Public integrity is a cornerstone of good governance and sustainable development. It fosters trust between governments and citizens, supports fair and inclusive economic growth, and enhances the quality and efficiency of public service delivery. On the contrary, the lack of integrity in public decision-making, in the form of corruption or other unethical practices, has generally corrosive effects It impedes the effective delivery of public services and use of limited public funds, threatens inclusive growth, perpetuates inequality and poverty, allows organised crime to operate, can exacerbate political polarisation and undermines democracy and public trust in governments. Investing in public integrity is therefore a condition for ensuring impact across several policy objectives and to regain people’s trust. In infrastructure management, promoting integrity at each stage of the life cycle is crucial to countering corruption risks. In turn, artificial intelligence is started to being used to improve integrity policies by some countries in Latin America but comes along with its own challenges.
The LAC Action Plan Integrity for Good Governance, launched in 2018, provides strategic guidance to advance in building a culture of integrity in the LAC region. Over the past decade, countries in the region have developed several public integrity instruments –anti-corruption regulations, strategies, co-ordination mechanisms, integrity plans, manuals and guides, etc.– that are based on OECD standards, shifting the discussion from ‘fighting corruption’ to ‘promoting a culture of public integrity’. Yet, the OECD Public Integrity Indicators show that the gap between countries’ legal and regulatory frameworks and their implementation in practice, is high in the region, often preventing from achieving the desired impacts. This session will allow countries to provide a stocktaking on the implementation of the LAC Action Plan, share good practices and identify where further collective and national efforts should be led, benefiting all countries involved.
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