Senegal, the conference  aimed to obtain a realistic overview on the legislation and practice of Asset Declaration in West and Central Africa and share technical experiences between countries from the region, including best practices, innovations, and political, economic and judicial implications of asset declarations.

The conference adopted a statement outlining guiding principles to encourage the countries of the region to put in place adequate practices and policies in terms of collecting and verifying the asset declarations, and adopt an action- research programme on asset disclosure in the countries in the region.

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Using text messages to crowdsource corruption information. Establishing citizens’ accountability forums to review development plans and budget allocations at the local level. Digitizing scholarship data to increase school enrolment of girls from marginalized groups. These are just three of some 14 anti-corruption initiatives being considered for the Social Innovation Fund on Anti-Corruption for Development.

A joint effort of UNDP’s Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN) and the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre (APRC), the Social Innovation Fund will announce its awardees during a Regional Dialogue on “Transparency, Accountability and Voices against Corruption – Accelerating Human Development in Asia-Pacific” to be held in Bangkok, 12-13 June 2014.

According to Elodie Beth Seo, Regional Anti-Corruption Adviser, UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre, poor governance and discrimination remain key development challenges despite the high economic growth in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Fund intends to encourage UNDP country offices and partnering NGOs to come up with innovations that address corruption in a way that reduces poverty.

The Fund has received expressions of interest from country offices and partnering NGOs from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

At least three initiatives will be selected to receive grants of US$50,000 each. Awardees will be announced on 13 June, the final day of the Regional Dialogue on “Transparency, Accountability and Voices against Corruption” Bangkok.

About 70 participants from 27 countries are expected to attend the dialogue. They will include representatives from UNDP country offices in Asia-Pacific and headquarters, delegates from national anti-corruption agencies, as well as representatives from non-government organizations and development partners.

Ahead of the Regional Dialogue, a Knowledge Fair on 11 June will allow participants to showcase their transparency, accountability, and anticorruption initiatives. The Knowledge Fair also will be an opportunity for them to pitch for new initiatives that they would like to propose as part of the competition.

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For more information about the Social Innovation Fund and the Regional Dialogue, please contact:

Elodie Beth Seo
UNDP Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor
Asia-Pacific Regional Centre
Email: mailto:elodie.beth@undp.org

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During the few last years, initiatives against corruption have increasingly taken centre stage, involving the public and private sector, non-governmental organizations, the media and the youth.

In the course of UNODC’s ongoing work on probity in public procurement and corporate integrity, stakeholders from the above sectors identified a significant information gap regarding “where” and “whom to” report a corrupt act. Both citizens and professionals felt it was difficult to identify the relevant contact person in a government department – at the national or state level to report an act of corruption. Although numerous anti-corruption and vigilance bodies exist across the country, the information is scattered across multiple platforms within the public domain.  In response to this, the idea rose to consolidate  contact information on anti-corruption and vigilance desks in one platform and make it available to the public.

On 29 May 2014, UNODC launched the National Anti-Corruption Referral of key contacts in vigilance and anti-corruption desks across India’. The referral provides relevant contact information on vigilance desks in a variety of institutions at the national level, such as the Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Vigilance Commission and the Enforcement Directorate. It also covers respective information on government departments in the top twelve service areas which have a high level of interaction with the private sector, including customs, health, highways authorities, credit institutions and land and property registration authorities. The referral is structured by departments and states, containing data from 28 states, 7 union territories and 82 economic centres as well as a total of 25 ministries/government departments. It contains the remarkable number of 10,000 entries.

At the launch, Mr J M Garg, Vigilance Commissioner, Central Vigilance Commission acknowledged the referral as the first of its kind in India. He encouraged the audience to make use of the Referral as it allows to easily find information, make inquiries and report corrupt acts.  

The Referral was compiled after extensive public record research on Ministries and departments at the national and state levels, which showed a high level of engagement with the private sector. Suggestions and inputs were also received from senior Government officials, private and public sector officials through numerous consultative interactions.

The Referral is available electronically at:  http://indiaanticorruptionreferral.com

The National Anti-Corruption Referral was created under the UNODC projects ( i) Public-private partnership in probity in public procurement and (ii) Incentives to Corporate Integrity and Cooperation. Both projects are supported by the Siemens Integrity Initiative.

(This story originally appeared in the UNODC website.)

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