India's Ministry of Defence amended its Defence Procurement Procedures in 2006 to mandate the use of Integrity Pacts and appointment of Independent External Monitors (IEM) to oversee defence-related procurement in India for capital procurement schemes above USD 15 million. The Ministry of Defence confirmed the mandatory use of IPs for defence procurement in 2008. The use of IPs in defence procurement has been credited with improving transparency and corruption-prevention in defence procurement in India, though some corruption concerns remain regarding procurement in this sector.

Integrity Pacts have been applied to oversee various levels of public procurement in India since 2006. In that year, the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation implemented the first IP in India. In the same year, the Indian Ministry of Defence adopted the Defence Procurement Procedure made the use of an Integrity Pact mandatory for all defence procurement above USD 15 Million.

In 2007, India’s Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) adopted a circular recommending the use of IPs in all major procurement of Public Service Undertakings (PSUs).

The Basel Institute and Blomeyer & Sanz contacted the China chapter of Transparency International in 2015 for the purposes of the IP Learning Review. Through this process, the China TI chapter shared that Integrity Pacts had been used in public procurement in 2004.

The IPs were a mandatory part of tenders, but did not result in the appointment of any external monitor. The experience with IPs in China was already distant and it has been difficult to obtain further information on the use of IPs there at this time.

Transparencia Mexicana served as the civil society monitor to oversee an Integrity Pact (Unilateral Declaration of Integrity) to oversee procurement related to the construction of electric dams in Mexico.

Additional information

• Procurement authority: Mexican Federal Electricity Commission
• Monitor: Transparencia Mexicana
• Language: Spanish
• Start year: 2002
• End year: 2008
• Tender value: Approx USD 64 million

In one of the first tenders that used the Social Witness variation on the Integrity Pact, Transparencia Mexico served as Social Witness to oversee the tender of Saltillo's sewerage treatment services.

Additional information

• Procurement authority: Saltillo
• Monitor: Transparencia Mexicana
• Language: Spanish
• Start year: 2004
• End year: 2004
• Tender value: USD 5 million

Transparencia Mexicana was one of Transparency International’s first chapters in Latin America to promote the use of Integrity Pacts starting in the late 1990s. The Mexican government developed the IP idea into a novel institution of “Social Witnesses” or testigos social in 2004.

Transparency International's chapter in Honduras, Associación por una Sociedad mas Justa (ASJ), has been serving as the civil society monitor overseeing the implementation of an Integrity Pact applied to all public procurement of medicines in Honduras since 2014.

Case study

View our Integrity Pacts Case Study: Medicines procurement in Honduras – How Integrity Pacts helped bring transparency, fair competition and value to a deeply corrupt sector. 

In 2017, the Salvadoran National Fund for Road Maintenance signed an Integrity Pact with the economic contractors for a road construction project enumerating various integrity, anti-corruption, and transparency obligations. The Integrity Pact appointed all citizens to serve as social witnesses to the IP, inviting anyone to submit a written request for information should there be concerns about the contracting process.

Between 2009 and 2014, the Ministry of Public Works of El Salvador applied 31 Integrity Pacts in the context of five major public works contracts. Two civil society organisations served as monitors: FUNDE (the El Salvador Chapter of Transparency International: Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo) and the Social Initiative for Democracy. The Ministry and CSO organisations collaborated to draft an Integrity Pact model that would be suitable for the Salvadoran legal framework.

In 2002, the Latin American Corporation for Development (LCD) - the then-recognised chapter of Transparency International - signed a Cooperation Agreement to serve as civil society monitor to oversee the Integrity Pact applied between two state telecommunications bodies and bidders for the auction of bands and sub-bands of telecommunications channel.