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The 2015

Seoul Debates

Lessons Learnt on Anti-Corruption from Korea and Around the World

29-30 January 2015, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Meeting Report

The 2015 Seoul Debates

UNDP Seoul Policy Centre

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Donor partner: This meeting has been possible because of the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, to the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this handbook are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or their Member States. UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations.



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Table of Contents

I. Executive Summary 5

II. Main Takeaways 11

III. Meeting Notes & Session Summary 21

Opening Day (Day 1) 22

Opening Speeches 22

Session 1: High-Level Political Dialogue: Lessons Learnt from Anti-Corruption Institutions

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Session 2: The International Anti-Corruption Regime and Lessons Learnt From Development Cooperation in Anti-Corruption

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Session 3: Progresses and Challenges in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries

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Session 4: Innovations in Anti-Corruption 31

Day 1: Closing Remarks 33

Expert Group Meeting (Day 2) 34

Session 1: In-depth Analysis on Anti-Corruption Experiences and Lessons Learnt from Korea: Panel Discussion

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Session 2: Lessons Learnt in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries 38

Session 3: Applying Good Practices for Tackling Corruption in Developing Countries: Challenges and Recommendations

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Session 4: Working Group Discussions for Designing a Roadmap on Anti-Corruption Development Solutions

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Day 2: Closing Remarks 43

IV. Feedback from Participants 45



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V. Annexes 49

1. Concept Note & Programme 51

2. Participant List 63



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Executive

Summary



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Executive Summary

The 2015 Seoul Debates, held on 29-30 January 2015 in Seoul, Republic of Korea, with some 80 participants from Korea and other countries around the world, provided a forum to identify innovative practices and consolidate lessons learnt in tackling corruption. The 2015 Seoul Debates meeting was organized by UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC), in partnership with the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC), with technical support from UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN), the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub for Asia and the Pacific and the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence in Singapore (GCPSE).

Government partners, UNDP practitioners, civil society experts and researchers had lively and candid discussions on policies, strategies and institutional arrangements to prevent corruption in the public sector using Korea’s experience as well as experiences from several countries around the world as references. The meeting also gave Korean and international experts a networking opportunity to build partnerships for future collaboration. The 2015 Seoul Debates was organized as part of USPC’s Development Solutions Partnership (DSP) on anti-corruption. This new approach for USPC aims to connect Korea with the wider UNDP network as a knowledge broker and facilitator, enhancing the Korea-UNDP partnership on strategic development issues. The DSP on anti-corruption is designed to facilitate knowledge-sharing and South-South/triangular cooperation for more effective development cooperation, utilizing Korea’s experiences and innovative tools.

“From our own experiences, we understand the twists and turns as well as the practical realities in fighting corruption,” said H.E. Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of Korea in his congratulatory remarks. “As such, we possess unique know-how and seasoned insights to share with developing countries,” he added, mentioning that Korea wished to share the country’s lessons learnt over the past 50 years with other countries.

“Poor governance and entrenched systems of corruption remain a major challenge for human development. Globally the cost of corruption equals more than 5 per cent of global GDP. Almost $1

trillion is paid in bribes each year according to the World Bank.”

– Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Director of UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific

“It is important to prevent corruption practices by determining environments and factors that

cause corruption and addressing them in advance instead of detecting the cases afterwards.”

– Ms. Jin-Young Kwak, Vice-Chairperson of Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea

“From our own experiences, Korea understands the twists and turns as well as the practical

realities in fighting corruption. As such, we possess unique know-how and seasoned insights to share with developing countries.”

– H.E. Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral & Global Affairs of Korea



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Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific of UNDP, echoed this view: “I believe that putting in perspective Korea’s experience with other countries will be a great occasion to draw lessons on how anti-corruption can be promoted as part of a wider development agenda,” he said. The main corruption challenges that Korea faced during its rapid development and the ways of overcoming them were put up for discussion by practitioners and academics as well as experts from a number of Korean institutions, such as the Korea Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, the Board of Audit, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the Korea Institute for Public Administration and Transparency International Korea. Detailing Korea’s experience in fighting corruption, Ms. Jin-Young Kwak, Vice Chair of ACRC, highlighted the importance of prevention: “In order to improve the effectiveness of anti-corruption policy, it is important to prevent corruption practices by determining environments and factors that cause corruption and addressing them in advance instead of detecting the cases afterwards.” She explained how strong will from politicians and the public had prompted the introduction of a range of legal and policy measures such as integrity assessments to evaluate corruption levels in public services, laws to protect whistle-blowers as well as bills to target nepotism and solicitation practices, and fraud in public finances. International participants found Korea’s case particularly interesting because of its history of rapid economic and social development despite having to endure manifold governance challenges including corruption. Anti-corruption tools developed in Korea also attracted attention. Besides ACRC’s integrity assessment, which is conducted by over 600 public organizations in Korea and is also being applied in several countries including Bhutan, this was also the case of the electronic subcontract payment system for transparent public infrastructure projects of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Participants in the 2015 Seoul Debates also shared lessons and examples from other countries – Bhutan, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam – as well as perspectives of various international organizations including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as international civil society organizations such as Transparency International and Global Integrity. Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) emphasized that corruption can compromise anyone, even in advanced economies such as Singapore today. He also shared how, after gaining independence in 1964, his country started its battle against corruption as a necessary means to attract investment for national survival. “The political leaders thought that we could not survive if we still had corruption among us, so political will is one of the key factors that led to our success,” he noted. He also stressed the importance of strong anti-corruption systems with independent enforcement agencies, in order to maintain the political will across generations. Participants also noted the increasing opportunities to strengthen country level anti-corruption efforts through various international mechanisms and networks for utilization by practitioners. The importance of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was stressed as a tool for opening up the space for dialogue at the national level to build country-level commitment and capacity to fight corruption, also helped by the review mechanism that was put in place in 2009.

The need for striking an appropriate balance between prosecution and prevention was also highlighted. Practitioners noted that anti-corruption strategies are most effective when both prevention and prosecution are well-incorporated and balanced in a country’s anti-corruption efforts. In addition, political independence in prosecution, institutionalised coordination among



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all relevant public institutions, as well as adequate and predictable budget allocation for anti-corruption agencies were stressed as key.

Discussions also affirmed the importance of understanding the political economy of corruption, e.g. the multi-dimensional nature of corruption and its functionality in the broader governance environment. Understanding the actual function of corruption and patronage, regarding a country’s drivers of conflict of interest, makes it possible to formulate appropriate steps to replace that function with something productive, rather than replacing one form of corruption with another.

It was also stressed that anti-corruption measures need to be mainstreamed, institutionalized and owned by society in total, rather than seen as the responsibility of an ‘anti-corruption’ institution only. The Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bhutan, Ms. Neten Zangmo, stressed that other bodies must have anti-corruption as part of their agenda and specifically suggested that such mainstreaming be considered for development cooperation. She also pointed to the post-2015 development agenda and underscored that governance would be key for achieving the sustainable development goals.

Working with non-traditional actors—such as the private sector and political partners—was also flagged as important for tackling corruption. UNDP‘s Governance Team Leader in Colombia, Ms. Blanca Cardona, informed the participants of UNDP’s work with political parties and presented a newly developed transparency assessment tool for political parties to strengthen their accountability. Developed by the Country Office and Transparency International Colombia, the tool has been tested with Colombia’s political parties, and the information gathered will be publicly available. In addition, participants—including Ambassador Hong Jae Im from the Korean Chapter of the UN Global Compact—underscored the critical role of the private sector as the supply side of corruption, and stressed the importance of supporting the proposed Goal 16 on governance under the post-2015 Sustainable Development agenda, which is being negotiated by UN Member States at the moment.

Throughout the 2015 Seoul Debates, participants addressed the question of political will and the need to mobilize and strengthen the political will in the first place, rather than only flagging the importance of political will as a panacea for tackling corruption. Practitioners shared examples of successfully building the public sentiment by increasing citizen awareness—for instance through investigative research and presentation of real data that showed the exact magnitude of corruption and compelled the government to take an action. From its conceptual design, the 2015 Seoul Debates deliberately sought to avoid the approach of finding ‘best practices,’ or ready-made solutions that can be transplanted in other contexts. The assumption was that, owing to different political, socio-economic and legal contexts, there is no universal model of successful anti-corruption policies. While honestly expressing their desire to take practical and immediate solutions home, meeting participants still noted that “what works” should be analyzed and understood via careful analysis of political, economic, and cultural contexts, given that the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts depends on many factors unique to the local environment. The conclusion was that exemplary policies and tools need to be referenced and adapted as a “best fit” for specific contexts. At the same time, participants reaffirmed the usefulness of peer learning from good as well as bad practices, in order to identify what works, what doesn’t and why with a holistic perspective. UNDP country office representatives and national participants from developing countries expressed strong interest in follow-up cooperation and more focused knowledge exchange with Korea, particularly with regards to adapting Korea’s tools and localizing the lessons learnt to suit



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their own national contexts. The 2015 Seoul Debates thus demonstrated the usefulness as well as the rich potential of the DSP approach and pointed to strategic opportunities for triangular development cooperation, involving Korea, UNDP, and developing countries.

“The Development Solution Partnerships are surely innovative and promising channels of the UNDP’s growing teamwork with Korea. Beyond the Seoul Debates, I hope that they will multiply

in number, leading to distinctive, concrete and sustainable results in developing countries with the support of the Korean Government.”

- Shin, Dong-ik, Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral & Global Affairs, Korea



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Main Takeaways



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Main Takeaways Participants of the 2015 Seoul Debates presented on a wide variety of topics with a diversity of perspectives and views. Yet, key themes and messages were repeated throughout the meeting. Some of these main observations and the discussions that took place around them are briefly summarized below. Participants observed that to effectively tackle corruption it is important to:

1. Analyse and better understand the political economy and cultural context of corruption, and address the multi-dimensional dynamics and functions of corruption in the broader governance environment.

The importance of seeking a multi-dimensional understanding of corruption within national contexts, before adopting specific anti-corruption approaches and tools, was stressed by many participants. Understanding better can help to identify the dynamics and societal function of corruption, before intervention strategies for anti-corruption are designed.

The function of corruption and patronage in society

Ms. Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza, Uganda’s Inspector General of Government, and Mr. Richard E. Messick, Consultant on Anti-corruption and Rule of Law, and former Co-Director of the World Bank Law and Justice Thematic Group, stressed the critical importance of understanding the actual function of corruption and patronage as part of a country’s drivers of conflict of interest. It was pointed out that such understanding makes it possible to formulate appropriate steps to replace that function with something productive, rather than replacing one form of corruption with another.

A careful analysis of the cultural norms and practices in which some forms of corruption are embedded is necessary, particularly in countries with a strong patronage culture, where corruption plays the function of maintaining and creating patron-client strategies. In such cases, strategies to decrease corruption through increasing the salaries of public servants could be counterproductive, as it could actually increase a patron’s prestige and responsibility in regards to clients. Similarly, Dr. Park Joonghoon from the Korea Institute for Public Administration (KIPA) shared that Korea’s group-orientated culture has caused whistle-blowing to be seen as a ‘betrayal’ and that Korea’s traditions of gift-giving has complicated efforts against bribes and coercion.

Global Integrity’s Hazel Feigenblatt also highlighted the importance of understanding the broader local context in appropriately assessing corruption. Focusing on one sector or industry which may not be illustrative to the local corruption context may result in inaccurate assessments. And once the data is collected, the local context should also determine how one needs to share, spread and utilize the data.

Corruption is a complex governance issue

It was also stressed that even where there is reasonably strong evidence of the positive impacts of anti-corruption interventions, further research to understand why certain approaches have been more effective than others need to be done, to clarify what exactly might be useful under what governance conditions. As one delegate observed: “Defining policies, drafting laws, prioritizing development strategies and activities, allocating budget, quality service delivery, etc. cannot be separated from governance.” Every action undertaken by government institutions or public organizations should be examined under an anti-corruption lens, and governance and anti-corruption cannot be divorced from one another.



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Dr. Elizabeth Hart, former Director of the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Centre, and Dr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of UNDP GCPSE in Singapore, underscored that corruption must be analysed as a complex governance issue, rather than a technical or sectoral problem. They stressed the usefulness of the political economy analysis in helping anti-corruption practitioners choose appropriate anti-corruption approaches and undertake effective development cooperation to fight corruption.

In a similar vein, Dr. Everest-Phillips emphasized the broader context of anti-corruption, asserting that the “great strength” of the 2015 Seoul Debates was “anchoring the discussion in the broader thought of public service, the role of politics and political processes.” He called for “resurrection of a sense of purpose, pride and ethics in the public service,” which he lamented had been in a state of constant decline for the last few decades in many parts of the world. He stressed the need to “run public service without becoming cynical or jaded but bearing in mind … that everyone can be bought.”

Lastly, emphasizing the importance of governance in addressing today’s development challenges such as corruption, Ambassador Hong Jae Im, Secretary General of the UN Global Compact Network Korea, stressed the importance of supporting the proposed Goal 16 on governance under the post-2015 Sustainable Development agenda, which is being negotiated by UN Member States at the moment. 2. Work with partners to adapt and reinvent solutions to ensure a ‘best fit’ to the local context. In line with the discussion on the importance of contextual and holistic analysis of the political economy of corruption, many highlighted that a certain practice may be “best” for circumstantial reasons that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Practitioners were therefore advised to avoid the approach of “copying and pasting” policies and approaches that do not mesh with the realities of their own contexts and instead look to adapt and ensure a “best fit” for their specific context.

Necessary prerequisites for successful solutions

For instance, implementing Korea’s integrity assessment or e-governance tools for corruption prevention would require not only sufficient government budget but also enabling laws and necessary infrastructure in the destination country; otherwise they would not take root after the trial. Dr. Seongjun Kim from Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) also noted a number of pre-requisites for an effective participatory audit system: enabling democratic space and legal framework, capable local civil society organizations seeking public interests, institutional capacity of the audit agency to systematically follow up on the citizen complaints and requests, high ethical standards of auditors, development of an integrated “one-stop” system (both offline and online) to receive and process various types of petitions and complaints, and cooperative relations with local authorities and other public service delivery organizations to troubleshoot and fix problems that arise from the participatory audit. Therefore, developing countries would need to adapt innovative approaches to fit their particular social and cultural conditions. In other words, policies and tools would need to be “reinvented,” not transplanted, in order to address the particular needs and circumstances of the destination.

