The 18Th International Anti-Corruption Conference (DK0062)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: Corruption limits the possibilities of democratic and economic development. It distorts the political process and limits citizens’ democratic rights, reduces ac-cess to and the quality of public services, makes public procurement more ex-pensive, results in fewer collected taxes and duties, complicates conditions for private businesses, undermines the enforcement of law and order and, at worst, creates conditions for unrest, radicalisation and civil war.; What is the commit-ment?: In 2018, Denmark will host the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference, organised in close cooperation with Transparency International. As part of the conference a high-level segment will be organized with ministry-level members from around 20 donor countries and developing countries. The objective of the high-level segment is to strengthen common efforts and facilitate concrete anti-corruption initiatives with operational follow-up mechanisms, including initiatives within the area of public-sector transparency.; The high-level segment is expected to lead to a set of specific initiatives for combating corruption for each of the participating countries. The initiatives will be supported by a follow-up mechanism to ensure that the responsible governments actually follow-up on the initiatives. Civil society is expected to play a central role in the follow-up process.; Why is this com-mitment relevant to OGP values?: Corruption often takes place beneath the surface. All else being equal, openness and transparency will limit the possibilities for those in power to abuse entrusted power for their own benefit. Access to knowledge and information will permit civil society organisations to serve as watchdogs of public institutions and those in power. Among the initiatives that the high-level segment countries are expected to be involved in, some will naturally deal with transparency and openness: e.g. re-garding information about actual owners of businesses and transparency of tax advice. Subsequently, civil society will be expected to play a key role in following up on whether the parties deliver on the initiatives in practice.; Additional infor-mation: The work on anti-corruption will play a central role in ‘Verden 2030’ (The World 2030) – which is Denmark’s development policy and humanitarian strategy. The strategy comprises anti-corruption in relation to Sustainable Development Goal 16 as a general theme for Danish development policy and as a foundation for delivering on all other goals. In the Government’s action plan for the Sustainable Development Goals, the Government has committed to a goal of maintaining Denmark’s position as one of the world’s least corrupt countries as measured on Transparency Internation-al’s Corruption Perception Index.;

Commitment 13: The 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

"In 2018, Denmark will host the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference, organised in close cooperation with Transparency International. As part of the conference a high-level segment will be organised with ministry-level members from around 20 donor countries and developing countries. The objective of the high-level segment is to strengthen common efforts and facilitate concrete anticorruption initiatives with operational follow-up mechanisms, including initiatives within the area of public-sector transparency."

Milestones:

13.1 Specific initiatives to combat corruption from 15-20 countries.

Start Date: 25 September 2017

End Date: 22 October 2018

Editorial note: For the full text of this commitment, see "The Danish OGP National Action Plan 2017–2019," Danish Agency for Digitisation, https://en.digst.dk/policy-and-strategy/open-government/open-government-partnership-ogp-action-plan/, pp. 28–29.

Context and Objectives

This commitment sought to organise a high-level segment at the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Copenhagen (IACC) (October 2018) to facilitate worldwide anti-corruption initiatives. The commitment addresses corruption and its effects on democratic and economic development. Such effects include the overall political process, democratic rights, public service quality, procurement, taxes, the business environment, law and order, and potentially radicalisation and civil war. A global forum established in 1983, the IACC brings together heads of state, civil society, the private sector, and others to tackle corruption challenges. The conference usually takes place every two years in different regions of the world.^{[Note : "About the IACC Series," International Anti-Corruption Conference, https://iaccseries.org/about. ]} The IACC was co-organised by Transparency International, a representative of civil society that acts as secretariat to the IACC Council.

This commitment proposed a high-level segment of the IACC in which leaders will create a set of initiatives to combat corruption in a variety of countries. A follow-up high-level segment is expected for the next IACC, to be held in the Republic of Korea in 2020. That session would sum up the implementation of initiatives announced in 2018. Civil society is expected to play a key role in the oversight of this implementation. The commitment does not describe in detail, however, how this oversight will take place.

