Vienna (Austria) – 21 April 2023 – Corruption continues to hinder sustainable development, imposing significant costs on businesses and deterring investment, while limiting competition. As reported by the World Economic Forum, corruption costs the global economy $2.6 trillion annually. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these challenges by disrupting supply chains and creating new corruption risks for many companies, making it crucial for businesses to maintain ethical practices and prevent corruption. At the same time, the PwC's Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2022 shared that around 46 per cent of companies with more than $10 billion in revenue experienced fraud, corruption or other types of economic crime. Collective action is required from all sectors, including the public sector, the private sector, civil society, and academia to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to prevent and counter corruption. According to the United Nations Global Compact, companies that engage in Collective Action against corruption are three times more likely to have effective anti-corruption programmes. Furthermore, preventing economic crimes requires continuous focus on polices, training, and internal controls, as well as the use of advanced technology. By working together, various stakeholders, including representatives of public and private sectors, academia and civil society, can increase their impact and address the corruption issues.
Diving into corruption risk assessment
The importance of businesses understanding the risks they face when it comes to preventing and countering corruption was highlighted today during a global webinar, jointly organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Global Compact Academy. ‘A Deep Dive Session: Assessing the risk of corruption to your business’ was held as part of a Global Webinar Series on business integrity co-organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Global Compact Academy. The series aims to provide a space for interaction, dialogue, and knowledge-sharing on good practices, current challenges, and effective approaches in business integrity, to encourage peer-to-peer learning, the sharing of lessons learned in an easily accessible manner, and contributing to a structured and inclusive global dialogue on business integrity.
More than 550 participants attended the interactive event in English with French, Portuguese and Spanish interpretation, including business practitioners from corporate organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), donor partners, and other stakeholders. The aim of this latest session was to teach participants how to use corruption risk assessments to identify corruption vulnerabilities within their operations and develop efficient, cost-effective strategies to mitigate those vulnerabilities or risks.
Mona Salem, Regional Project Coordinator, Anti-Corruption at UNODC led the Deep Dive Session, which delved into several topics inspired by the United Nations Global Compact Management Model and the UNODC practical guide for businesses on Anti-Corruption Ethics and Compliance Programme for Business. The session aimed to strengthen anti-corruption efforts in businesses and covered important areas such as maintaining business integrity during crises, conducting corruption risk assessments, and implementing effective whistle-blower practices.
Cristina Ritter, Head of Governance and Anti-corruption at UN Global Compact highlighted the crucial need to identify influential factors, corruption risks, and schemes. She emphasized the importance for companies to start with smaller victories and quick wins in addressing corruption risks within their organization. However, it's not enough to work alone. Christina Ritter stressed the significance of finding other companies that are undergoing similar experiences and processes, and coming together to combat corruption. Through collective action, companies can exponentially increase their impact and drive meaningful change in the fight against corruption.
The session provided an overview of corruption risk assessments in the private sector, including its benefits and challenges. During the Deep Dive Session, Thuzar Win, Executive Director at Alpha Power Engineering Company Limited together with Qusay Salama, Co-Founder at Plus Onefeatured examples on the impact of a risk-based approach for any anti-corruption programmes within businesses. Ms. Win emphasized the role of employees in corruption risk assessments who were fully involved in the process by mentioning her own experience of developing and implementing a code of conduct in the Myanmar context. “It was not an easy task: it took a lot of time and effort to clearly define and identify the operational risks. However, the positive outcomes were evident in fruitful results,” she noted. Qusay Salama, meanwhile, referred to examples of Egyptian companies and their experiences with risk assessments. According to Mr. Salama, risk assessment is a continuous process, where management, together with employees and other stakeholders, embarks on a journey to undertake it. Mr. Salama noted that completing the risk assessment process, organizations can evaluate its impact by gathering feedback from employees and other actors. Collective action can also help to achieve better compliance.
Through the webinar series, UNODC aims to unite businesses against corruption and to provide a space for dialogue and learning. UNODC has also been working with key partners and stakeholders through its business integrity projects to strengthen legal frameworks, public-private dialogue, and private sector capacity to enhance integrity.
Participants highlighted that the Deep Dive Session was informative and impactful. By attending the session, private sector representatives learned about the risks and challenges that corruption presents, the ways in which these can be identified and mitigated, and how small and medium-sized businesses can adapt risk assessment processes to their situation. By working together, businesses can create a more sustainable and corruption-free business environment.