The usefulness of peer-learning

At the same time, participants reaffirmed the usefulness of peer learning and multi-stakeholder discussions to take stock of good as well as bad practices. Successes, challenges and lessons learnt on fighting corruption in other countries need to be studied, and there is a need for more in-depth case studies explaining country contexts, what worked, and exactly how and why. The shared feeling was that a country cannot fight corruption alone, and that it is necessary to partner with one another to expand the knowledge base.



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Participants expressed strong interest in more focused knowledge exchange with Korea, through UNDP as a knowledge broker, so as to localize the innovative practices and lessons learnt back home. This showed that sharing experiences and identifying good practices from other countries must lead to follow-up analysis, dialogue and dynamic collaboration between the parties, in order to provide creative and appropriate development solutions. 3. Institutionalize and mainstream anti-corruption efforts with a holistic and cross-cutting approach to ensure lasting results. Another consistent message from the 2015 Seoul Debates was that anti-corruption measures must be institutionalized, mainstreamed and owned by all of society, rather than be seen as an exclusive responsibility of particular institutions. Anti-corruption measures should instead be integrated throughout the governance system and across all sectors. Mainstreaming engenders greater trust and confidence between the government and citizens, ensures optimal utilization of limited resources, reduces redundancy and fragmentation in policy implementation and thereby improves the impact of anti-corruption efforts.

Institutionalization

Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of Singapore’s Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), noted that while “[a] generation of Singaporeans has been moulded...to treat corruption with disdain,” it is important to institutionalize anti-corruption systems with independent enforcement agencies in order to ensure that political will maintains itself throughout successive generations and successive governments. Continued vigilance against anti-corruption is always required, he stressed, as gains made against corruption can be lost through complacence and a shifting local governance environment without appropriate institutionalization, mainstreaming, and social ownership.

On effective institutionalization, the critical importance of budgeting was made by Dr. Utis Kaothien of the Thailand National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). He advised policymakers to ensure that anti-corruption institutions receive a fixed annual budget, so that the agency can pursue its mission without political interference; otherwise, anti-corruption efforts would be susceptible to failure, when faced with the backlashes and volatilities created in a highly-sensitive political environment.

Mainstreaming

Ms. Neten Zangmo, Chairperson of Bhutan’s Anti-Corruption Commission, stressed with passion that other institutions must adopt and internalize anti-corruption as part of their agenda, and that mainstreaming efforts should be considered for development cooperation as well. In her view, anti-corruption agencies should ultimately aim to institute anti-corruption attitudes across the governance system so firmly that they make themselves redundant and obsolete in the end.

The Director of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre, Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, pointed out that learning from mainstreaming-efforts in other areas, such as gender and environment, could be used to inspire mainstreaming of anti-corruption. She also pointed to the link between mainstreaming and prevention as they both serve to increase awareness and integrity more broadly.

Korea’s Integrity Assessment System1 for public organizations (see below), developed by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC), and presented at the 2015 Seoul

1 This survey assessment won first prize in the category of prevention and combating corruption in the 2012 United Nations Public Service Awards.



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Debates by Mr. Sang-Nyon Kim, Director of the Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, is an example of an approach that aims at measuring and preventing corruption but at the same time, it can also be seen as a tool for mainstreaming anti-corruption efforts across institutions due to its very wide application and the interest it generates and the way it serves to guide public

institutions in anti-corruption strategy development and reform actions.

“Corruption can compromise anybody”

Furthermore, participants also discussed the importance of anti-corruption attitudes being owned by society as a whole, with individuals themselves being dedicated to the cause of moral integrity and preventing corruption. Taking the issue right to the personal level, Deputy Director Ang, throughout the meeting repeated the point that “corruption can compromise anybody” even in his country with high levels of transparency.

Ms. Annet Mpabulungi-Wakabi, Governance Team Leader of UNDP Uganda, illustrated this point and how corruption can take on new forms as a society develops, again underlining the need for anti-corruption to be continuously mainstreamed in society. In Uganda, more children than ever go to school and after years of struggling, with local schools now largely receive the funding intended for them that was formerly diverted at various administrative levels. However, as the competition for a good education increases, new habits among parents are emerging, such as bribing teachers and others to ensure good grades for their kids. Ms. Mpabulungi-Wakabi shared how a UNDP initiative in Southern Uganda is aiming at highlighting this practice as a new form of corruption and trying to engage parents, teachers, and communities in addressing the problem. 4. Engage and partner with a broad range of stakeholders, including non-traditional actors, and build broad-based national coalition for anti-corruption. In connection with the points raised above, experts stressed that anti-corruption cannot succeed with a mere technical fix, and shared how change is best achieved through collective action. Anti-corruption practitioners were advised to step out and engage with a broad range of stakeholders, including non-state actors — such as the private sector, political parties, and civil society — to maximize their unique spheres of influence and build a national coalition to tackle corruption.

Transparency International (TI) Board Member Ms. Natalia Pangastoeti Soebagjo shared how her organization has worked with state-owned power companies in Indonesia to promote clean internal business practices, youth organizations to promote a more corruption-free future, the creative industry to produce films about integrity, street artists to create murals with clear anti-corruption messages, as well as local governments and academia to promote the principles of better governance. She encouraged anti-corruption practitioners to be both “creative and courageous” when building coalitions and stimulating collective action, as the process can be extremely challenging yet can make a meaningful difference against corruption.

Citizens

Dr. Seongjun Kim from Korea’s BAI shared the institution’s experiences with participatory audit, whereby the BAI now takes citizen advice on its audit direction and formally receives petitions and audit requests from the citizens. While handling an increasing number of cases and meeting the public expectation are certainly challenging, he recommended that other countries consider taking this direction, noting that active citizen participation in auditing helps redress citizens’ grievances on public services and social development issues (e.g. permits and licensing, transportation, environment, re-development construction projects), improve public sector administration, and contribute to the maturing of participatory democracy.



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Civil society

The importance of a vibrant and empowered civil society was also emphasized by Mr. Sung-goo Kang, Senior Policy Member of Transparency International (TI) Korea. He first explained how Korea’s enactment of the Anti-Corruption Act in 2002 was a result of many years of advocacy and concerted efforts by the civil society, including a public campaign to collect million signatures. At the same time, referring to the recent stagnation of Korea’s scores on TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), he noted, “Enactment of anti-corruption law and establishment of anti-corruption body is mandatory now in Korea. But if people don’t have enough power to defend the accomplishments, and if the cultural foundation is not stable enough to keep the fruits, such outcomes can be easily lost.”

Ms. Soebagjo stressed the critical role of civil society actors as watchdogs or whistle-blowers in sustaining the national anti-corruption movement and giving strong domestic support to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the country’s anti-corruption agency. She gave an account of how public campaigns, aimed at galvanizing Indonesian citizens to protect the KPK’s integrity from politics, enabled the KPK to continue their mission and maintain their independence despite their political challenges.

Private sector

Ambassador Im from the Korean Chapter of the UN Global Compact stressed that the role of the private sector is critical as this is the supply side of corruption. He encouraged all countries to establish local chapters of the Global Compact, as a means to increase the strategic engagement with the private sector on governance issues including anti-corruption.

Political parties

UNDP‘s Governance Team Leader in Colombia, Ms. Blanca Cardona, informed the participants of UNDP’s work with political parties and presented a newly developed transparency assessment tool for political parties to strengthen their accountability. Developed by the Country Office and Transparency International Colombia, the tool has been tested with Colombia’s political parties, and the information gathered will be publicly available.

On a similar subject, OECD’s Policy Analyst, Dr. Yukihiko Hamada, also encouraged anti-corruption experts to examine the issues of financing democracy, noting the close link between the financing of political parties and election campaigns with the agenda-setting and decision-making process. OECD is preparing a study of policies and practices in OECD Member States in this area. He called for particular attention to high-risk areas such as investment on public infrastructure and public procurement to seek specific solutions to mitigate the risks of policy capture. Based on OECD’s research in this area, he identified several priority actions as policy options to be considered for promoting better public policies and averting policy capture. This included, for instance: balancing funding through direct and indirect public contributions to political parties, applying spending limits, limiting privileged access to state resources, requiring disclosures, promoting standards of professionalism, integrity and transparency in private donations, providing for dissuasive and enforceable sanctions, and support to political parties to help them comply with regulations. 5. Actively utilize various international mechanisms, new data sources, and technological tools to strengthen anti-corruption advocacy efforts at country-level. Partnerships beyond borders are critical, as international networks can act to empower national-level anti-corruption actors and enable the facilitation of anti-corruption knowledge sharing.

The anti-corruption convention

Mr. Shervin Majlessi from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stressed that



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the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which came into force in 2005 and now ratified by 174 countries around the world, should be more studied and utilized by anti-corruption practitioners. While this young legal instrument is still being absorbed for countries’ daily anti-corruption work, the international norms and practices it creates, including its peer review mechanism, could add pressure towards action on corruption, helping to build country-level commitment and capacity to fight corruption.

Practitioners were encouraged to see the convention not as an end in itself but rather as a comprehensive and action-oriented tool covering prevention, criminal law enforcement, international cooperation and asset recovery. Majlessi further explained that UNCAC could be used to address the issue of foreign bribery in particular through articles 16 and 46, which pertain to the criminalization of the bribery of foreign officials as well as mutual legal assistance for the investigation and prosecution of such cases.

New and open data sources

Participants also discussed various ways of using new data for anti-corruption advocacy, including TI’s CPI. While countries should remain mindful that the CPI measures perceptions rather than actual incidences of corruption and should be used in conjunction with statistics on court cases and experience surveys, many have found this an effective tool to put the corruption issue on the table and to demonstrate to policy makers how much work there is still to be done.

In addition, participants were encouraged to explore new data tools that are creating additional opportunities to enhance public access to information and to stimulate the public discourse on corruption. Global Integrity’s Hazel Feigenblatt particularly spoke of a ‘data explosion’ that has rendered information open and available for all members of society. She shared examples of such new sources of data on corruption. Anti-corruption practitioners were advised to explore the newly available tools and learn how to properly utilize and tailor them to meet their specific contexts and objectives. At the same time, participants noted that while having open data is important for improving transparency, it is necessary to ensure that this data be presented in an easily accessible and analytic format, in order for anti-corruption practitioners to make use of the relevant data.

Electronic tools and traditional means

Mr. Tae-Hag Roh from the Construction Management Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Government shared with participants how Seoul managed to tackle corruption in the public infrastructure projects through innovative use of e-governance tools and information technology in a sector that was once a haven for unseen corruption. Seoul’s Clean Construction System consists of several mechanisms that limit the potential for corruption through an innovative use of the existing e-governance infrastructure and newly available IT tools. The Subcontractor Payment System automates payments in order to address the plight of late or unpaid wages of labourers, while the One-Project Manager Information System allows citizens and project stakeholders to access and monitor all the information on public infrastructure projects in real time. There is even an “Allmi” mobile application that allows citizens to access information on nearby construction sites. Noting how these systems have helped to enhance public access to information as well as the rights of labourers in Seoul, he recommended policy makers in other countries to consider introducing such systems, as appropriate, to their local contexts. He highlighted the strategic role of the local government in leveraging its position of influence in the public procurement and bringing all the relevant stakeholders on board.

These concrete examples attracted much interest from international participants. Participants saw that these tools may help address their challenges and expressed interest in a having a catalogue of all the available tools and to promote in-depth technical discussions for the introduction and adaptation of these tools to respond to their specific local needs.



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At the same time, it was pointed out by UNDP’s Ethiopia Office Governance Advisor, Chrysantus Ayangafac, that conceptions of ‘e-governance’ may take a different form in less developed countries and that some results could still be achieved also through traditional means. Initiatives such as posting school fund information on public billboards rather than online in countries with minimal Internet access can go a long way in improving citizen awareness of corruption issues. 6. Strengthen prevention as well as prosecution efforts against corruption Discussion at the 2015 Seoul Debates highlighted that prevention is just as important as prosecution when fighting corruption, and that anti-corruption strategies are most effective when both punishment and prevention aspects are well incorporated.

Prevention and prosecution are inseparable in the real world

Prof. Jin-Wook Choi from Korea University argued that although prevention and prosecution are distinct conceptually, they are inseparable in the real world.

Prevention involves systematic scrutiny on the level of corruption by sector and by organization and causes of corruption, followed by remedial activities, while, punishment includes strong law enforcement to detect, prosecute and punish violations. Effective measures of prevention include reducing opportunities to engage in corruption by strengthening oversight and changing the mindset and behaviours of the public employees through a mix of deterrence and education approaches.

Sharing Korea’s experience, Dr. Joonghoon Park from KIPA examined this balance between prevention and prosecution. He recommended creating a single agency to deal with the inter-related functions of anti-corruption and promotion of ethics of public officials, rather than separating into different agencies. He also recommended introducing incentivised performance indicators on reducing incidents of corruption for public service managers as another practical step. Prof. Choi added that Korea’s real-name registration laws in finance and real estate transactions have stifled the ease with which public officials could hide illegal assets.

Prevention is also about assessment and sanctions

Korean experts recommended that other countries explore assessment tools that fit their particular contexts, explaining that in Korean experience such assessment mechanisms has helped prevent actions that cause corruption by monitoring public officials’ behaviour and creating healthy competition among agencies to fight corruption by publishing comparative anti-corruption performance indexes.

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it,” was the opening quote (from the British physicist Lord Kelvin) of Mr. Sang-nyon Kim, Director of the Survey and Evaluation Division of Korea's ACRC. Based on Korea’s experience, Director Kim sent a strong message that an accurate assessment of the corruption problem is necessary and extremely helpful for anti-corruption efforts.

