ECUADOR AND URUGUAY HOLD NATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION WORKSHOPS

The National Secretary for Anticorruption, Alfredo Vera, inaugurates Ecuador’s workshop

Ecuador and Uruguay recently held national workshops in which representatives from government, civil society and the private sector came together to review and improve a national Anti-Corruption Plan of Action.  The workshops, held in Quito on May 6 & 7 and in Montevideo on May 15 & 16, are a component of an OAS technical cooperation program which supports states in the creation of a detailed roadmap for implementing the recommendations made by the Committee of Experts of the Mechanism for Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC).  The next step in the process will be to incorporate the input from the workshops and finalize the respective Plans of Action. 

Each Plan of Action includes the following elements: 

• Specific actions necessary to implement the recommendations of the MESICIC Committee of Experts.

• Institution or entity responsible for implementation.

• Estimated costs and resources needed.

• Time frame for execution.

• Indicators that measure the expected results and means of verification.  

OAS Secretary for Legal Affairs, Jean-Michel Arrighi (left) and Vice President of Uruguay’s Advisory Board of Economic and Financial Issues, Adolfo Pérez Piera, during the opening session.

To date, six other countries have drafted a Plan of Action and held the corresponding national workshops: Peru, Honduras, Colombia, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Argentina. 

To read more about the Plan of Action initiative and access related documents click here.

PRESENTATION OF INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION AGAINST CORRUPTION AT WORLD BANK

As part of the World Bank’s Governance and Corruption Series of talks, the OAS made a presentation on the Inter-American Convention against Corruption and its Follow-up Mechanism (MESICIC) on May 7 at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.  The goal of the presentation, made by Rodrigo Silva from the OAS Department of Legal Cooperation, was to help the Latin American and Caribbean division of the World Bank better understand the Convention.  The presentation was followed by a question and answer session, as well as a discussion on possible ways to implement the Convention provisions through World Bank initiatives.