Ethics
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Peru’s Integrity Week celebrates transparency and good governance, including for the environment
While most of the world celebrates International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, Peru has kickstarted a new tradition: an entire week dedicated to integrity, transparency and anti-corruption events and celebrations. The country celebrated its first Semana de Integridad Pública – Public Integrity Week – last December, following the passing of a law that dedicates the second week of December each year to the occasion. The aim is to reinforce the country’s commitment to transparency and ethics in public administration. Our teams were closely involved in the various events that took place across the country. Building integrity in public finance management Members of our Subnational Public Finance Management programme or Programa GFP Subnacional organised and participated in 14 events in nine different regions. In total, the events involved more than 2,000 individuals in person and a similar number online. Topics included ethical leadership, policies and strategies to mitigate risks and promote transparency in public administrations, and the role of asset forfeiture in fostering integrity and reducing impunity for corruption. The discussions and workshops underscored the commitment of the Swiss-funded programme to: Strengthen capacities: Provide tools and practical knowledge to identify and manage the risks that affect public integrity. Promote multi-stakeholder dialogue: Encourage collaboration between different parties, including government, the private sector and civil society, to address ethical and transparency challenges together. Inspire action: Promote a culture of integrity and accountability as the basis for inclusive and sustainable development. Green corruption high on the agenda Our Green Corruption prevention team, funded by the UK's Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, also participated in 18 separate events, reaching over 6,000 participants in person and more online. Our team drew attention to the fact that corruption is a key enabler of illegal trade in natural resources. Illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon, illegal mining or wildlife trafficking pose serious threats to the country’s environment, people and economy. But these complex crimes can’t be addressed without an active focus on corruption prevention. The prominence of this topic during Integrity Week is an important achievement. It reflects increased awareness and interest in green corruption among Peruvian authorities, specifically from the Ministries of the Environment and Agriculture, as well as the national Secretariat for Public Integrity that led the organisation of the events. Learn more See the press release in Spanish . See photo highlights from events in Loreto. Watch a series of three debates about asset recovery law and practice in Peru, released at the same time as Integrity Week.
What would you do? Alliance for Integrity Global Campaign launches with thought-provoking video
The Basel Institute on Governance has joined forces with the Alliance for Integrity and more than 60 partners from 12 countries to raise awareness of the importance of business integrity – and the challenges it can present to individuals, their families, business partners and society. The Alliance for Integrity is a global business-driven, multi-stakeholder initiative seeking to promote transparency and integrity in the economic system. Its global United4Integrity campaign, which launches today, features an interactive video as its centrepiece. The protagonist in the video is faced with an integrity dilemma that small business leaders all over the world will recognise. Should she cheat to win that contract? What would you do? Choose whether you would say yes, say no or look away. The video encourages viewers to engage in debate about the challenges of doing business with integrity and the potential consequences when things go wrong. There are no easy answers but viewers can visit the campaign website, what-would-you-do.org, to find out how engaging in Collective Action can help. Sparking debate towards the Global Conference The Basel Institute’s Collective Action team has been working closely with the Alliance for Integrity almost since its inception. Our Head of Compliance and Collective Action Gemma Aiolfi, who sits on the Alliance’s Steering Committee, praised the leadership’s initiative in sparking debate: It’s easy to forget that at heart, anti-corruption compliance is not about paperwork, checklists and toolkits – it’s about people, values and knowing when and how to do the right thing. This unique campaign by the Alliance for Integrity encourages workers, managers and business leaders alike to openly talk about corporate values and listen to one another’s concerns. I strongly encourage you to take this journey and to connect with the Alliance for Integrity to find out how you can join this vibrant global partnership. Visit the campaign website and interact with the video here. We invite you to share this important message with your networks using the campaign hashtag United4Integrity. The campaign culminates in the Global Conference of the Alliance for Integrity on 27-29 April 2021. It is open to all and free of charge. Register via the event platform here. More insights on business integrity and Collective Action See this recent Q&A with Susanne Friedrich, Director of Alliance for Integrity, on how Collective Action can help SMEs overcome the pandemic. Susanne Friedrich also appears in a short video filmed at the Basel Institute’s 2018 International Collective Action Conference to answer the question: “What is Collective Action and what is its value in combating corruption?” Scarlet Wannenwetsch’s article on Anti-Corruption Collective Action appeared in the 16th Compliance Bulletin of Alliance for Integrity in collaboration with the Global Compact Network Germany. Gemma Aiolfi’s article on Integrity and anti-corruption in the private sector post covid-19, written in April 2020, generated vivid debate among the community and was republished on the FCPA Blog. This quick guide to integrity and anti-corruption compliance for SMEs outlines five simple things that any business can do to raise levels of integrity in their organisation. It’s available on the Alliance for Integrity campaign website, alongside other useful publications on anti-corruption Collective Action.
