Vienna (Austria), 13 July 2020 - The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has launched four projects to strengthen business integrity across 11 countries in Latin America, South East Asia, the Middle-East, North and East Africa. A key sector addressed by these projects is the healthcare industry, which, not least due to the current public health emergency, plays an important role in the project countries.
In Kenya, Mexico and Pakistan, the Global Integrity Education (GIE) project of UNODC brings together business and academia to develop and implement an innovative integrity education programme in companies and universities.
Academics and private sector practitioners work together to contextualize modules on anti-corruption, integrity and ethics that UNODC developed under the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative. The academics and practitioners are enriching the global modules with local case studies of actual integrity challenges and corruption risks in specific industries, including the healthcare industry.
Lecturers are being trained by UNODC to teach the contextualized modules, which they will teach in final-year university courses during the following academic year. The ultimate goal of this project is to foster ethical decision-making in the target industries by equipping young graduates with ethical mindsets and skills necessary for overcoming ethical challenges in their future workplace.
In Colombia, Myanmar and in the Middle-East and North Africa, UNODC implements country and regional projects that create spaces for policy-makers and business representatives to build trust, exchange perspectives, discuss public-private partnerships and joint actions to improve integrity and safeguard public procurement from corruption.
Through sector specific and mixed task forces, laws and regulations are reviewed, company compliance systems analyzed and improved, and trustful relationships built among the different actors. Collective action strategies are employed to prevent corruption and the misuse of public funds, including in the healthcare industry, thus ensuring high quality health-care systems for the benefit of all.
The GIE project and the projects in Colombia, Myanmar and Middle-East and North Africa are funded by Siemens as part of the third funding round of the Siemens Integrity Initiative. The projects were launched in late 2019/early 2020 and have a total budget of US$ 5.3 million. The projects promote the implementation of article 12 of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which emphasizes the crucial role of the private sector in preventing and fighting corruption, as well as article 13, which underlines the importance of education programmes that contribute to non-tolerance of corruption. The projects are dynamic and grounded in the evolving realities and have thus been able to quickly adapt and respond to COVID-19 related challenges and demands.
Through their strategic partnership, UNODC and Siemens join forces to help companies promote integrity and level the playing field for a fair and transparent economic environment.
UNODC Myanmar project with Siemens funding: Private sector anti-corruption
UNODC Regional project in the Middle East and North Africa with Siemens funding: Private sector anti-corruption
UNODC Colombia project with Siemens funding: Private sector anti-corruption
UNODC Global Integrity Education project with Siemens funding: Implemented in Pakistan, Kenya and Mexico, and celebrated at Special Event of the Eight Conference of the States Parties to UNCAC
UNODC’s Education for Justice (E4J) initiative
UNODC’s Corruption and Economic Crime Branch
UNODC's Action against Corruption and Economic Crime
UNODC Virtual Booth and Executive Director’s participation in Business Leaders’ Summit of UN Global Compact
Building Business Integrity in Kenya: Live Session During the UN Global Compact Summit
“Fifteen Years of UNODC Fighting Corruption with the Private Sector”: Interview with Giovanni Gallo, Chief of Implementation Support Section of UNODC’s Corruption and Economic Crime Branch