Director Kim presented Korea’s Integrity Assessment System which, as mandated by the Korean law, serves to assess on an annual basis the level of corruption of each public service institution through surveys of service users and internal employees. In the 12th assessment in 2013, 240,000 persons were surveyed to assess 653 institutions. The assessments help measure the actual state of corruption in the institutions which may lead to sanctions and which helps the ACRC identify corruption-prone areas and take action to address them. Furthermore, the assessment system induces public pressure and institutional motivation by promoting competition among government agencies, as an index of integrity assessment results is being shared with the National Assembly and the public. This serves to guide public institutions in anti-corruption strategy development and reform actions and thereby helps the mainstreaming of anti-corruption efforts across public institutions in Korea.



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Success factors of the assessment include: the sanction-based approach, promotion of citizens’ participation and rights to information, as well as healthy competition among the public institutions being assessed.

So far, the ACRC has shared the model with other countries including Indonesia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia and Viet Nam, providing technical support and training for local implementation. At the 2015 Seoul Debates it garnered further interest from participants.

Prosecution needs to be politically neutral and effective at the same time

On the punishment side, Mr. Yun-Su Choi, Chief Officer of Anti-Corruption Planning in the Anti-Corruption Department of Korea’s Supreme Prosecutors’ Office (SPO), stressed the role of deterrence and punishment in anti-corruption, in generating the social perception that “crime does not pay.” It was also underscored that prosecution agencies and agents need to maintain distance from politics to help ensure that prosecution is rational and politically neutral.

Prosecutor Seung-mo Koo, also from the SPO, recommended that anti-corruption practitioners take measures to avoid perceptions of strong political bias as it may damage their reputation and trustworthiness in prosecution. In the case of Korea, corrupt politicians were previously commonly investigated only after power shifted to their opponents. He shared how the SPO’s Central Investigation Department was decentralised to remove itself from political interference, because of the public perception of their investigation being politically charged. Yet this decentralization negatively affected the SPO’s ‘control tower’ ability to prosecute corruption cases, and the SPO is now working closely with its branches throughout the country, in close coordination with other institutions, for effective prosecution. The public support was also highlighted as important, as prosecutors are often faced with political stresses, as well as pressures from interest groups, particularly when dealing with grand corruption cases. 7. Generate political will for fighting corruption both from citizens bottom-up and from politicians top-down. Throughout the Seoul Debates, the importance of political will was reiterated. The question then led to how to generate and strengthen such political will. Participants emphasized that countries may need to undertake creative and multi-level efforts to generate the political will for anti-corruption efforts. In particular Mr. Richard E. Messick, former Director of Law and Justice Group of the World Bank, highlighted the need of not just acknowledging the importance of ‘political will’, but actually acknowledging that it does not exist as a ‘deus ex machina’ and that anti-corruption practitioners should use the resources available to them cleverly to mobilize political will in the first place. The conclusion was that while the will of top political leaders to fight corruption is indispensable, the development of this will can also be facilitated through international cooperation, citizen demands and civil-society pressure.

First, Mr. Messick highlighted the usefulness of using international networks with the example of Nigeria’s Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. By first winning domestic public sentiment through fighting small-scale corruption that was harmless to the ‘big fish’, Ribadu was able to form international alliances with UK and US law enforcement agencies to enable him to go after the biggest fishes in Nigerian corruption.

Second, it was also argued that even in the absence of strong political will for top-down anti-corruption efforts, public sentiment can drive this agenda if citizens are well informed. Voters, the middle class, donors, corruption activists and officials can all contribute to moulding public opinion against corruption in a bottom-up approach. Given that politicians are necessary concerned about the views of citizens in order to be re-elected, civil society and members of the general public have opportunities to constantly pressure politicians to keep anti-corruption issues alive.



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Here, several practitioners shared how giving citizens easily accessible, usable and relevant information on the delivery of their public services, and any abuse of them, can help mobilize them to demand their rights. For instance, Mr. Messick shared the case of a World Bank study on the allocation of school funds in Uganda, which drew attention to major leakages resulting in public outrage from Ugandan communities, and compelling the government to address corruption in the education sector. The study had such a big impact because the better informed parents and teachers were, the more likely their school would receive its allocated funds. This shows that starting with a development problem and working backwards can be one way to bring the public on board and demystify corruption. UNDP Uganda Head of Governance, Annett Mpabulungi-Wakabi, agreed with this sentiment, adding that with sufficient democratic space and civil society inclusion, communities can demand their right to universal education resources that are being provided by the government.

Lastly, Mr. Sung-goo Kang from TI Korea highlighted the importance of not just mobilizing political will among citizens, but maintaining that political will over time. In his presentation he noted that although Korea has achieved significant results in the field of anti-corruption, according to TI indicators, Korea’s progress has regressed after 2008 and then stagnated. The message was that anti-corruption practitioners should stay vigilant and work to empower people and continually construct a ‘no tolerance’ culture in regards to corruption. It was stressed that anti-corruption practitioners need to take the fight against corruption to the heart of society, and carefully consider the underpinning integrity, cultures and values.



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Meeting Notes & Session

Summary



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Opening Day (Day 1) Opening Speeches Welcoming the participants, Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre, appreciated the partnership of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea in organizing the 2015 Seoul Debates. She explained that the Seoul Debates is her centre’s flagship platform for discussion on relevant issues of development policy, taking place on an annual basis. She acknowledged the technical support from UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative, the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub, and the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence in Singapore. In his congratulatory speech, H.E. Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of Korea commended UNDP’s efforts to share Korea’s experience with other countries through the Seoul Debates. “From our own experiences, we understand the twists and turns as well as the practical realities in fighting corruption,” said in his congratulatory remarks. “As such, we possess unique know-how and seasoned insights to share with developing countries,” he added, mentioning that Korea wished to share the country’s lessons learnt over the past 50 years with other countries. Minister Shin also underscored the high potential of USPC’s DSP approach on anti-corruption. “The Development Solution Partnerships are surely innovative and promising channels of the UNDP’s growing teamwork with Korea. Beyond the Seoul Debates, I hope that they will multiply in number, leading to distinctive, concrete and sustainable results in developing countries with the support of the Korean Government,” he noted. In the keynote speech, Ms. Kwak Jin-Young, Vice Chair of the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea talked about her country’s corruption during its rapid development over the past 50 years. Despite successful economic growth and democratization, corruption originated from out-dated customs and culture, which are deeply rooted in society as a whole, [and] emerged as one of the factors hindering the sustainable growth and development of Korean society,” she said. She observed that corruption could hinder growth and sustainable development by distorting the distribution of limited government resources and put the lives and safety of people in danger in some extreme cases. In order to improve the effectiveness of anti-corruption policy, she stressed that it is “important to prevent corruption practices by determining environments and factors that cause corruption and addressing them in advance instead of detecting the cases afterwards.” Ms. Kwak also shared how strong will from politicians and from across society had prompted the introduction and implementation of a wide variety of comprehensive corruption prevention policy measures such as Korea’s innovative Integrity Assessments to evaluate corruption levels in public services, laws to protect whistle-blowers as well as a recent bills targeting nepotism and solicitation practices and fraud in public finances. Representing the UNDP, Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific stressed in his keynote speech that anti-corruption is a high priority of UNDP’s work. He noted that fighting corruption was considered a concern above even health and education for citizens in Asia and the Pacific, with many voting for good governance as a priority of the post-2015 sustainable development goals in the UN’s MyWorld 2015 online survey. He praised the 2015 Seoul Debates as a chance for experts to share knowledge and lessons learnt from their own countries and to identify strategic opportunities for building partnerships on anti-corruption.



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Session 1: High-Level Political Dialogue: Lessons Learnt from Anti-Corruption Institutions In the high-level panel, leaders of anti-corruption institutions of Uganda, Singapore, Korea, Bhutan, and Indonesia shared the progresses and challenges found in their countries’ fight against corruption. The discussion stressed the importance of strong political will to fight corruption as well as independence of anti-corruption agencies. Also agreed was the need to anchor anti-corruption work in a broader set of questions in consideration of the roles of the public service, politics and political processes. Moderator Dr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence in Singapore, noted that the session had “one of the most inspiring and interesting sets of presentations and ideas on this issue that [he has] ever heard.”

Uganda’s Inspector General of Government Ms. Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza surveyed a number of instruments Uganda has employed to fight corruption and noted the positive development of her country’s new anti-corruption division of the high court, which had surpassed its target and prosecuted 60 cases in 2012-2013. Yet, public perception remained that corruption was endemic in Uganda. According to a recent report, she shared, the Ugandan Government was advised to take on a number of measures to enhance its anti-corruption work and improve public perception: facilitate the recovery of misappropriated funds and create strong disincentives to engage in corruption; enforce administrative sanctions for incidents of “quiet corruption” such as absenteeism; and set up a tribunal to facilitate the full implementation of Uganda’s 2012 Leadership Code Act. The Inspector General stressed the importance of working with all stakeholders both within and beyond the country, with actions ranging from coordinating with other government agencies to mobilising local communities. She stressed that the knowledge-sharing with other countries through the Association of Anti-corruption Authorities had also been important in her country’s anti-corruption work. “Corruption can compromise anybody” was the mantra of Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of Singapore’s Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). He told how his country started its battle against corruption after gaining independence in 1965 in order to attract investment by becoming a clean nation with no hidden costs. “Thereafter, we started building systems but we maintained that political will”. Mr. Ang stressed the importance of building strong anti-corruption systems with independent enforcement agencies. In particular, he underscored that an anti-corruption enforcement agency must be “as free from interference as possible,” explaining how CPIB had a free hand to investigate even senior cabinet ministers. Effective adjudication and anti-corruption laws with sufficient punishment for wrongdoers were also highlighted as important, as was the nurturing of a social atmosphere where stigma is attached to taking bribes. Emphasizing the importance of potent institutional mechanisms for anti-corruption, he noted that Singapore’s responsive public service had helped to “overcome the fallibility of human integrity.” At the same time, Mr. Ang stressed that his country is situated in a particular context as a city state, and cannot hand out a one-size solution to others but rather offer possible lessons to discuss and learn from.

“Corruption can compromise

anybody… primarily

because men are fallible, not

infallible.”

- Ang Seow Lian

“If we did half of the things recommended here we would have a fabulous agenda. I hope that

all the comments and recommendations will be taken forward.”

- Dr. Max Everest-Phillips



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Mr. Yun-Su Choi, Chief Officer of Anti-Corruption Planning in the Anti-Corruption Department of Korea’s Supreme Prosecutors’ Office (SPO), stressed the roles of deterrence and punishment in anti-corruption in generating the social perception that “crime does not pay.” He explained that Korea’s system of investigation and prosecution against corruption has gone through challenges and yet has become “unique, powerful, and efficient” over the years. Prosecutor Choi also underscored the importance of coordination and collaboration as key to success, detailing how cooperation with other agencies such as the Korean Prosecution Service, Stock Exchange and others had boosted SPO’s efficiency of investigations. This collaboration had helped cut the time needed to handle securities crimes by one third, leading to the criminal prosecution of 300 individuals in 18 months. He also emphasized the importance of improving systems to eradicate crimes caused by structural issues such as administrative practices. “Anti-corruption must be owned by everyone in the society” was the key message of Ms. Neten Zangmo, Chair of Bhutan’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). She saw her ultimate goal as working until her agency was no longer needed because everyone would be cooperating to eradicate corruption in her country. She wanted to see her nation graduate from a sense of fear of punishment for corrupt acts, toward a sense of shared responsibility to prevent them. She also offered the lesson that anti-corruption agencies must be independent, have quality personnel, and be accountable to people themselves. Furthermore, political will must come not only from leaders but all of society, she emphasized. She stressed that anti-corruption measures must be institutionalized, mainstreamed and owned by all of society, rather than being seen as an additional responsibility. She also appreciated cooperation with Korea, noting how Bhutan has adopted Korea’s integrity assessment tool in partnership with ACRC. She encouraged other participants to see integrity promotion as “natural and imperative” to be mainstreamed into all national development strategies. Mr. Adnan Pandu Praja, Commissioner of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), was unable to attend the meeting in person due to the pressing situation then unfolding in his country. However, his pre-recorded message shared KPK’s anti-corruption efforts including its cooperation with other countries. Indonesia has hosted a number of international anti-corruption forums including the 2012 conference where the Jakarta Principles for Anti-Corruption Agencies were drafted to reinforce anti-corruption institutions around the world, as well as the 2012 Southeast Asia Parties Against Corruption workshop to strengthen Southeast Asian countries’ commitment to restricting movement of corruptors. The Anti-Corruption and Transparency Working Group 2013 meeting also initiated the Anti-Corruption Network (ACT-Net) through which Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member countries’ anti-corruption agencies can cooperate when corruptors have escaped abroad. KPK has also initiated the Economic Crime Agency Network, through which law enforcement agencies from Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, the U.S., U.K. and European Union share data and information for corruption investigations. Noting KPK’s close bilateral cooperation with Korea’s ACRC, particularly in the area of corruption prevention, the commissioner stressed the importance of partnership and cross-border solidarity in tackling corruption. Discussion Questions to the panel concerned how to increase political will, as well as how to work with the private sector and prevent conflict of interest. Ambassador Im from the Korean Chapter of the UN Global Compact commended the group of panellists as “fabulous” and stressed that the role of the private sector is critical as this is the supply side of corruption. In this regard, he encouraged

“I do believe we have

the same strong will to

create a world free from

corruption, to

undertake this mission,

firstly, from ourselves,

and finally bring that to

our families and

societies.”

