Perhaps you couldn’t see a doctor you urgently needed because you were unable or unwilling to offer a bribe. Perhaps you were denied a job because, as a woman, you were excluded from an exclusive, men-only social circle. Perhaps you can no longer eat the fish from your local lake because a company dumped chemicals into the water – and got away with it by paying off an official.
Or perhaps you, like millions of other people around the world, have had another brush with corruption.
Corruption is a complex and resilient problem, and efforts to tackle it need to respond to the realities and challenges that countries face. From passing a new bill to implementing national anti-corruption plans, countries require a set of measures to ensure that schools are built, contracts are awarded in a fairly manner, judicial integrity is upheld, and young people have faith in the future.
However, inadequate laws, weak enforcement mechanisms, lack of political will, limited institutional capacity, economic disparities, and socio-cultural norms all make it challenging for countries to address corruption.
In recent years, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has expanded its presence on the ground to ensure that its expertise and assistance better answer the specific needs of people across the world. Through understanding the intricate challenges each region faces, UNODC can provide support in meeting regions’ anti-corruption commitments.
To realize this vision, UNODC has established nine regional platforms and five anti-corruption hubs.
Regional anti-corruption platforms bring countries from the same region together to identify shared corruption-related challenges and adopt a road map of commitments that focus on these priority areas. Such platforms provide a forum for authorities to share similar experiences at the regional level.
These priorities need to be periodically reassessed to determine whether they have been addressed or remain valid, and to see if new priority areas should be included– such as private sector corruption, asset recovery and others.
One such re-assessment exercise is taking place in Nairobi, Kenya this week – bringing together countries from Eastern Africa to revisit their workplan and chart the way forward.
Regional anti-corruption hubs are managed by our experts who have expertise in the specific corruption challenges prevalent in the region. They design and deliver specific sets of activities that help address the priorities identified by the platforms.
According to World Bank, African economies are projected to grow by 3.4 per cent in 2024. Corruption extracts vital resources from the government budget, citizens and businesses and can hinder economic growth.
Corruption cannot be tackled in isolation. By bringing countries from the same region together, UNODC brings expertise and actors from all sectors of society to the table – capitalizing on human resources and the collective experiences of all countries participating. As with every global challenge, there is a great power in networking, sharing experiences and learning from each other.
Established in 2017, the Eastern Africa platform’s road map included such areas as whistle-blower protection, public procurement, financial investigations and international cooperation. In 2024, countries are looking to renew and update their commitments while learning from the successes they achieved, some of which are outlined below.
When public money is spent openly, fairly and effectively on public contracts, local communities become more equitable, prosperous and sustainable.
In Kenya, one of the examples of empowering local communities is the establishment of the AGPO programme – Access to Government Procurement Opportunities. This programme facilitates the participation of youth, women and persons with disability-owned businesses in government procurement and supports an ambitious goal of 30 per cent of funds being allocated to most vulnerable members of society.
In Uganda, public procurement authorities are often under-resourced and understaffed, making it difficult to effectively oversee numerous contractors in the country’s 100+ districts. The lack of oversight results in abandoned projects, unfulfilled deliverables and significant time and cost overruns.
Through Uganda’s newly established Contract Monitoring System – a digital contract monitoring system – more than 560 monitoring staff, trained by civil society, have examined 345 projects, flagging shortcomings, unsafe working conditions and delays. About half of the projects reviewed are health and education contracts.
These initiatives are led by UNODC's long-term implementing partner, Open Contracting Partnership, and supported by UNODC and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
Whistle-blowers play a vital role in exposing misconduct, corruption and other unethical practices that harm public interest.
Without adequate safeguards, potential whistle-blowers may remain silent due to fear of retaliation, allowing harmful activities to continue unchecked. Protecting whistle-blowers is essential for promoting justice, ethical behaviour and trust in both public and private sectors.
UNODC has been assisting Kenya in drafting and developing a new whistle-blower protection bill. The bill is currently in the adoption process.
UNODC works with stakeholders from all sectors of society to reduce corruption in all areas of daily life, including education, sports, health, climate change and the environment, asset recovery, business and judicial integrity.
Learn more about UNODC’s anti-corruption work:
https://www.unodc.org/corruption