OECD: New transparency and anti-corruption initiative

OECD announces new transparency and anti-corruption initiative – clean.gov.biz

The OECD is developing a new initiative to improve coordination of anti-corruption and transparency initiatives - first within its member countries, and then with all other relevant players, including governments, international organisations, NGOs and the private sector.

“We are developing a new initiative, clean.gov.biz, that will improve our own anti-corruption tools and reinforce their implementation,” OECD Deputy Secretary-General Richard Boucher said. “We then want to strengthen cooperation with all relevant players to ensure that our instruments complement those of our partners.”

Mr. Boucher discussed the initiative during the March 2-3 meeting of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, hosted at the OECD, underlining how many of its elements complement EITI work. EITI aims to improve natural resource management and reduce corruption by encouraging oil, gas and mining companies to publish the fees, royalties and taxes they pay and commiting governments to transparency about what they receive.

The OECD is at the forefront of global anti-corruption efforts. In 2010, its 34 member countries and leading partners including Brazil and Russia agreed to a Declaration on Propriety, Integrity and Transparency in the Conduct of International Business and Finance. The Declaration is based on OECD instruments including the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Entreprises, which since 1975 set standards for business behavior, and the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, which set out broad rules to guide business conduct.

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention commits 38 signatory governments to establish bribery of foreign public officials as a criminal offence. OECD work on public procurement, public sector integrity, including on lobbying and conflicts of interest, as well as budget transparency is at the core of the reform agenda in a growing number of countries. “Political turmoil in highly corrupted regimes reminds us that citizens around the world will no longer accept corruption as business as usual,” Mr. Boucher said.

The OECD is also actively cooperating with the G20 in the implementation of its Action Plan on Anti-Corruption, which includes initiatives on foreign bribery, asset recovery, international cooperation, protection of whistle blowers, government integrity and public-private partnerships in fighting corruption. It will co-organise with the French Presidency and the support of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime a G20 conference in April 27-28 on “Joining forces against corruption: G20 business and government.”

ENDS

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