- Adnan Pandu Praja



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participants to establish local chapters of the Global Compact in their countries. Ambassador Im also underscored the importance of the proposed Goal 16 on governance under the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework. Bhutan’s ACC Chair Zangmo responded that, in order to increase political will in reality, the government must go beyond strong statements and take ownership to integrate anti-corruption work into a country’s planning process. Political will must be generated not only by the political leadership but also by individual members of the public, she stressed. She underlined the need to reach out to private sector actors and encouraged disclosure of conflict of interest. The role of the UN Global Impact and of SDG 16 was very important in this regard. Uganda’s Inspector General Kakooza called for awareness of what drove conflict of interest, especially in the areas of contracts, political campaigns and votes: “When you examine conflict of interest and where it comes from, you find that politicians want to use their positions to put people in positions where they can use them in turn to further their own political interests.” She noted that while politicians made positive statements about fighting corruption, anti-corruption agencies were limited in the ways that they could deal with high-level crimes. “The leaders in any economy must be able to let those connected to them also be subjected to the rigorous processes of either criminal prosecution or vacating offices,” she said. “Many times when you touch those that are politically connected, the first thing you will hear before you even take someone to court would be someone, coming through saying: ´This person is still useful, why don’t you let them be?’” In this regard, Singapore CPIB Deputy Director Ang advised that even where political will existed, it was important to ensure that systems and processes were in place in preparation for potential situations where future leaders no longer wanted to fight corruption. “In Singapore, the [current] political leaders have political will, but we are not sure if 50 years down the road we will still have the same kind of political leaders.” Mr. Ang explained that such uncertainty was the reason why Singapore was building systems, enacting laws and placing checks and balances. Chief Officer Choi from Korea SPO agreed that institutional set-up must be in place to ensure that those in power are not above the law.



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SESSION 2: The International Anti-Corruption Regime and Lessons Learnt From Development Cooperation in Anti-Corruption Presenters told moderator UNDP Seoul Policy Centre Director Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen that more needs to be done to move from laws to implementation, and from discourse to action. A shift was also advocated from seeking anti-corruption actions with presumed usefulness in every situation, to a “best fit” approach that gave full consideration to the need for adaptation in diverse country contexts. Mr. Shervin Majlessi, Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor for the UN office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) Regional Office for South East Asia and the Pacific, discussed the opportunities and challenges of bringing the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) from the international to the local and national levels. He urged practitioners to see the convention, which entered into force in December 2005, not as an end in itself but rather as a tool for enhancing prevention, criminal law enforcement, international cooperation and asset recovery. He advised participants to digest and make use of this valuable tool, to which 174 countries are now party. Though no sanctions exist at the international level, UNCAC’s voluntary mechanisms of national self-assessments, peer reviews and follow-ups create opportunities to move the anti-corruption agenda forward. With self-assessment, countries have, for the first time, been obliged to evaluate their performance, opening up dialogue between government, society and the private sector, leading to some reforms and improved coordination. “This tool creates a very good framework for us to use in engaging with our governments, whether we are anti-corruption agencies, civil society or [the] private sector,” he said. Mr. Majlessi also highlighted foreign bribery as an issue of particular concern in Asian economies, where the increasingly transnational nature of business creates the need for comprehensive policy frameworks on foreign bribery as a crucial component of national anti-corruption strategies. In this regard, he explained how UNCAC could be used to address the issue of foreign bribery through articles 16 and 46, which pertain to the criminalizsation of the bribery of foreign officials as well as mutual legal assistance for the investigation and prosecution of such cases. He encouraged every participant to closely ‘study’ the convention and explore its practical application and utilization in their work, regardless of their area of specialization. Sharing lessons from anti-corruption strategies in the Asia-Pacific, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub Anti-Corruption Advisor Ms. Elodie Beth-Seo elaborated via video conferencing on UNDP’s three-tier model to fight corruption that includes prevention, awareness, and enforcement. She also highlighted corruption challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, which particularly undermine equitable access to public services. “Corruption can be seen as a disease,” she said. “It is like one of those cancers that if you don’t monitor it very well, if you don’t have oversight, checks and balances and transparency of course people will always find a way to engage in it.” She also explained that while UNCAC had driven anti-corruption reforms and 60 per cent of Asia-Pacific countries had developed an anti-corruption strategy, implementation was lagging with a recent study showing that many efforts have not always paid off. She stressed that any anti-corruption approach must fit and be integrated into a country’s overall development strategy and vision in order to be successful. Dr. Elizabeth Hart, former Director of the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Centre and former USAID senior anti-corruption advisor argued that, “what works” for anti-corruption should be studied via political economy analyses since the effectiveness of donor anti-corruption efforts depends on many factors unique to the local environment. “What works depends on where you are working and what else is happening,” she explained. “Understanding and working with the



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context is essential for improving the effectiveness of donor anti-corruption efforts.” In this regard, she observed that donors were beginning to gain a better understanding of country context and focusing on “best fit” rather “best practice” when it came to anti-corruption strategies.

Discussion Uganda’s Inspector General Irene Kakooza praised the “best fit” analysis approach, and emphasized the importance of the humility of international experts in order to seek a deep understanding of the local context. She also prompted discussion over what scale of bribery should be tackled, and when, observing that the contexts of bribery and the sums exchanged in developing countries were often inadequately considered when measuring a country’s corruption level. Tackling petty bribery may be inefficient for anti-corruption agencies, she argued, while going after the “big fish” may become politically unviable and threaten the very existence of the anti-corruption agency. She also recommended that cultural factors such as gift-giving traditions be considered in prevention efforts. Other questions were raised over what legal procedures could help synchronize evidence-gathering on international-level bribery and how to move toward a holistic anti-corruption strategy rather than a fragmented project-based approach. Bhutan’s ACC Chair Neten Zangmo also welcomed the “best fit” approach and encouraged “soul searching” among donors on their approaches to anti-corruption. Liz Hart, however, noted that she had not yet seen soul searching happening widely among donors yet. In this respect, she praised the Seoul Debates’ approach, which deliberately sought to avoid the wholesale “best practice” approach and to encourage more nuanced and contextual discussions on anti-corruption.



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Session 3: Progresses and Challenges in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries Country-specific presentations from China, El Salvador, Uzbekistan and Colombia showed that legislative actions have been taken but often with slow progress for implementation on the ground. Even where prosecution has advanced, often not enough has yet been done on prevention, they noted. The session was moderated by Mr. Luc Stevens, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative.

Anti-Corruption Efforts and Challenges in China Mr. Patrick Haverman, Deputy Country Director of UNDP China, highlighted the critical importance of the anti-corruption agenda in China, explaining that the direct economic cost of corruption to China’s development amounts to as much as three per cent of the country’s per capita GDP. In view of the threat corruption represents to the country’s political stability and economic development, China’s new leadership has indeed placed anti-corruption as a top priority on the political agenda. The country’s anti-corruption policy focuses on power restraint, relying primarily on the legal and regulatory framework, anti-corruption agencies and anti-corruption campaigns. Although the Chinese Communist Party aims to catch both “tigers and flies,” with 182,000 people punished under the current anti-corruption drive in 2013, the fact that China ranked 80th out of 177 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2014 and the relatively low relatively low conviction rates of corruption cases show that the country has remaining challenges in combating corruption.

UNDP China’s Governance and Rule of Law Programme Manager, Ms. Jade Mali Mizutani, observed that the country’s overall performance in combating corruption has been limited by a number of factors: the focus on power restraint through the enforcement of laws and regulations and individual compliance to rules and procedures; the reliance on anti-corruption campaigns; the dual nature of the leadership system; the insufficient cooperation and coordination among anti-corruption agencies as well as a weak monitoring and evaluation mechanism. While reflecting upon political challenges, she recommended actions that could help improve the current system: incrementally adopting a balanced approach between enforcement and prevention; linking the anti-corruption policy to the overall national development strategy; pursuing and enhancing efforts towards transparency and open information disclosure; increasing the performance of the four ACAs, including through capacity development; and strengthening the anti-corruption policy implementation and the M&E mechanism.

Lessons in the Making in El Salvador Mr. Manuel de Jesús Cruz López, Director of the Secretariat of Citizen Participation in the Presidency of El Salvador, and Ms. Laura Rivera Marinero, Programme Officer and Transparency Project Coordinator for UNDP El Salvador, observed the progress the country has made since a change of government in 2009. El Salvador has implemented a Freedom of Information Act; participatory and accountability mechanisms; an anti-corruption advisory and coordination office within the Executive; legal reforms, and has followed up on international conventions and agreements such as UNCAC and the Open Government Partnership. However, the presenters identified various developmental challenges to anti-corruption efforts in the country such as low economic growth, low investment in human development, a high homicide rate, and institutional weaknesses. The challenges going forward include the need for additional political will to implement anti-corruption legislation and for the sanctioning of corrupt practices. They also called for the implementation of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism, the



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strengthening of civil service careers and public administration, as well as increased civil society participation in anti-corruption efforts.

Colombia’s Fight against Corruption: Balance and Challenges Mr. Camilo Cetina, Director of Colombia’ Presidential Transparency Observatory, and UNDP Colombia’s Head of Governance Ms. Blanca Cardona reflected that while Colombia had a good anti-corruption legal framework, there was still a gap between this and implementation. While new technology may help the public become more engaged in transparency and accountability efforts, they warned against overestimating the importance of citizen engagement, as most of the public still could not access transparency tools. In this regard, they stressed that a healthy institutional framework must be built upon a well-qualified civil service in order to safeguard against corruption. Also underscored was the need to introduce meritocratic appointment of anti-corruption agency directors, rather than political appointments. They also saw working with new actors as crucial, and shared a transparency assessment tool developed by UNDP Colombia in partnership with Transparency International Colombia aimed at helping political parties increase their accountability.

Uzbekistan’s Anti-Corruption Efforts and Challenges Mr. Bahtiyor Eshchanov, Head of Department on Modern Public Management of the Academy of Public Administration, and Ms. Aziza Umarova, UNDP Uzbekistan’s Programme Officer for Democratic Governance, presented Uzbekistan’s anti-corruption efforts, including adoption of various anti-corruption laws, salary increases for law enforcement agency officials, and plans to increase public sector wages in general. They also introduced an interactive portal (my.gov.uz), which aims to boost transparency of state services by sharing information among citizens in an easily accessible way. At the same time, several barriers to fighting corruption in the country were noted, including a lack of a national action plan on prevention. While there has been much on the prosecution side, the national culture was far from naming and shaming the culprits. “There is a joke that saying someone corrupt is not a shame but actually provokes envy,” Umarova remarked, adding that Uzbekistan’s gift-giving culture also creates a sense of entitlement to bribes. The presenters stressed that while Uzbekistan is the world’s eighth largest producer, and a net exporter, of gas, parts of the country still suffer a lack of gas due to corruption. However, they also noted that the government now has the political will to do more on anti-corruption.

Discussion Dr. Chang Kil Lee of Korea’s Sejong University saw the need for more focused efforts on corruption prevention. “We need to root out some bad apples of course, but we also need to eliminate in advance the potential of such bad apples,” he said. He advocated for a move from the traditional institutional approach focused on punishment, to a more system-wide approach focused on the building of a democratic and efficient government and strengthening citizen participation through new e-government systems. Ms. Cardona of UNDP Colombia raised a word of caution on relying too much on citizen’s participation, as experience, including from the US, shows that people simply do not have time to engage in anti-corruption efforts on a regular basis. Uzbekistani representative Ms. Umarova agreed that for citizen participation, information had to be formatted in a user-friendly way that is easy for the average citizen to download and use. A commentator from the floor saw TI’s Corruption Perception Index as a strong advocacy tool, but suggested it might be a questionable measure given that it is based only on perceptions, rather



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than scientific data. Statistics on court cases and experience surveys could be more relevant, it was suggested. Mr. Haverman of UNDP China stressed the usefulness of the index, however, observing that it has helped put the anti-corruption issue on the table and demonstrate how much work is still to be done in the country. At the same time, Mr. Richard E. Messick raised the challenges of a self-restrained approach as a means for effective corruption control. “Self restraint … is probably very hard for parties in power,” he noted. Korea’s ACRC representative wanted to know more about how the collaboration with political parties in Colombia was established. UNDP Colombia explained that they had worked with TI Colombia to identify a set of criteria and to gather the information from the parties. The results of the first application of the transparency tool had not been made public but would be in future. Stressing the need for more comparative research aimed at establishing appropriate common standards for reference, UNDP China’s Mr. Haverman lastly suggested research into gift giving, as traditions vary across the world.



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Session 4: Innovations in Anti-Corruption Various new anti-corruption tools are becoming available, opening up new opportunities for fighting corruption, panellists told moderator Mr. Shervin Majlessi from UNODC. Korea’s participatory audits and e-governance tools for transparent procurement and subcontractor payment in public infrastructure projects were presented. Opportunities and challenges presented by new technological tools from the civil society were also discussed. Lastly, an OECD framework for avoiding public policy capture was presented.

Korea’s Participatory Audits Dr. Seongjun Kim, Managing Director of Korea’s Audit and Inspection Research Institute of the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI) told how BAI has introduced the participatory audit with necessary legal and institutional support in place, now receiving over 10,000 petitions or complaints from citizens annually. He stressed the value of citizen engagement, noting how citizens now account for almost 60% of the total audit requests received by BAI, with over 60 per cent of audit requests leading to material output. Dr. Kim attributed the success of BAI to its strong legal foundation and support of top management. (In Korea, audits can either be initiated by BAI, or by a Citizen Audit Request.)

Korea’s E-governance Tools Mr. Tae-Hag Roh, Construction Management Division Manager for Seoul Metropolitan Government, told how innovative e-governance tools had helped the Seoul Government to tackle rampant corruption in the construction sector, which emerged out of the country’s rapid development phase and led to several high-profile accidents in the past. He introduced Seoul’s Clean Construction System, comprised of One Project Management Information System and the Subcontractor Payment System. The former allows all project stakeholders to monitor project information in real time, assisted by the “Allmi” mobile application, which allows citizens to access information on any nearby construction site. The latter automates payments to subcontractors in order to tackle problems of late and unpaid wages for the labourers working on infrastructure projects. He shared that these systems had increased public participation and enhanced the ability of citizens to know about all publicly-funded construction projects in Seoul, as well as guaranteeing the transparent and timely payment of fees to the labour force. Manager Roh stressed that the Seoul Metropolitan Government is interested in sharing this model of monitoring to other countries, which was well received by participants.

