22 June 2017 - In many countries around the world, corruption hinders efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to human rights violations, distorts markets, erodes quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish.
To strengthen the already strong cooperation with civil society in efforts to fight corruption in all its forms, UNODC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UNCAC Coalition on 22 June 2017, on the same day of the NGO briefing on the margins of the Eighth Session of the Implementation Review Group, in Vienna. The MoU, the first of its kind with UNCAC Coalition, a global network of over 350 civil society organizations (CSOs), formalized the partnership between the two organizations to promote the ratification, implementation and monitoring of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
The signing of the memorandum came after eleven years of strategic engagement with the UNCAC Coalition, in an effort to promote the UNCAC, the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument and to facilitate dialogue between CSOs and Member States to ensure constructive implementation of the Convention.
Mr. Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Director of the Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs signed the MoU on behalf of UNODC whilst Mr. Manzoor Hasan, Chair of the UNCAC Coalition, Barrister-at-Law and Executive Director, Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University, signed on behalf of the UNCAC Coalition. Stressing the importance of the MoU, Mr. Hasan said that it is his "great honor to finally see the cooperation between UNODC and the UNCAC Coalition formalized".
UNCAC Coalition is governed by a Coordination Committee of twelve members, elected for a term of two years. In April 2017, elections were held and new Coordination Committee members assumed their positions. The secretariat for the Coalition is provided by Transparency International, one of its founding members.
The signing ceremony in Vienna reinforced the message that effective anti-corruption work demands efforts not only from governments, but also from civil society organisations, the private sector and the greater public. In fact, the need for participation of civil society and the importance of access to information are explicitly recognised in Article 13 of the UNCAC.