OAS CONFERENCE IN PERU LAUDS HEMISPHERIC ADVANCES IN THE COOPERATION AGAINST CORRUPTION IN THE AMERICAS

“Cooperation against corruption claims a significant place in our collective agenda. And it claims this place in the OAS’ agenda because, with corruption, there cannot be real democracy.” Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Isulza, delivered these remarks at the inception of the OAS’ “Conference on the Progress and Challenges in Hemispheric Cooperation against Corruption”, an event held on June 3rd and 4th, 2010 in Lima, Peru, under the auspices of the General Secretariat of the OAS.

He went on to comment on inter-American efforts at increasing transparency in financing political parties and campaigns and regional military spending, in addition to mentioning the malicious social and economic effects that corruption unleashes on society. Insulza believes that corruption “affects social and economic development. There are already many studies which prove that the main victims are the poor, and that the more corruption there is in a country, the less investment and growth there will be.”

After introductory remarks from the Secretary General of the OAS, the Peruvian President of the Council of Ministers, Javier Velásquez, and the OAS’ Secretary for Legal Affairs, Dr. Jean Michel Arrighi, conference attendees were able to hear a number of presentations from experts in government, civil society, and academia –all of which came from diverse countries in the Americas. The topics varied, including best practices in: systems for hiring public servants, increasing access to information, protecting whistleblowers, and technological tools for increasing transparency in hiring public workers, to name a few.

The conference ended with concluding remarks by Secretary General Insulza, the Peruvian Health Minister Dr. Óscar Ugarte, and the Attorney General of Peru, Gladys Margot Echaiz Ramos.

This event marks a crucial stage in the technical cooperation program that, with the financial support of the Governments of the United States, Canada and Spain, has been developed by the Department of Legal Cooperation under the Secretariat for Legal Affairs of the OAS to support the Member States to the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) in the implementation of the recommendations formulated by the Committee of Experts. This has been carried out through the adoption of national plans of action, which were created with the full participation of the public sector and civil society, for the implementation of said recommendations.

For more information on the Conference and on the OAS’ efforts to support hemispheric cooperation against corruption, please direct yourself to the Anticorruption Portal of the Americas. 

What is the MESICIC?

The Mechanism For Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, known as MESICIC for its Spanish acronym, is a tool to support the development of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption through cooperation between States Parties.

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