Measurements and Tech tools in anti-corruption Ms. Hazel Feigenblatt, Global Integrity’s Managing Director for Research in Washington, D.C., observed that while measurement tools to tackle corruption are proliferating, it could be difficult for practitioners to keep abreast of the new and complex methodologies that accompany them. The challenges of the “data explosion” include confusion over methodologies and difficulties matching anti-corruption performance indicators to aims. Experience-sharing and better research are needed to find what works in what context, and open data must present information in an easily accessible and analysable format. While many tools have been successfully adopted, she also noted that numerous attempts to replicate such tools had not always been successful because of a lack of consideration over how stakeholders would engage with them in particular contexts.



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Financing Democracy Dr. Yukihiko Hamada, Policy Analyst of Public Sector Integrity for the OECD Directorate of Public Governance and Territorial Development, presented on the ongoing work by OECD, in partnership with other organizations and stakeholders, to set up a framework for supporting better public policies and averting policy capture based on research into, among other things, how OECD Member States currently regulate funding of political parties and campaigning. The framework seeks to present policy options and specific risks to mitigate to guide practitioners based on several elements: creating a level playing field between actors in the political decision-making process through comprehensive regulation of political finance (which should reach from the political campaign phase right through to when politicians take office); ensuring transparency and accountability, including by requiring disclosures about spending of public funds and private donations; fostering a culture of integrity in both the public sector and among private donors; and ensuring compliance and review through independent and efficient oversight, as well as through dissuasive sanctions that are both appropriate and enforceable. Overall, Dr. Hamada advocated a consistent and holistic approach to political finance, stressing enforcement as crucial for successful public finance management.

Discussion Discussant Prof. Sunwoo Lee of Korea National Open University proposed a “human resource management” approach to preventing corruption. Making government employees’ work processes more transparent and allowing them to participate in policymaking processes could boost self-motivation, responsibility and accountability and reduce corruption, he said. Dr. Kim from Korea’s BAI agreed that the human resource management approach was important but pointed out that limited resources in developing countries made it difficult to provide sufficient incentives to public officials to avoid corruption. “In Korea we also experienced this during the development process,” he said. “We observed heavy government intervention and procurement opening up many opportunities for fraud to government workers. We need to demonstrate to workers that they are being checked through audits.” Several participants commended OECD for the work on the framework aiming at enhancing the transparency of funding for political parties and campaigns and wanted to hear what the next steps were and what guidance there was to keep transactions for financing democracy in check. OECD Policy Analyst Hamada responded that OECD would publish a major report later in 2014 to offer benchmarks and case studies on financing democracy for other countries’ reference. He warned against readily accepting information available on websites if the information had not been verified by a third party. He added that while setting up an independent oversight body required a lot of financial and human resource investment, this was one way of ensuring that information on political funding was checked, traced and accurate.

Bhutan’s ACC Chair Neten Zangmo made the request for development cooperation to catalogue the many anti-corruption tools now available so that small countries such as hers with limited resources could more easily survey and select the most appropriate tools for their use. Responding to a question on whether the experiences of the Seoul Metropolitan Government Clean Construction System had been shared with other countries, Manager Roh of the SMG informed that the city had worked with Johannesburg in South Africa and Edmonton in Canada, noting that his office would be pleased to share experiences with others showing interest in the system.



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Day 1: Closing Remarks

Dr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP GCPSE in Singapore, saw the “great strength” of the 2015 Seoul Debates in “anchoring the discussion in the broader thought of public service, the role of politics and political processes.” He called for “resurrection of a sense of purpose, pride and ethics in the public service,” which he lamented had been in a state of constant decline for the last few decades in many parts of the world. He said that while the corruption challenge remains real, it should not be exaggerated either. “The importance of it is also how we run public service without becoming cynical or jaded but bearing in mind, as we have been reminded today, that everyone can be bought,” he said. “It is now about anchoring the work that has been put into today’s presentations thinking about how to take it forward, and I look forward to collaborating with many people attending on many of the very fruitful ideas on how we can improve the public service.” USPC Director Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen saw many valuable takeaways from an “extremely inspiring day” including the contextualization of corruption efforts and recognition of the need to break the silos and pointed to experiences with mainstreaming from other areas such as environment and climate change as potentially relevant for anti-corruption. She also made the connection between corruption and the funding available for development. “Corruption diverts funding from where it is really needed,” she said.

“Corruption diverts funding from where it is really needed.”

-Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, USPC Director

“We need a resurrection of a sense of purpose, pride and ethics in the public service.”

- Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP GCPSE

The 2015 Seoul Debates UNDP Seoul Policy Centre

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Expert Group Meeting (Day 2)

Session 1: In-depth Analysis on Anti-Corruption Experiences and Lessons Learnt from Korea: Panel Discussion In the session specifically designed to share Korea’s experience, Korea’s main corruption challenges as well as means of overcoming them were presented by experts from the Korea Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of the Republic of Korea, the Korea Institute for Public Administration, Transparency International Korea, and Korea University. The session was moderated by Dr. Hyun-sik Chang, Professor at Seoul National University and former Vice President of Korea International Cooperation Agency. Dr. Joonghoon Park of the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) gave an overview of Korea’s fight against corruption through its economic and political development up to the current day, including the introduction of anti-corruption laws, anti-corruption agencies, and systems such as the Korea Integrity Survey System. He highlighted the critical role of presidential leadership in tackling corruption, along with the merit-based personnel management system, public employee asset disclosure laws as well as independent audit and inspection mechanisms within government. He noted cultural factors that pose challenges to anti-corruption efforts, such as Korea’s ‘group culture’, which has made whistle-blowing uncomfortable for employees, and gift giving tradition, which has complicated efforts against bribes and coercion. Dr. Park called for new legislation to address this mismatch between the legal definition of bribes and personal sponsorship. For institutional coordination and efficiency, he also advocated having a single agency to deal with the inter-related functions of anti-corruption and promotion of ethics of public officials, which are currently separated into different agencies. “A balanced approach of control and preventative measures is very important. By resorting only to

punishment or control measures we cannot deal with widespread corruption issues. We try to reduce the actual causes of corruption before it happens.”

- Dr. Joonghoon Park, Korea Institute of Public Administration

Introducing Korea’s integrity assessment tools, Mr. Sang-nyon Kim, Director of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, underscored how assessment is necessary and helpful to implement an effective anti-corruption policy. Korea’s Integrity Assessment system evaluates, on an annual basis as mandated by the Korean law, the level of corruption of each public service institution through service user surveys and internal employee surveys. In 2013, which was the 12th assessment, 240,000 people were surveyed to assess 653 institutions. This assessment also induces public pressure and institutional motivation by promoting competition among government agencies by sharing an index of integrity assessment results with the national assembly and the public. The integrity assessment has also proven to guide public institutions in anti-corruption strategy development and reform actions. ACRC has also used the data to identify corruption-prone areas and action to address them. Success factors of the assessment include: the sanction-based approach, promotion of citizens’ participation and rights to information, as well as healthy competition among the public institutions being assessed. ACRC has also shared the model with other countries including Indonesia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia and Viet Nam, providing technical support and training for its implementation.

Mr. Seung-mo Koo, Prosecutor of Korea’s Anti-Corruption Department of Supreme Prosecutors' Office outlined the legal framework and prosecutionof corruption in Korea,



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explaining that the major corruption crimes were bribery, corporate fraud and embezzlement in the private sector. He outlined how his agency supports accounting analysis in money tracing and criminal asset recovery, and how it manages crime information from other government agencies, supervising every special investigation case. Prosecutor Koo shared the institutional arrangement of Korea’s prosecution system. SPO’s Central Investigation Department (CID) was established in 1961 to concentrate manpower on nationally important cases, prosecuting two ex-presidents, three sons of sitting presidents as well as many government ministers and conglomerate heads over 15 years. In 2013, the CID was replaced with a decentralised system, to help distance anti-corruption investigations from politics. Prosecutor Koo argued, however, that this change has damaged the efficiency of investigations. He also surveyed the historical trends of corruption cases in Korea, including grand political corruption cases in the 1990s and corporate-related political corruption cases in the 2000s. He candidly shared the manifold challenges of prosecuting against Korean VIPs, such as pressure from many sources not to prosecute, targets’ ability to hire expensive lawyers to make elaborate legal defences, and leaks of information to investigation targets. He also noted difficulties with the public perception that the SPO is politically biased. As whistle-blowers tend to emerge after presidents have stepped down from office, he explained, the public tends to percieve subsequent prosecutions as operating on behalf of the sitting president, creating public perception that the agency is partisan. He also shared that SPO was working toward an international cooperation network to tackle corruption. On the relationship between democratic transitions and anti-corruption, Dr. Shin Kim of KIPA stated that corruption remains a major issue in Korea despite new tools and efforts to implement them. Stressing the complexity of the subject, he outlined the three contrasting positions on democratization’s effect on corruption, namely that democratization: 1) reduces corruption through increased transparency and accountability; 2) promotes corruption by opening opportunities for graft through frequent elections; or 3) has no simple relationship between democratization and anti-corruption given the complex range of factors affecting corruption. He observed that empirical studies found the truth to lie somewhere between the first and the third hypotheses, and advised a comprehensive approach to tacking individual cases. While acknowledging the progresses made in Korea’s anti-corruption efforts, Dr. Kim saw measures introduced over the last two decades as insufficient for achieving the objectives of Korea’s anti-corruption policies, and noted a trend of regression on certain aspects of Korea’s anti-corruption work. “[The government has] been criticized for treating just symptoms, being abused for political interests, and lacking institutionalization,” he said. He also stressed that combatting corruption requires strong leadership and public support. “It also needs the behavioural changes of public officials and the constant oversight of the general public. Furthermore, it should be based on the law and institutions,” he added, calling for anti-corruption policies to be refined with clearer purposes and more efficient measures. Enriching the discussion with the civil society perspective, Mr. Sung-goo Kang, Senior Policy Member of Transparency International Korea (TI-Korea) spoke on Korea’s civil society advocacy efforts in anti-corruption since his agency was founded in 1999. He highlighted the coalition work of some 837 NGOs in the country to establish the Anti-Corruption Law in 2001 and the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption (KICAC) in 2002. Referring to Korea’s

“Although personal

behaviors and cultural

heritages strongly

influence the degrees of

transparencies in

society as a whole,

institutional setup is a

critical issue during

political turmoil.”

- Dr. Shin Kim, KIPA



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ranking in TI’s anti-corruption perception index scores, he noted stagnation on anti-corruption progress after 2008, when KICAC was dissolved and consolidated with several other institutions under the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, along with the demise of the multi-stakeholder Pact on Anti-Corruption and Transparency (K-PACT), which had been established in 2005. His concluding message was that anti-corruption practitioners should stay vigilant and work to empower people and continually construct a ‘no tolerance’ culture in regards to corruption, lest the gains in anti-corruption be lost. Prof. Jin-Wook Choi of Korea University’s Department of Public Administration shared Korea’s lessons learnt for sustainable anti-corruption reform, observing that Korea’s anti-corruption mission is incomplete, though the government is working hard to improve the situation. However, he noted that Korea had managed to fight corruption starting under fairly difficult circumstances since the 1950s, so may offer some valuable lessons to developing countries. The main factors contributing to improve Korea’s anti-corruption landscape in the past 15 years include economic growth, advancement of democracy, civil society involvement and reform, as well as corruption prevention efforts. Meanwhile, political will, law enforcement and the media have played an intermediate role. Other Korean success factors included the importance of strong political commitment, institutionalized policies, readjustment of anti-corruption legislation and agencies to fill loopholes, and a balance between control and prevention. Prof. Choi suggested that developing countries might benefit from a hybrid strategy that makes pragmatic use of those anti-corruption activities readily available to them, such as e-governance, together with broader civil service reforms. Systematic measurement of corruption was also highlighted as useful.

Discussion Asked by an international participant how much time and resources integrity assessments require, ACRC Anti-Corruption Survey Director Kim shared that the annual budget for ACRC’s integrity assessment in 2014 was USD 2 million in Korea, covering 700 public institutions and over 3,000 public services, with 214,000 people interviewed through computer aided telephone, email, and mobile surveys. He explained that interview methods (e.g. telephone, face-to-face and mail) can affect costs, and that budgets should be based on countries’ technological capacities and cost differentials. Sharing her country’s own experience of adopting Korea’s Integrity Assessment, Bhutan’s ACC Chair Zangmo said that these assessments were expensive but worth doing. She observed that a top score of 10 was very hard to achieve, with Bhutan consistently scoring of 8 or 9. ACRC Anti-Corruption Survey Director Kim advised that given that just one or two survey respondents must report an experience of corruption to get a score of 9, Bhutan’s integrated score was already high. However, to exceed its 8, Bhutan’s ACC should consider not only experiences of corruption but also perception factors, with a focus on the issues of abuse of power. Prosecutor Koo responded to a question on how much basic training an anti-corruption investigator requires in Korea before being assigned to corruption cases, saying that investigators usually receive 3-4 years of training for ordinary crimes, with excellent prosecutors then selected for anti-corruption work. In SPO, those selected must then learn from experience by working under senior corruption prosecutors in what he called a “very delicate art.” He added that continuous learning and training are needed to build up strong capacities for anti-corruption work, sharing how his agency was recently developing 3-6 month training courses for accounting and money laundering investigations. Relating to Korean Prosecutor Koo’s presentation, Uganda’s Inspector General Kakooza observed that her country’s two investigative agencies had different strategies on controlling



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information about anti-corruption investigations; the police made daily statements to the press, while government investigators were quieter, though information did sometimes leak to the media. She asked whether in the case of Korea, facts about anti-corruption investigations were deliberately shared with the press, and if leaked, what strategies were used to control that information. Prosecutor Koo responded that in principle criminal information could be announced to the press only after prosecution in the Korean criminal courts, but that in reality huge public interest in corruption cases created exceptions to this basic rule. Usually, a dedicated communication officer in each prosecutor’s office was authorised to make announcements to the press based on his or her own judgement, he said. On the prosecution side, ACC Chair Zangmo also saw a “huge knowledge gap” for Bhutan’s ACC investigators, and shared that her agency was considering having resident ACC prosecutors to improve efficiency of investigations under one agency. Prosecutor Koo agreed that efficiency was essential for corruption crime investigation, and advised that Korea had taken the measure of merging the roles of investigative and trial prosecutors when it came to corruption cases. On the question concerning Korea’s citizen engagement, Prof. Jin-Wook Choi noted that as politicians are necessarily concerned about constituents’ views, the ultimate pressure must come from citizens. He warned that relying on election campaigns to raise anti-corruption issues was not practical because there were so many competing issues around elections. Therefore, he advised, civil society and the public must constantly pressure politicians to keep anti-corruption issues alive. International organizations should also help nurture civil society inside developing countries, and also put pressure the corrupt politicians and regimes themselves.



