UNODC and CGU discuss new partnership to fight corruption

Brasilia, August 17, 2020 - Representatives of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU) held a videoconference last Friday (14) to identify national priorities in the fight against corruption and discuss partnership and cooperation between the two institutions.

The meeting was attended by the Country Director of UNODC's Liaison and Partnership Office in Brazil, Elena Abbati, the coordinator of UNODC's Rule of Law Unit, Nivio Nascimento, the specialist in Public Security, Criminal Justice and Compliance, Eduardo Pazinato; the Minister of Comptroller General (CGU), Wagner Rosário, the head of international advisory, Camila Colares, and the Minister's advisor, Silvio Oliveira da Silva.

Elena Abbati highlighted the historic partnership between UNODC and CGU, which began in 2005 with the holding of the IV Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and continued in later years with the creation of the 'Virtual Library on Corruption', the implementation of the 'Living Eye on Public Money Program', the strengthening of access to the 'Transparency Portal' which is an internationally awarded initiative of the Brazilian government. She also complimented the work performed by CGU in the fight against corruption and expressed UNODC's interest in strengthening the partnership.

Wagner Rosário praised the work developed by UNODC around the world and informed that the CGU is in the process of elaborating an 'anti-corruption diagnosis' that deals with prevention, detection and sanction aspects. "The idea is that the study will be able to identify areas that need improvement and, consequently, formulate an action plan to solve the identified problems".

During the meeting, common areas of interest were identified, such as actions to prevent and combat corruption, research on corruption, youth and advocacy.

The director of UNODC welcomed the perspectives of working together in the areas of prevention and fight against corruption; she recalled that UNODC is the guardian of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and praised the perspective of working together with the CGU in projects of interest to both institutions.

About the UNCAC

Since 1996, corruption has become an issue of interest to the most different countries which, in a regional way, have initiated processes of joint action agreements in this field. However, the first conventions signed did not cover all regions of the world, leaving aside a large part of the countries of Asia and the Middle East. Thus, the international community expressed its interest in devising a truly global agreement capable of preventing and combating corruption in all its forms. Thus the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was born, of which the UNODC is the guardian.

UNCAC is the only legally binding universal anti-corruption tool and is a unique resource to develop a comprehensive response to a global problem. The convention is composed of 71 articles, divided into 8 chapters that deal with prevention, penalisation, asset recovery and international cooperation. These chapters require legislative adaptations and/or concomitant actions to apply the convention to each country.

The UNCAC original text in English is available here.

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