The commitment intends to promote access to information and access to knowledge (on topics such as business ownership and transparency on tax advice). Thus, it will enable civil society organisations to be watchdogs over public institutions, and it will bolster public accountability. In addition, civil society is expected to be consulted on implementation of the initiatives, thereby strengthening civic participation. Overall, while the topics explored at the IACC are relevant to open government, this commitment is not directly relevant to OGP values because the IACC conference is organised as a regularly occurring event.

The commitment is verifiable. The IACC was a tangible conference with specific dates. The declaration from the high-level segment and its country initiatives can be found online.^{[Note : "The Copenhagen Declaration for Peace, Security, and Development," Corruption Watch, 26 October 2018, https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/the-copenhagen-declaration-for-peace-security-and-development/. ]} However, the commitment's objectives are somewhat vague (e.g., "to strengthen common efforts"), as is its milestone on "specific initiatives."

This commitment could potentially have a transformative anti-corruption impact, given the variety of OGP values that could be addressed by several countries. However, due to the relative lack of specificity regarding implementation mechanisms, and the regularly occurring nature of the IACC, the IRM researcher has categorised its potential impact as minor. Ultimately, the commitment's success will depend on governments' willingness to pursue implementation and the space available for civil society to keep them accountable. Those factors will be analysed in the IRM implementation report.

Next steps

The IRM researcher recommends the following:

· Use the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) statement as the basis for a follow-up commitment in the next action plan, to track implementation.

· Build on Denmark's national statement from the IACC and draft a commitment around its promise to play a more active role in preventing money laundering through the Financial Action Task Force.

· Invite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to share lessons learned from the IACC at the next multi-stakeholder forum and tips on designing an OGP action plan commitment with an international scope.

13. The 18^th International Anti-Corruption Conference

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

“In 2018, Denmark will host the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference, organised in close cooperation with Transparency International. As part of the conference a high-level segment will be organised with ministry-level members from around 20 donor countries and developing countries. The objective of the high-level segment is to strengthen common efforts and facilitate concrete anticorruption initiatives with operational follow-up mechanisms, including initiatives within the area of public-sector transparency.”

Milestones:

13.1 Specific initiatives to combat corruption from 15-20 countries.

Start Date: 25 September 2017

End Date: 22 October 2018

Editorial note: For the full text of this commitment, see “The Danish OGP National Action Plan 2017–2019,” Danish Agency for Digitisation, pp. 28–29, https://en.digst.dk/policy-and-strategy/open-government/open-government-partnership-ogp-action-plan/.

This commitment sought to organize a high-level segment at the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), held in Copenhagen (October 2018), that would create a set of initiatives to combat corruption in various countries. A follow-up high-level segment is expected for the next IACC, to be held in the Republic of Korea in 2020, which will discuss the implementation of the initiatives from 2018. Civil society was expected to play a key role in the oversight of their implementation, but the commitment did not describe in detail how this oversight would take place. [51]

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Transparency International collaborated to implement the IACC conference over course of three days in October 2018. Per the commitment’s only milestone, the conference culminated in a common declaration from the high-level segment, with individual action plans from 19 countries and 12 international organizations. [52] Therefore, the commitment has been fully completed according to its description in the action plan.

Work is ongoing to ensure proper follow-up to the individual action plans that resulted from it. This follow-up monitoring will be conducted through a tracking mechanism for national and multi-lateral commitments made during the IACC. At the time of writing this report, Transparency International is developing the tracking mechanism, and it is set to be finalized before the next IACC conference in Seoul in 2020. [53]

This commitment revolved around a recurrent global event—the IACC—that addresses anti-corruption both nationally and internationally. While not part of the commitment’s milestones, the subsequent tracking mechanism constitutes a potential for civil society to hold Danish duty-bearers accountable against the commitments. However, the specifics of such a mechanism are still unclear.

[51] “Denmark Design Report 2017–2019”, Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Denmark_Design-Report_2017-2019_EN.pdf.

[52] For the Danish Action Plan see: “Danish National Statement: Presented at the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC)”, IACC, 22 October 2018, accessed 15 November 2019, https://iaccseries.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Denmark_National_Statement_2018.pdf.

[53] Marina-Buch Cristensen, interview with IRM researcher, 19 November 2019.