Brasilia, 26 November 2021 - The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) held the third of six Technical Dialogues entitled "good practices of integrity in public procurement and protection of the reporter in the post-Covid-19 health sector". 

The event, held on 25 November, addressed "Integrity and transparency in public procurement beyond COVID-19: best national and international practices" and included the participation of the Office of the Comptroller General of Brazil (CGU) and the Global Compact Network Brazil.

The series of Technical Dialogues is an initiative of the global project, launched by UNODC HQ "ensuring effective responses to COVID-19 and future emerging crises through transnational programmes on transparency and integrity in public procurement, whistleblower protection and oversight mechanisms in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa and Timor-Leste", with funding from the Bureau of International Law Enforcement and Narcotics of the U.S. Department of State (INL/USA).

The project assists countries in their pursuit of better response and recovery from COVID-19, as well as future emergency crises, with a focus on promoting transparency and integrity in public procurement, especially in the area of health, and strengthening protection for reporters.

The initiative takes place in the framework of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) of which UNODC is the guardian.

The third edition of the Technical Dialogues series had the presence of the Minister of CGU, Wagner Rosário; the head of the Corruption and Economic Crimes Area of UNODC HQ, Giovanni Gallo; the executive director of the Global Compact Network Brazil, Carlo Pereira; the Public Security and Integrity Specialist of UNODC Brazil, Eduardo Pazinato; and the project officer of UNODC Brazil, Chantal Castro.

Wagner Rosário spoke about integrity and transparency in public procurement in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and explained how CGU works to bring more security in Federal Government procurement through risk analysis and the implementation of a spending monitoring panel.

Minister Wagner Rosário highlighted the measures recently adopted for the implementation of public procurement processes, such as the presentation of an annual hiring plan, the alignment of hiring with the body's strategic plan, preliminary technical studies and the requirement for integrity programmes. Another major advance, according to the minister, was the approval of the National Portal for Public Procurement, which launches the great challenge of unifying the purchases of the public powers in all spheres. "This will be a great tool to support the fight against corruption and we are already working to enable its implementation," he said.

Giovanni Gallo mentioned the survey conducted by UNODC with various anti-corruption agencies at the global level to understand what measures were being taken to monitor the allocation of the billion-dollar resources used in response to the pandemic. Public procurement of equipment and medicinal products by member states was identified as a No. 1 corruption risk, which is why UNODC developed the Covid-19 global anti-corruption response and recovery project.

According to Carlo Pereira, the application of good integrity practices in public procurement contributes to the efficiency of public spending and the legal certainty of the acts performed. The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) requires its member states to adopt appropriate measures to combat the risks of corruption, including transparent contracting with clear objectives and prior assessment of risks and vulnerabilities, which also applies to companies. Moreover, the strengthening of complaint channels and the protection of the reporter is something critical in Brazil, "we need increasingly effective mechanisms for the protection of reporters. It is for no other reason that this protection has an importance enshrined in the UNCAC", he stated.

At the end of the meeting, UNODC presented the Portuguese version of the UNODC publication Corruption and COVID-19: challenges in crisis response and recovery, which presents a variety of concrete actions that Member States can take in the short, medium and long term to recover and respond to COVID-19.

To learn more about upcoming editions of the Technical Dialogues series, visit https://integridadeposcovid.com.br/.