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Session 2: Lessons Learnt in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries Participants from Viet Nam, Indonesia, Thailand and Uganda shared their experiences and lessons learnt relating to their anti-corruption efforts. They stressed the importance of engaging different stakeholders ranging from civil society to political leaders and also emphasized the need for strong and independent ACAs. Patrick Haverman, UNDP China Deputy Country Director, moderated the session. Transparency International Board Member and Chair of TI-Indonesia’s Executive Board, Ms. Natalia Pangastoeti Soebagjo, gave political context on the then ongoing “tension” between Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the police, drawing lessons for other countries. “It is a real and current case that highlights complexities of fighting corruption in a developing country. It is a case which shows the power and impact of political will; the importance of the independence of anti-corruption agencies; of being a victim of its own success to a certain extent, and it shows the crucial role that CSOs and citizens play in fighting corruption,” she said. “At risk in this debacle are the integrity of law enforcement agencies and the rule of law.” She added that the case of the arrested KPK commissioner shed light on the importance of political backing, independence, and protection of ACAs. With regards to the debate on whether immunity should be granted to KPK, she reflected that no one should be above the law. Reflecting on Indonesia’s ongoing bottom-up coalition efforts to keep fighting corruption, she stressed that collective action from all of society was vital to tackle corruption in developing countries. Pham Hong Nam, Head of General Affairs in the Research and General Affairs Department of Viet Nam’s Central Commission of Internal Affairs introduced his recently created organization and shared how corruption in his country is increasingly sophisticated, serious and complex. While corruption occurs frequently, it often goes undetected without remedial action, with authorities failing to address the seriousness of those violations that are detected, he observed. Based on his experience, he stressed a need for greater political will as well as continuous implementation of anti-corruption measures chosen in accordance with political, economic and social conditions. He also underscored the importance of building an anti-corruption culture, monitoring and controlling state power, and building a system of competent anti-corruption agencies within the context of international shared learning. Annet Mpabulungi-Wakabi, UNDP Uganda Country Office Head of Governance, presented on UNDP Uganda and Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda’s collaboration to strengthen transparency and accountability in the use of universal primary education resources in the Ugandan district of Iganga. Their anti-corruption efforts focused on community awareness raising and promotion of activism had mobilized rights holders to demand more accountability on the real problems in the education sector including: shoddy school construction, bribery, “ghost” teachers and pupils on school records, data manipulation, inflated costs, and the siphoning of school supplies. She shared how this project demonstrated the importance of these efforts: Increased public awareness in the project location led to a 30 per cent rise in complaints from this area to the country’s Inspector General between 2010 and 2014. While Uganda’s Vision 2040 underscores zero tolerance on corruption, preventing and detecting corruption as well as enforcing anti-corruption measures remains a challenge, she noted. Once again, she highlighted the importance of citizen engagement and access to information in social mobilization for anti-corruption. Dr. Utis Kaothien, Thailand National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) Strategy Expert and former Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) said that Thailand’s new government had not yet been in power long enough to gauge its success in fighting corruption, but cited the importance of a strong political will and commitment to increase the country’s anti-corruption budget as key. He



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observed that implementation of Thailand’s anti-corruption strategy had been hampered because of the country’s inflexible and out-dated legal system. In his view, this had made implementation costly and time consuming, mostly netting only small fish, as it was unsuited to targeting organized corruption. He was pleased to share that the new administration in the country was reviewing the role of NACC and related agencies in order to strengthen their efficiency. NACC had proposed having a fixed annual budget so that anti-corruption agencies could work without political interference and recommended that private sector, civil society, and media stakeholders should participate in the monitoring and implementation of the anti-corruption strategy, in order to ensure that ACAs could work more effectively. He recommended other countries to also do the same, underscoring the importance of having a fixed annual budget in particular.

Discussion Discussant Ms. Nurina Widagdo, Head of the UNDP Indonesia Country Office Democratic Governance and Poverty Reduction Unit, commented that external pressure from outside the bureaucracy or system was needed to uproot corruption from societies as “there is no politician that will try to combat corruption unless there is external pressure.” In her view, UNDP Uganda’s example showed that even community-level initiatives worked where there was sufficient democratic space and civil society inclusion. She also stressed the importance of nurturing and working with “champions” who could promote anti-corruption efforts inside the government, complemented by collective action from bottom up. Finally, she advocated adopting “anti-corruption” as something to mainstream into all the programmes of development partners, as recently done with gender. When asked whether communities active in the Ugandan UNDP anti-corruption project were getting better services than inactive ones, UNDP Uganda Head of Governance Mpabulungi-Wakabi answered that shoddy work was still going on in schools outside of the sub-counties covered by the project. “Lack of information has hindered them to demand their right to universal education resources that are being provided by government.” She found, however, that “once the community has the information then they are more empowered to demand.” She shared how citizens in the project site were now asking project monitors to come to their areas to advise them on how to deal with their corruption problems. Based on her experience, she concluded that people’s knowledge about the law and the standards of services to expect, as well as the general awareness and sense of empowerment that they could question service providers can drive anti-corruption efforts forward, bottom-up. Lastly, Bhutan ACC Chair Zangmo commented that her country was aware of the need to proactively work with public perceptions, as ACAs risk being seen as politicised when government figures were investigated. In such cases, she advised engaging with other organizations by forewarning on reports and sharing information.



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Session 3: Applying Good Practices for Tackling Corruption in Developing Countries: Challenges and Recommendations Presenters and discussants agreed that fighting the complex problem of corruption required political will and should not be left to one agency or actor in society. Speakers considered how to secure such political will, what to do with it once it was achieved, and what to do when it was lacking, stressing the importance of international networks and public sentiment. The session was moderated by Dr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager of the UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN). Countries could create favourable policies and sustain political commitment to fighting corruption by first identifying and defining their corruption problems, then choosing the right evidence-based policy models, said UNDP Ethiopia Office Governance Advisor Chrysantus Ayangafac. He outlined several enabling factors for fighting corruption such as reaching sustainable political agreements and pairing anti-corruption enforcement with governance reforms. Boosting public trust through efforts such as citizen complaint mechanisms would help, and ensuring anti-corruption commissions had the budgetary resources to carry out their work were also key. In the absence of such enabling factors, he argued that anti-corruption strategies could still be supported by regional collaboration and wider partnerships in order to instigate action and also tackle cross-border corruption. Here, improving anti-corruption agencies’ technical capacity could be catalytic, as could social initiatives to combat cultural practices that embedded corruption in a society. He suggested that civil servant performance could be improved by including management targets with monetary rewards on topics such as reducing the incidence of corruption. Furthermore, implementation of e-governance systems can help by allowing some public access to the integrated systems of the agencies such as the Revenue Authority, Central Bank, Customs, Immigration, and Registrar of Companies. He also told how Ethiopia was boosting social accountability through participatory budget planning and basic education on corruption. Finally, Mr. Ayangafac recommended that administration of justice include mandatory publication of criminal court decisions on corruption cases and subsequent review of any prosecution decisions to discontinue or procrastinate proceedings for corruption-related criminal offences. Mr. Richard E. Messick, Consultant on Anti-corruption and Rule of Law and former Co-Director of the World Bank Law and Justice Thematic Group, argued that political will to fight corruption did not exist “deus ex machina” but can be generated from developing public sentiment against it. “When you have got public sentiment behind you nothing can fail but without it nothing can succeed,” he quoted Abraham Lincoln. He gave examples from Nigeria, Uganda, and the Philippines to show how voters, the middle class, donors, corruption activists and officials could all contribute to moulding public opinion. For example, he told of how Nigeria’s Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was able to “go slowly but surely up the chain” of corruption when chair of the country’s new anti-corruption agency in the early 2000s, by first winning domestic public sentiment in fighting small-scale corruption, then forming international alliances with UK and US law enforcement agencies to eventually go after the “big fish” in his country. He also told how World Bank economist Ritva Reinikka led an innovative project to uncover leakages in Uganda’s school funds by questioning local authorities’ reportage of student numbers and disbursement of education funds to find that as much as 87 per cent of the money sent from the central government to local schools was being stolen. After sharing this information, there was a sharp drop in leakages over a three-year period, almost down to zero in some cases. “Information well publicized, easy to understand put into the hands of citizens, central



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government and donor organizations created the will to address the leakages in the school system,” he said. “A little bit of data goes a long way used properly.” Mr. Messick’s presentation showed that there is still much to be done even in situations of insufficient political will, and inspired participants to explore creative means to utilize data, play the public sentiment and utilize international networks.

Discussion Discussants identified the main challenges and pitfalls when applying good practices to other countries, as well as recommendations for overcoming these challenges. Dr. Elizabeth Hart, former Director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and former USAID Senior Anti-Corruption Advisor, stressed the importance of taking countries’ political realities seriously when considering the “doability” of anti-corruption, sometimes swallowing the bitter pill that corruption and patronage play a function in governance structures in many societies. Mr. Dennis Curry, UNDP Viet Nam Assistant Country Director, reported that corruption ranked in the top five most serious issues for the public in Viet Nam, based on the country’s Public Administration Performance Index annual citizen survey carried out since 2011. The country’s politicians had the will to fight corruption as an issue high on people’s minds, seeing it as a threat to stability, he said. He stressed the importance of a flexible approach factoring in country context such as governance environment, and noted remaining challenges such as the civil society’s role and independence in Viet Nam’s governance environment. Even with political will, favourable policy and enabling environment, motivated government employees, anti-corruption strategies, laws and institutions - Korea’s Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ranking demonstrates that the country had not successfully eradicated corruption, Prof. Heungsik Park of Korea’s Chung-Ang University observed. He emphasized the personal-level work of anti-corruption. “We need ethical muscle to fight corruption, not just education and legal structures,” he said. Ms. Neten Zangmo from Bhutan’s ACC reiterated the key message that the conditions that made other countries’ “best practices” work must be examined before applying them elsewhere. She recommended a cautious approach to readily embracing methods that had worked elsewhere, noting the challenges that arise if certain aspects of the enabling environment were not present. External experts could advise on “best practices,” but ultimately countries themselves needed to call the shots, she suggested. She also stressed the importance of guaranteed financial stability for anti-corruption agencies was also important. Sharing Singapore’s experience, Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of Singapore’s CPIB advised that new ACAs just starting work need be practical when it comes to balancing “going after small and big fish” in initial anti-corruption tasks, while gaining public support for their initiatives.



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Session 4: Working Group Discussions for Designing a Roadmap on Anti-Corruption Development Solutions Ahjung Lee, Programme and Policy Officer of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre, summarized some key themes and questions that were repeated during the previous sessions, and presented questions for the participants to reflect upon and share in a more intimate setting. Participants broke into three groups and discussed, among other things, how to change the mindsets and behaviours for anti-corruption and what they plan to do with their takeaways from the 2015 Seoul Debates. They also discussed strategic opportunities and means of building partnerships on anti-corruption in order to facilitate the implementation of the lessons learnt and the application of the good practices shared in the meeting.

Group 1 Rapporteur Ms. Nurina Widagdo from UNDP Indonesia reiterated one of the main messages of the 2015 Seoul Debates: that there was no such thing as anti-corruption best practice but rather best-fit models that could be applicable to particular country contexts. She stressed the need to mainstream anti-corruption efforts through a holistic cross-sectoral approach in the same way that UNDP has done by mainstreaming gender issues. She shared that practitioners had come to appreciate the need for global networking and sharing lessons on overcoming low political will. The meeting also helped practitioners conceptualise and explore possibilities of introducing e-governance and integrity assessment tools for implementation in different country contexts. Going forward, she stressed it was important to learn the challenges and consequences of the UNCAC and better link it to policy implementation. Furthermore, she observed that practitioners need to seek assistance on how to market the anti-corruption/development efforts and agenda in order to get the broader public on board.

Group 2 Rapporteur Dr. Yukihiko Hamada, Policy Analyst of Public Sector Integrity for the OECD Directorate of Public Governance and Territorial Development reported that his group saw the need for more effective enforcement and sanctions to generate a fear of punishment for wrongdoings, with no exceptions. Furthermore, a more evidence-based approach could help countries identify the best means of fighting corruption. While international partnerships between anti-corruption actors were important for knowledge-sharing, it was now necessary to bring other stakeholders such as members of the private sector and other actors to anti-corruption meetings. His group also advised a mapping of who is doing and funding what to make efforts complementary and avoid duplication of efforts.

Group 3 Rapporteur Ms. Aziza Umarova, UNDP Uzbekistan Programme Officer for Democratic Governance, reported her group’s observation that a holistic approach was needed to change mindsets on corruption, as even in the presence of good administrative reform it was difficult to see serious behavioural changes in many countries. The group also saw the importance of working on civic responsibility and the social contract in order to get all members of society on board for anti-corruption efforts. Lastly, she shared how the group members expressed interest in learning more about Korea’s integrity assessment and ICT tools, and in continued networking and dialogue after the meeting.


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Day 2: Closing Remarks “Fighting corruption shouldn’t be one agency or one actor in society’s problem. It should be society

as a whole whether it be the government institutions, civil society, international actors or the public at large,”

- Dr. Anga Timilsina, UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative Programme Manager

Dr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager of UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative, said that corruption was something to be fought by society as a whole - from international actors to the public at large. He outlined the following four takeaways from the meeting:

1) Starting with a development problem and working backwards to anti-corruption measures can bring the public on board and demystify corruption;

2) Generating public sentiment can help to strengthen political will to fight corruption; 3) It is important to recognize that best practices cannot be transplanted, rather that we must

learn from both bad practices and good - seeking to find the replicability and adaptability of what has worked elsewhere, and

4) Allowing sufficient resources for anti-corruption efforts can help sustain the good work.

