The Basel Institute on Governance and its International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) hosted an international conference on anti-corruption Collective Action with almost 200 participants from the private sector, government, international organisations and civil society. The conference took place on October 20-21, 2016 in Basel and was part of the B20 efforts to promote Collective Action in anti-corruption.
In January the Basel Institute became a founding member of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), following the Institute’s close involvement in its early development and broader discussions on corruption in sport. While some international sporting organisations have taken steps to clean up their activities and are implementing new anti-corruption standards, others appear to be backsliding even after making commitments to change outdated and unsound practices.
The Basel Institute, one of the founding members of the Board of the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), participated in this year’s Spring meeting of the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (WEF PACI). The event focused on sharing views on how to rebuild trust and integrity in business and government. PACI’s work is driven by the active participation of its community including the PACI Vanguard Board. Key takeaways included:
Experts of the Basel Institute developed a specialised training on governance of state owned enterprises, anti-corruption prevention and Collective Action for a group of government officials from Uzbekistan.
The programme, which was delivered at the Basel Institute's headquarters in May, was tailored to the requirements of the participants and was based on a combination of theory and best practices with case examples and practical exercises. The participation of a range of internal and external speakers ensured lively exchanges and discussion on specific issues.
The Basel Institute has been a longtime partner of the B20 anti-corruption working groups, and during the German Presidency has actively supported the Responsible Business Conduct and Anti-corruption work of the B20 by contributing to the development of the final recommendations. These were officially handed over to German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in May.
The International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) extends its activities into teaching on an institutional level. As of January 2018, ICCA experts will provide teaching modules on initiating and managing Collective Action for professionals at the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in Laxenburg, Austria.
E-government generally refers to the use of information and communication technologies to transform relations between citizens, businesses and various branches of government, and includes for example; e-procurement, e-customs, e-tax filing and e-sourcing.
The Basel Institute has recently been appointed to facilitate a new sector-specific Collective Action initiative for the banknote industry. Initial collaborative discussions on the process forward for this initiative has been on-going for a couple of months. These discussions have laid the necessary consultative foundations for the initiative to fully take off in 2018.
Published by our project partner the UN Global Compact, Promoting Anti-Corruption Collective Action Through Global Compact Local Networks is now available on our B20 Collective Action Hub.
The Basel Institute has partnered with the UN Global Compact since 2015 in a joint project supported by the Siemens Integrity Initiative to promote awareness and action among Global Compact Local Networks to use Collective Action as a tool for corruption prevention.
Our programme of work in Malawi, led by the International Centre for Asset Recovery with funding support from the UK Department for International Development, has been expanded to complement its original focus on corruption investigations and the recovery of stolen assets with prevention components.
These include assistance with a review of the national anti-corruption strategy, fresh engagements with the private sector and training on research methods and corruption risk assessment strategies.