IACA's two well-attended side events at the Seventh Session of the Conference of the States Parties (COSP) to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) brought together expert global speakers, who provided key insights on anti-corruption compliance and collective action and cybercrime to Conference delegates.
With a panel of professionals from diverse sectors, IACA on Wednesday 8 November hosted a discussion on current trends and challenges in compliance and collective action. Some of the key issues covered by panellists included the need for NGO-specific compliance programmes and how sharing best practices can support civil society actors and enhance compliance culture, and the potential to leverage inter-agency cooperation in the public sector to support collective action. Speakers also emphasized the importance of management culture in addition to policy frameworks in ensuring compliance.
Panel members were Gemma Aiolfi (Basel Institute on Governance), Heike Böhme (SOS Children's Villages International), Caroline Nicholas (United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, UNCITRAL Secretariat) and Sabine Zindera (Siemens AG), as well as the main discussant, Navin Beekarry (Independent Commission Against Corruption, Republic of Mauritius).
The second side event, organized by IACA and INTERPOL and held on Thursday 9 November, covered corruption and economic crime in cyberspace. Speakers looked at the use of cyberspace for financial fraud, corruption, and moneylaundering, new actors, forms, and compliance challenges arising out of e-money and alternative payment methods, and international cooperation and initiatives to build a stringent cybersecurity framework to counter corruption and other economic crimes in cyberspace. Expert panel members were Sebastian Bley (INTERPOL General Secretariat), Eduard Ivanov (IACA), Oliver Völkel (Stadler Völkel Rechtsanwälte GmbH) and Joachim Wenz (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
The bi-annual Conference of the States Parties to the UNCAC concludes on Friday 10 November, and Resolutions and related documentation will be published here.