“Impressed and inspired” by the fruitful discussions, USPC Director Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen also shared some of her main takeaways on the important messages shared at the 2015 Seoul Debates, and thanked all the participants for their energy and contributions. “Anti-Corruption practitioners need to be conversant beyond their sector, and work with all stakeholders including civil society, the private sector, and political parties,” she emphasized.


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45

Feedback from

Participants


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Feedback from Participants

Participants appreciated the 2015 Seoul Debates as a “well-organized and well-structured event,” with “good agenda, excellent speakers and panel on Korea’s experience,” commenting that the meeting representing “many countries, diverse experiences, and diverse panellists from several sectors” provided interesting and complementary views with “practical approaches and exchanges.” As for the next year’s event, several participants recommended having “fewer speakers and more group discussions” in the programme. Concerning their suggestions for USPC’s Development Solutions Partnership (DSP) on anti-corruption after the 2015 Seoul Debates, participants called for more interactive and elaborate sharing of Korea’s experiences and expressed their interest in further exploring several themes including the following:

1) ACRC integrity assessments: how they could be adapted, implemented and utilized effectively despite various constraints that exist in developing countries.

2) Korea’s e-governance systems and tools: how to adapt and apply Korea’s e-governance systems and tools for corruption prevention, such as the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Clean Construction System.

3) Korea’s prosecution experience: institutional development, capacity building, and ways of increasing effectiveness of corruption investigations in the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of Korea.

4) Korea’s broader governance reform experience: how to build effective anti-corruption agencies and establish enabling legal frameworks; how to push through public administration reforms in the face of high levels of political resistance; how to improve corruption in the government-business relations; and how to promote public education on anti-corruption.

Participants also recommended the following types of activities under USPC’s DSP on anti-corruption:

1) Consolidation of Korea’s experience: creating more elaborate and interactive forms of presentation of Korea’s experiences; and making a “brochure” or booklet containing Korea’s good practices and lessons learnt with contact information of relevant experts and authorities, in order to make the information easier to digest and share with others.

2) Call for Proposals and pilot projects: undertaking specific country-level pilot projects, with dedicated support from Korea, to adopt and contextualize Korea’s anti-corruption tools and lessons learnt; making a call for proposals for cooperation with Korea and UNDP in public administration reform; and having Korean experts help with anti-corruption programming and drafting of anti-corruption laws in selected countries.

3) Regional, South-South, and triangular cooperation: follow-up meetings and workshops with study visits within the region; joint expert missions of Singapore and Korea to developing countries.

“I would welcome any possible collaboration between Korea and other countries to help

implement innovative instruments in their own settings.”

- Seoul Debates Participant


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4) Similar meetings in developing countries: hosting meetings similar to the Seoul Debates in developing countries with Korean participation, in partnership with Korean Embassies and KOICA offices.

5) Research: comparative studies on themes such as socio-cultural factors of corruption, gift-giving traditions, anti-corruption budgeting and mainstreaming, and UNCAC implementation

“I believe that putting Korea’s experience in perspective with other countries will be a great

occasion to draw lessons on how anti-corruption can be promoted as part of a wider

development agenda.”

- Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Director of UNDP Regional

Bureau for Asia and Pacific


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49

Annexes


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51

Concept Note &

Programme


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Lessons Learnt on Anti-Corruption from Korea and Around the World

29-30 January 2015, Seoul, Republic of Korea Holiday Inn Seongbuk, Seoul

Objective

The 2015 Seoul Debates2 aims to facilitate dynamic discussions on policies, strategies and institutional arrangements to prevent corruption in the public sector using Korea’s recent experience as a reference, alongside the experiences from several countries around the world. The objective is to identify and consolidate lessons learnt for more effective anti-corruption interventions. Serving as a platform for peer-to-peer knowledge-exchange, the meeting is attended by government partners, UNDP practitioners, civil society experts and researchers from Korea and countries around the world, such as: Singapore, Indonesia, Bhutan, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Uganda, Ethiopia, Colombia, El Salvador, and Uzbekistan. The meeting will share lessons learnt and innovations on anti-corruption, and provide opportunities to build partnerships and find solutions to common challenges in the area of anti-corruption. Key findings, suggestions and conclusions from the 2015 Seoul Debates will be fed into a study publication afterwards. The 2015 Seoul Debates is organized by UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) as part of its Development Solutions Partnership on anti-corruption (DSP). The DSP is a new approach for USPC to connect Korea with the wider UNDP network as a knowledge broker and facilitator and enhance the Korea-UNDP partnership on strategic development issues. Background

Corruption remains a serious global challenge that impedes development and promotes inequality and injustice. Corruption undermines fundamental human rights, exacerbates poverty, and degrades the environment. It diverts money sorely needed by our societies for health care, education and other essential services. It increases the costs of doing business, distorts markets, and impedes economic growth. According to the World Bank, almost $1 trillion is paid in bribes globally each year. 3 Every year, developing countries lose up to $1 trillion through government corruption, criminal activity, and commercial tax evasion. People all around the world care about this issue. More than 7 million voters in UNDP’s global My World survey have ranked “honest and responsive governments” among their top four priorities for the new post-2015 development agenda which member states will negotiate this year. Fighting corruption is a critical part not only of strengthening accountability and rule of law, but also of ensuring effective and efficient use of financial resources for development under this new framework. Historically, Korea struggled to address various forms of corruption, such as bribery offenses, political corruption, and collusion between politics and businesses throughout the industrialization period. Having made a rapid transition from one of the poorest aid-recipient country to a member of OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), however, Korea has

2 The Seoul Debates is a flagship platform of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre for discussion on relevant issues of development policy, on an annual basis. The Seoul Debates 2013 focused on the issues of challenges of the middle-income countries, and the final report is available at: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/uspc/docs/MIC-Seoul-Report-2013.pdf. 3 See UNDP (2008), Corruption and Development: A primer. NY.

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/uspc/docs/MIC-Seoul-Report-2013.pdf


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made significant achievements in tackling corruption as part of its democratization and governance reform processes. In recent years, Korea’s successes in improving public service through anti-corruption measures and in innovative tools for corruption prevention have been recognized internationally, and relevant Korean institutions now share Korea’s experience and knowledge abroad through various forums and training sessions. At the international level, adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2003, as the sole universal legally-binding instrument created a global standard for fighting corruption and mitigating corruption risks that undermine development effectiveness, and offers a unique opportunity to share experiences and to cooperate on issues directly related to its implementation. On the UNDP side, UNDP’s niche and comparative advantages on anti-corruption come from its more-than-two decades of experience on governance as well as its work in more than 170 countries and territories with a dedicated global network of more than 300 governance and anti-corruption focal points. UNDP renewed its commitment to help programming countries prevent corruption with the approval of UNDP’s Global Anti-corruption Initiative (GAIN) (2014-2017), which builds on the lessons learnt from the previous anti-corruption global programme (2008-2013). With its longstanding engagement on strengthening institutions and supporting governance reforms, UNDP is increasingly applying its governance approach to preventing corruption by integrating anti-corruption with other areas of governance support such as public administration reform, legal reforms, local governance, youth and women’s empowerment, and strengthening civil society and media. In Asia, UNDP’s work on anti-corruption benefits from UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub as well as from its policy centers in Singapore (Global Centre for Public Service Excellence, GCPSE) and in Seoul (Seoul Policy Centre, USPC). USPC began its work in January 2011 to broker new partnerships between Korea and the developing world through UNDP networks by representing UNDP in Korea and supporting the country in important global development issues.

Rationale

There is no universal model of successful anti-corruption policies, and knowledge exchange alone does not and cannot lead to direct replication in toto, owing to different political, socio-economic and legal contexts. Nevertheless, this does not stop us from identifying and sharing experiences and lessons learnt, as to what works and doesn’t and why. From this perspective, Korea’s anti-corruption experiences together with the experience from various countries regarding corruption prevention policies and reforms in the public sector can provide useful reference points to learn and have a more sound understanding of what works and what does not in different contexts.

Proceedings and Expected Outputs

The 2015 Seoul Debates will promote a discussion about policies, strategies and institutional arrangements to tackle corruption in the public sector based on Korea’s recent experience, as well as experiences from at least 10 countries around the world, in order to identify and consolidate lessons learnt for more effective anti-corruption interventions. The discussion will be organized at two different levels. The first day consists of a high-level policy dialogue, country presentations and thematic sessions, focused on progress and lessons learnt in terms of anti-corruption policy reform and implementation. On the second day, the discussion is organized around as an expert round-table meeting that will look into certain components of Korea’s anti-corruption experiences (i.e. policies, strategies, and institutional arrangements), as well as common political and institutional challenges in anti-corruption efforts around the world, so as to draw lessons learnt and to identify opportunities for the implementation of these lessons in


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other contexts. These discussions will be consolidated into a USPC study paper to be taken forward in the context of the Development Solutions Partnership (DPS) on anti-corruption. Expected outputs of the meeting are as follows:

1. Build up a platform of peer-to-peer knowledg e-sharing and consolidation of critical reflections among experts and practitioners on the lessons learnt on effective anti-corruption strategies and necessary institutional arrangements, drawing from the comparative experiences of Korea and other countries around the world; and

2. Identify strategic opportunities and means of building partnerships on anti-corruption to facilitate the implementation of the lessons learnt as well as the application of good practices shared in this meeting.

Time and Location

29-30 January 2015, Holiday Inn Seongbuk, Seoul, Republic of Korea


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Opening Day 29 January 2015

Opening

09:00-09:05

Welcome Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC)

09:05-09:15

Congratulatory Speech H.E. Shin, Dong-ik, Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea

09:15-09:45

Keynote Addresses

Ms. Kwak, Jin-Young, Vice-Chairperson, Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC)

Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Session 1 High-Level Political Dialogue: Lessons Learnt from Anti-Corruption Institutions

09:45-11:00

<Moderator> • Mr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service

Excellence in Singapore (GCPSE)

<Panellists> • Mr. Adnan Pandu Praja, Commissioner, Indonesia Corruption Eradication Commission

(KPK)

• Ms. Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza, Inspector General of Government, Uganda

• Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), Government of Singapore

• Mr. Choi, Yun-Su, Chief Officer of Anti-Corruption Planning, Anti-Corruption Department, Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO), Republic of Korea

• Ms. Neten Zangmo, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bhutan (ACC)

11:00-11:15

Coffee Break


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Session 2 The International Anti-Corruption Regime and Lessons Learnt From Development

Cooperation in Anti-Corruption

11:15-12:30

<Moderator> • Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC)

<Presenters> 1) Lessons Learnt from Anti-Corruption Strategies: UNDP Experience in Asia-Pacific • Ms. Elodie Beth-Seo, Anti-Corruption Advisor, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub

2) Challenges and Successes of UNCAC Implementation, and Lessons Learnt in the Area of Foreign Anti-Bribery • Mr. Shervin Majlessi, Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor, United Nations Office on Drugs

and Crime (UNODC) Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific

3) Learning from Donors in Development Cooperation

• Ms. Elizabeth (Liz) Hart, Researcher and Consultant; former Director, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and former Senior Anti-Corruption Advisor, USAID

4) UNDP’s Experiences: A Global Perspective • Mr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager, UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative

12:30-13:45

Lunch (A buffet lunch will be served at the meeting venue.)

Session 3 Progresses and Challenges in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries

13:45-15:45

<Moderator> • Mr. Luc Stevens, UN Resident Coordinator & UNDP Resident Representative, Thailand

<Presenters> 1) China’s Anti-Corruption Efforts: Challenges and Lessons learned • Mr. Patrick Haverman, UNDP China Deputy Country Director

• Ms. Jade Mizutani, Anti-Corruption Programme Manager, UNDP China

2) Fight Against Corruption in El Salvador: Lessons in the Making Mr. Manuel de Jesus Crúz López , Director of the Secretary of Citizen Participation, the

Presidency of El Salvador

Ms. Laura Rivera Marinero, Program Officer and Transparency Project Coordinator, UNDP El Salvador Country Office

3) Uzbekistan’s Anti-Corruption Efforts and Challenges • Mr. Bakhtiyor Eshchanov, Head of Department on Modern Public Management of the

Academy of Public Administration under the President of Uzbekistan

• Ms. Aziza Umarova, Programme Officer for Democratic Governance, UNDP Uzbekistan 4) Colombia s Fight Against Corruption: Balance and Challenges • Mr. Camilo Cetina, Director of the Presidential Transparency Observatory, Colombia

• Ms. Blanca Cardona, Team Leader of Democratic Governance Unit, UNDP Colombia


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<Discussants> • Dr. Lee, Chang Kil, Professor, Sejong University, Republic of Korea

• Mr. Richard E. Messick, Consultant, Anti-corruption and Rule of Law; and former Co-Director, Law and Justice Thematic Group, World Bank.

