We are pleased to see States embracing the business community in corruption prevention activities in Africa. At a recent anti-corruption conference in Rabat, a new declaration emphasised the importance of the "involvement of all stakeholders, with a shared vision and an action based on collective mobilisation…”. This language underlies the Collective Action approach that we at the Basel Institute have long promoted to increase standards of integrity and fair business around the world.

This USD 2 million, 3-year project, a partnership between the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Global Wildlife Program and others, aims to reduce maritime trafficking of wildlife between Africa and Asia by strengthening wildlife law enforcement at ports and increasing cooperation between ports and other maritime stakeholders.

The Initiative puts forward guidelines or common standards for non-trial resolutions of foreign bribery cases.

The members consist of academics, lawyers and companies that come together regularly to develop these guidelines and present them to governments and international organisation such as the OECD for their consideration.

The first goal aimed to establish a benchmark of what the legal practices are on a global scale with regard to pre-trial solutions.

In 2015, the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) launched a Collective Action project in Indonesia with support from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in partnership with the NGO Kemitraan.

Indonesia had been identified as a corruption hotspot among MACN member companies calling port in the country. The overall objective of the Collective Action was to increase the transparency of port operations, remove trade barriers such as facilitation payments, and increase the ease of doing business for British, international, and local businesses operating in Indonesia.

The Transparency International Secretariat will promote business integrity at three levels (individual businesses, groups of businesses, and the business environment), all of which are underpinned by Collective Action.

In order to achieve the objective of facilitating change at scale, the project aimed to improve the capacity of Transparency International to work as a catalyst for Collective Action at national level in multiple countries and advocate improved standards, norms and practices within international fora and initiatives. This involved:

The Conference Vetting System reviews the compliance of third-party educational conferences with the Eucomed Code of Ethical Business Practice (the “Code”) to determine the appropriateness for companies which are members of Eucomed and members of the national associations affiliated with Eucomed to sponsor Healthcare Professionals to participate in such conferences.