United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Central America and the Caribbean

UNODC facilitates the "Regional Workshop for the Development and Implementation of Institutional, Sectoral or National Anticorruption Strategies"

From 12 to 13 June 2018, the Regional Anticorruption Academy for Central America and the Caribbean (ARAC) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), with the support of the Government of Canada, facilitated the "Regional Workshop for the Development and Implementation of Institutional, Sectoral or National Anticorruption Strategies ", in Panama City, Panama.

Article 5 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) imposes general requirements that each State party: (a) develop and implement or maintain effective, coordinated anti-corruption policies; (b) establish and promote effective practices aimed at the prevention of corruption; and (c) periodically evaluate relevant legal instruments and administrative measures with a view to determining their adequacy to prevent and fight corruption.

For many countries, achieving the objective of article 5 of the Convention may entail the drafting, publication and implementation of a national anti-corruption strategy; in other words, a blueprint for a realistic, comprehensive and integrated plan for reducing corruption in that country. A formal, written strategy is by no means required for compliance with articles 5 and 6. States parties can maintain effective, coordinated anti-corruption policies without promulgating a strategy document.

To date, UNODC has identified over seventy (70) countries that have issued either a single national anti-corruption strategy or a set of documents that together constitute a comprehensive, coordinated anti-corruption framework.

The objective of the workshop was to transmit a methodology for the design, implementation and monitoring of national or institutional anti-corruption strategies for Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

In this sense, the delegations of each country had the opportunity to identify national challenges and priorities in the prevention and fight against corruption, based on previous procedures such as the Implementation Review Mechanism of the UNCAC. Furthermore, experiences and good practices related to ethics and transparency were shared amongst participants.

The workshop was conducted by Ms. Virginia de Abajo Marqués, Regional Anticorruption Adviser of UNODC, with the support of Ms. Cristina Ritter, Legal Expert and Ms. Debra Rodríguez, Assistant to the Anti-Corruption Programme.