Publications
Quick Guide 39: Business integrity and ethics
The changing landscape of anti-corruption regulation and enforcement has triggered important discussions around the role of ethics and compliance in business strategies and in the economy as a whole. It has also given impetus to the narrative that anti-corruption compliance programmes are inevitably costly, potentially ineffective and bureaucratic.
This ignores many of the positive advances in compliance that have been made in recent years, as well as the growing body of evidence supporting the business case for compliance.
This Quick Guide covers five broad areas in which mature and well-constructed ethics and compliance systems can benefit businesses even in the face of an uncertain regulatory and enforcement framework. It is based on a roundtable convened by the Basel Institute on Governance and bilateral discussions with key figures in the business and anti-corruption community.
About this Quick Guide
You are free to share and republish this work under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.
Companies’ assessments of anti-corruption compliance
In the last decade, companies around the globe have significantly invested in the development of anti-corruption compliance programmes. Assessing the effectiveness of these programmes has proven challenging and requires that companies go beyond a box-checking approach, set clear objectives, measure progress and impact and foster a culture of integrity.
This paper published by the OECD aims to support companies in their assessment efforts by taking stock of methodologies and tools − such as key performance indicators, culture surveys, data analytics, audits and peer learning − that companies use to assess and enhance the effectiveness of their anti-corruption programmes.
Drawing on desk research and data collected by the OECD and the Basel Institute on Governance including in months of consultations with the private sector, this paper contributes to promoting strong anti-corruption norms and standards within the public and private sector.
Insider’s corruption versus outsider’s ethicality? Individual responses to conflicting institutional logics
This article arises from the work of the Basel Institute’s Public Governance team on informal governance. It was produced by research partners at the ESCP Business School (Paris) and the EDC Paris Business School (Courbevoie), France.
Abstract
In this article, we seek to understand whether and to what extent the sense of belonging to a powerful network affects individual decision-making in terms of ethicality with regard to a corrupt situation. We study the behaviour of insiders (individuals who belong to a power network, i.e. a network of individuals connected by interpersonal relationships to a person in a position of power) and outsiders in a corrupt versus non-corrupt environments using the theoretical frameworks of institutional logics and informal networks. Our hypotheses were tested with the help of a vignette-based experiment with 464 participants from countries considered as corrupt (Kazakhstan and Russia) and non-corrupt (UK and USA).
About this research
This research was funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the British Academy through the British Academy/DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence Program. However, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the British Academy or DFID.
For more information on the wider project and to download other country findings, see the Basel Institute’s Informal Governance website.
Maximizing stakeholder trust as a tool for controlling corruption
Corruption, particularly bribery of government officials, inflicts substantial damage on people, society, and the world, and warrants control. Collective efforts to control corruption tend to focus on rules and compliance with those rules. This paper suggests that collective action also consider the creation of strong ethical cultures in business firms. Implementation of such programs is impeded by the difficulty in prescribing a course of action and by the difficulty in measuring the strength of an ethical culture.
This paper suggests the measurement and maximization of stakeholder trust as a proxy for measures of ethical culture. The qualities that engender stakeholder trust correspond with ethical behaviors.
Stakeholder trust confers benefits on business firms, which will incentivize and justify its measurement. Implementation of a program focused on ethical culture would benefit from collective action both by normalizing behaviors and in the development of sophisticated measurement tools.