15:45-16:00

Coffee Break

Session 4 Innovations in Anti-Corruption

16:00-17:45

<Moderator> • Mr. Shervin Majlessi, Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor, UNODC Regional Office for

Southeast Asia and the Pacific

<Presenters> 1) Citizen Engagement in Anti-Corruption: Case of Korea in Participatory Audit • Dr. Kim, Seongjun, Managing Director, Audit and Inspection Research Institute, Board of

Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI)

2) Measurements and Tech Tools in Anti-Corruption • Ms. Hazel Feigenblatt, Managing Director for Research in Washington DC, Global Integrity

3) E-governance Tools for Corruption Prevention in Procurement Systems • Mr. Roh, Tae-Hag, Manager, Construction Management Division, Seoul Metropolitan

Infrastructure Headquarters, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Republic of Korea

4) Financing Democracy: Framework for Supporting Better Public Polices and Averting Policy Capture • Dr. Yukihiko Hamada, Policy Analyst, Public Sector Integrity, Directorate of Public

Governance and Territorial Development, OECD

<Discussant> • Dr. Lee, Sunwoo, Professor, Korea National Open University (KNOU)

17:45 Conclusions and Closing Remarks

• Mr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager, UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (UNDP)

• Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC)


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Expert Group Meeting 30 January 2015

Session 1 In-depth Analysis on Anti-Corruption Experiences and Lessons Learnt from Korea:

Panel Discussion

Key bottlenecks and challenges experienced in Korea

Ways and means of overcoming the corruption challenges

Good practices and lessons learnt for developing countries

9:00-11:10

<Moderator> • Dr. Chang, Hyun-sik, Professor of the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul

National University (SNU), and the former Vice President of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)

<Presenters> 1) Korea's Experience & Lessons Learned on Corruption Issues • Dr. Park, Joonghoon, Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA)

2) Survey and Evaluation • Mr. Kim, Sang-nyon, Director of Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, Anti-

Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC)

3) Legal Framework and Prosecution • Mr. Koo, Seung-mo, Prosecutor, Anti-Corruption Department of Supreme Prosecutors'

Office (SPO)

4) Democratic Transitions and Anti-Corruption Dr. Kim, Shin, Korea Institute for Public Administration (KIPA)

5) Civil Society Advocacy in Anti-Corruption: Case of Transparency International Korea Mr. Kang, Sung-goo, Senior Policy Member, Transparency International (TI) Korea

6) Strategies for Sustainable Anti-Corruption Reform: Lessons Learnt from Korea and Suggestions for Developing Countries Dr. Choi, Jin-Wook, Professor, Department of Public Administration and Director of

Institute of Governmental Studies, Korea University (KU)

<Q & A >

11:10-11:20

Coffee Break


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Session 2 Lessons Learnt in Anti-Corruption Efforts in Developing Countries

• Lessons learnt from various anti-corruption approaches and initiatives in developing countries • More in-depth discussion of the main challenges of applying anti-corruption measures in

developing countries • Possible ways and means to better replicate successful approaches and lessons learnt • Recommendations for more successful anti-corruption efforts

11:20-12:20

<Moderator> Mr. Patrick Haverman, UNDP China Deputy Country Director

<Presenters> 1) Key to Fighting Corruption in Developing Countries: Collective Action is Key

Mrs. Natalia Pangastoeti Soebagjo, Board Member, Transparency International, and Chair, Executive Board, TI Indonesia.

2) Anti-Corruption in Vietnam: Challenges and Lessons Mr. Pham Hong Nam, Head of General Affairs Division, Research and General Affairs

Department, Central Commission of Internal Affairs of Viet Nam (CCIA)

3) Lessons Learnt in Anti-Corruption Projects in Uganda Ms. Annet Mpabulungi-Wakabi, Head/Team Leader of Governance, UNDP Uganda

Country Office

4) Lessons Learnt on Anti-Corruption in Thailand

Dr. Utis Kaothien, Anti-Corruption Strategy Expert of Thailand National Ant-Corruption Commission (NACC) and former Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB)

<Discussant> Ms. Nurina Widagdo, Head/Team Leader of Democratic Governance and Poverty

Reduction Unit, UNDP Indonesia Country Office

12:20-13:30

Lunch (A set lunch will be served at the meeting venue.)


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Session 3 Applying Good Practices for Tackling Corruption in Developing Countries:

Challenges and Recommendations

Challenges and lessons learnt from various anti-corruption approaches and initiatives in developing countries

Main challenges and pitfalls of applying anti-corruption measures in different contexts

Possible ways and means better to replicate and adapt successful approaches

Ways and means to create a favourable policy context and to sustain political commitment Institutional measures to influence the political and socio-economic dynamics and to

encourage/compel actions for creation of an enabling environment for anti-corruption

13:30-15:45

<Moderator> Mr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager, UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Initiative

<Presenters> 1) Mr. Chrysantus Ayangafac, Governance Advisor, UNDP

2) Mr. Richard E. Messick, Consultant, Anti-corruption and the Rule of Law; and former Co-Director, Law and Justice Thematic Group, World Bank

<Discussants> • Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB),

Government of Singapore

• Ms. Neten Zangmo, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bhutan (ACC)

• Dr. Park, Heungsik, Professor, Chung-Ang University, Korea

• Mr. Dennis Curry, Assistant Country Director, UNDP Viet Nam

• Ms. Elizabeth (Liz) Hart, Researcher and Consultant; former Director, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and former Senior Anti-Corruption Advisor, USAID

15:45-16:00

Coffee Break

Session 4 Working Group Discussions for Designing a Roadmap on Anti-Corruption

Development Solutions

• Participants will be divided into 3 groups, and will have a focused discussion on the strategic opportunities and means of building partnerships on anti-corruption to facilitate the implementation of the lessons learnt as well as the application of good practices shared in this meeting.

16:00-17:10

<Facilitator> • Ms. Ahjung Lee, Programme and Policy Officer, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (Discussion questions will be provided by UNDP in advance to the group chairs.)


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Session 5 Presentation of the Working Group Discussion Results

17:10-17:30

<Facilitator> • Ms. Annamari Salonen, Portfolio Manager, Inclusive Governance, UNDP Bhutan Country

Office

(Group chairs reporting the conclusions of the group discussion)

17:30-18:00

Summary & Closing Remarks

Dr. Choi, Jin-Wook, Professor, Department of Public Administration and Director of Institute of Governmental Studies, Korea University (KU)

Mr. Richard E. Messick, Consultant, Anticorruption and the Rule of Law; and former Co-Director, Law and Justice Thematic Group, World Bank

Mr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence in Singapore (GCPSE)

Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC)


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Participant List


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UNDP and International Organizations 1. Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Director of the

Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific at the United Nations Development Programme 2. Mr. Luc Stevens, UN Resident Coordinator & UNDP Resident Representative, Thailand 3. Ms. Anne Marie Sloth Carlsen, Director of Seoul Policy Centre, United Nations Development

Programme (UNDP) 4. Mr. Max Everest-Phillips, Director of the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence,

Singapore 5. Mr. Anga Timilsina, Programme Manager, UNDP Global Anti-corruption Initiative (GAIN) 6. Ms. Lee, Ahjung, Programme and Policy Officer, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre 7. Mr. Artemy Izmestiev, Policy Specialist, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre 8. Ms. Elodie Beth-Seo, Anti-Corruption Advisor, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub 9. Ms. Annet Mpabulungi-Wakabi, Team Leader Governance, UNDP Uganda Country Office 10. Ms. Annamari Salonen, Portfolio Manager, Inclusive Governance, UNDP Bhutan Country

Office 11. Mr. Chrysantus (Chris) Ayangafac, Governance Advisor, UNDP Ethiopia Country Office 12. Mr. Dennis Curry, Head of Governance Unit/Assistant to Country Director, UNDP Viet Nam

Country Office 13. Ms. Blanca Cardona, Team Leader of Democratic Governance Unit, UNDP Colombia Country

Office 14. Mr. Patrick Haverman, Deputy Country Director, UNDP China Country Office 15. Ms. Jade Mali Mizutani, Programme Manager, Governance and Rule of Law, UNDP China

Country Office 16. Ms. Nurina Widagdo, Head/Team leader of Democratic Governance and Poverty Reduction

Unit, UNDP Indonesia Country Office 17. Ms. Aziza Umarova, Programme Officer for Democratic Governance, UNDP Uzbekistan

Country Office 18. Ms. Laura Rivera Marinero, Program Officer and Transparency Project Coordinator, UNDP

El Salvador Country Office 19. Dr. Yukihiko Hamada, Policy Analyst, Public Sector Integrity, Directorate of Public

Governance and Territorial Development, OECD 20. Mr. Shervin Majlessi, Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor, UNODC Regional Office for

Southeast Asia and the Pacific 21. Mr. Lim, Jae-hong, Director, UN Project Office on Governance (UNPOG) 22. Ms. Ahn, Suzin, Assistant Secretary General, WeGO, Seoul, Republic of Korea 23. Ms. Kwon, Nayoung, Senior Program Officer, WeGO, Seoul, Republic of Korea 24. Mr. Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Director, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for

Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP), Incheon, Republic of Korea 25. Ms. Marina Brenden, CityNet, Seoul, Republic of Korea 26. Mr. Sayel Cortes, CityNet, Seoul, Republic of Korea 27. Mr. Im, Hong Jae, Secretary General, UN Global Compact Network Korea 28. Ms. Lee, Eunkyung, Team Leader, UN Global Compact Network Korea 29. Ms. Kim, Jisun, Operations Officer, The World Bank Group Korea Office 30. Mr. Darren W. Dorkin, Program Coordinator, The World Bank Group Korea Office

Korean Government Partners and Experts 31. H.E. Shin, Dong-ik, Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs, Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, Republic of Korea 32. Ms. Seo, Eunji, Director of Multilateral Development Cooperation and Humanitarian

Assistance Division, Development Cooperation Bureau, MOFA


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33. Mr. Park, Sung-hoon, Second Secretary, Multilateral Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Assistance Division, Development Cooperation Bureau, MOFA

34. Ms. Kwak, Jin-Young, Vice-Chairperson, Korea Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC)

35. Mr. Choi, Yun-Su, Chief Officer of Anti-Corruption Planning, Anti-Corruption Department, Supreme Prosecutors' Office, Republic of Korea

36. Mr. Kim, Sang-nyon, Director of the Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, Korea Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC)

37. Mr. Kim, Namdoo, Director of International Relations, Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC)

38. Dr. Choi, YooJin, International Relations Division, Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC)

39. Ms. Yoon, So-yeong, Deputy Director, International Relations Division, Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea (ACRC)

40. Ms. Jang, Minjeong, Interpreter, International Relations Division, Korea Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC)

41. Ms. Lim, Hanna Deputy director, Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, Korea Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC)

42. Ms. Kwon So-hyon Assistant director, Anti-Corruption Survey and Evaluation Division, ACRC of Korea

43. Mr. Koo, Seung-mo, Prosecutor, Anti-Corruption Department of Supreme Prosecutors' Office

44. Dr. Kim, Seongjun, Managing Director, Audit and Inspection Research Institute, Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea

45. Mr. Roh, Tae-Hag, Manager, Construction Management Division, Seoul Metropolitan Infrastructure Headquarters, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Republic of Korea

46. Ms. Kim, Sujin, ODA Research Team, Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) 47. Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) Representative (TBD) 48. Dr. Kim, Kyoung Chan, Associate Research Fellow, Economic & Commercial Crime Research

Division, Korean Institute of Criminology (KIC), Seoul, Republic of Korea 49. Ms. Kang, Joo-Hyun, Founder and Executive President, Global Competitiveness

Empowerment Forum (GCEF) 50. Ms. Oh, Jihyo, Coordinator, Global Competitiveness Empowerment Forum (GCEF) 51. Mr. Jung, Unyong, Director, Institute for Social Responsibility & Business Ethics 52. Prof. Jung, Yong-duck, Co-President, Citizens Coalition for Better Government / Graduate

School of Public Administration at Seoul National University

Country Delegations (Government Officials from Developing Countries)

53. Mr. Ali Sulaiman Mohammed, Head of the Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission of Ethiopia (FEACC)

54. Ms. Neten Zangmo, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of Bhutan 55. Mr. Ang Seow Lian, Deputy Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB),

Government of Singapore 56. Mr. Pandu Adnan Praja, Commissioner, Indonesia Corruption Eradication Commission

(KPK) 57. Ms. Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza, Inspector General, Government of Uganda 58. Mr. Giri Suprapdiono, Director of Gratuity, Indonesia Corruption Eradication Commission

(KPK) 59. Dr. Utis Kaothien Anti-Corruption Strategy Expert of Thailand National Anti-Corruption

Commission (NACC) and former Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB)


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60. Mr. Pham Hong Nam, Head of General Affairs Division, Research and General Affairs Department, Central Commission of Internal Affairs of Viet Nam (CCIA)

61. Mr. Camilo Cetina, Director of the Presidential Transparency Observatory, Colombia 62. Mr. Shavkat Rakhmonov, Deputy Head of Main Department, Head of Department on

combating corruption, extortion, and racket of the Ministry of Interior of Uzbekistan 63. Mr. Bakhtiyor Eshchanov, Head of Department on Modern Public Management of the

Academy of Public Administration under the President of Uzbekistan 64. Mr. Manuel de Jesús Cruz López, Director of the Secretary of Citizen Participation, the

Presidency of El Salvador 65. Mr. Xie Mingyin, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), Government of Singapore 66. Ms. Niken Ariati, Indonesia Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) 67. Mr. Nurtjahyadi, Indonesia Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)

Civil Society and Academic Experts

68. Ms. Natalia Pangastoeti Soebagjo, Board Member, Transparency International, and Chair, Executive Board, TI Indonesia

69. Ms. Elizabeth (Liz) Hart, Researcher and Consultant; former Director, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and former Senior Anti-Corruption Advisor, USAID

70. Ms. Hazel Feigenblatt, Managing Director for Research, Global Integrity, Washington DC 71. Mr. Richard (Rick) E. Messick, Consultant, Anticorruption and Rule of Law; and former Co-

Director, Law and Justice Thematic Group, World Bank 72. Mr. Lee, Sunwoo, Professor, Korea National Open University 73. Dr. Lee, Chang Kil, Professor, Sejong University, Korea 74. Dr. Chang, Hyun-sik, Professor of the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul

National University, and the former Vice President of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)

75. Dr. Choi, Jin-wook, Professor, Department of Public Administration and Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, Korea University (KU)

76. Mr. Kang, Sung-goo, Senior Policy Member, Transparency International Korea 77. Dr. Kim, Shin, Director of Center for International Public Cooperation, Korea Institute for

Public Administration (KIPA), Republic of Korea 78. Dr. Park, Joonghoon, Executive Director of Korea Institution for Public Administration

(KIPA), Republic of Korea 79. Dr. Park, Heungsik, Professor, Chung-Ang University, Republic of Korea

Diplomatic Community

80. H.E. Tito Saúl Pinilla Pinilla, Ambassador of Colombia 81. Ms. Olga Cielo Molina de la Villa, Minister Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Colombia 82. Ms. Angie H. Zeidan, Political Section - Domestic Politics Unit, Embassy of the United States

of America 83. Mr. U Thant Zin, Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of Republic of the Union of Myanmar 84. Mr. Prapan Disyatat, Minister-Counsellor, Royal Thai Embassy, Seoul


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