Transparency in the extractives sector is widely seen as a key tool for improving accountability and deterring corruption. Yet for those very reasons, it is a puzzle that so many governments in corruption-prone countries have voluntarily signed up to greater scrutiny in this area, by joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

The Basel Institute’s governance team has been working with the Institute on Nursing of the University of Basel in support of an SDC-funded project aimed at strengthening the nursing sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Using the Basel Institute’s unique “Power and Influence Analysis”, a political economy methodology, the aim is to assist the project team in determining more effective strategies, including specific projects, for enhancing the health and governance sector in BiH.

As part of the International Business Law LLM programme at the Europa Institute of the University of Zürich, the Institute’s compliance specialist, Gemma Aiolfi, also the Institute’s Head of Corporate Governance, Compliance & Collective Action, gave lectures on the topic of Corporate Criminal Law. This course module was offered for the first time in English to law students from around the world.

The course topics covered included corporate criminal liability, compliance and corruption.

The Basel Institute has joined the recently established Swiss National Compliance Roundtable. The aim of the Roundtable is to develop national standards of education and training for persons interested in Compliance with a view to raising and setting standards and qualifications.

A presentation will be made at the end of January 2014 to interested parties in the private sector, government and academia, which will outline the proposals for further work.

In mid 2014, Ms Gemma Aiofli, Head of Compliance and Corporate Governance was elected board member of Ethics and Compliance Switzerland (ECS). This newly established organisation is the first cross-industry and cross-sectorial association in Switzerland promoting ethical leadership and organizational integrity.

To date the ECS counts 14 organisational and 40 individual members. On 2 October 2014, the Basel Institute will be hosting the ECS’s kick-off meeting to discuss the development of the SME Compliance Tool Kit. The meeting is open for all interested parties.

On 15 January 2016 the Peruvian National Public Prosecutor and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of Switzerland (SECO) signed an agreement to prevent and investigate acts of corruption in public finance at the subnational level and recover misappropriated public assets.

This agreement is part of the ¨Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Program¨ signed between the governments of Peru and Switzerland in October 2015, which is being implemented by the Basel Institute on Governance through its Lima office.