Wednesday, March 18, 2015

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[IWS] ADB: OFFICE OF ANTICORRUPTION AND INTEGRITY: ANNUAL REPORT 2014 [18 March 2015]

IWS Documented News Service

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Institute for Workplace Studies-----------------Professor Samuel B. Bacharach

School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies

Cornell University

16 East 34th Street, 4th floor--------------------Stuart Basefsky

New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau

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NOTE: Funding for this service ends on 31 March 2015. Postings will end on this date as well.

 

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

 

OFFICE OF ANTICORRUPTION AND INTEGRITY: ANNUAL REPORT 2014 [18 March 2015]

http://www.adb.org/documents/office-anticorruption-and-integrity-annual-report-2014

or

http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/154952/oai-annual-report-2014.pdf

[full-text, 53 pages]

 

A rise in ADB’s equity investments, lending, and development initiatives involving the private sector sees increased need for advisory support to evaluate and minimize integrity and reputational risks.

 

ADB's Office of Anticorruption and Integrity (OAI) helps ensure that development funds entrusted to ADB are not misused through fraud or corruption. This report highlights OAI’s 2014 activities such as providing integrity due diligence support, investigating allegations of integrity violations, and proactively reviewing projects.

 

This year’s annual report also features OAI’s integrity due diligence (IDD) advisory function to highlight the exponential rise in requests for OAI’s advisory support to ADB operational departments over the past 3 years. The IDD advisory function, now in its third year, emerged due to the rise in ADB’s equity investments, lending, and development initiatives involving the private sector and the increased need for ADB to evaluate and minimize integrity and reputational risks in dealings with other entities. Since 2013, the number of referrals to OAI for IDD review has increased by 73%.

 

Highlights

 

The report's highlights include the following:

 

In 2014, OAI converted 84 complaints into investigations. Notably, more than half of the complaints converted into investigations were from ADB staff, underscoring their important role in the fight against corruption;

Consistent with previous years, fraud is still the most common type of integrity violation reported to OAI. In 2014, OAI’s investigations led to the sanction of 18 firms and 22 individuals;

In 2014, ADB approved changes to the Integrity Principles and Guidelines, which became effective on 1 January 2015. The changes include clarifications to OAI’s procedures and sanctions-related criteria;

OAI has continued to roll out targeted project procurement-related reviews (PPRRs) in 2014, conducting four new PPRRs and issuing six reports for PPRRs conducted in 2013;

For the past 6 years, OAI conducted a total of 17 seminars in 15 developing members for almost 1,400 participants, with the objective of increasing awareness of ADB’s Anticorruption Policy and strengthening the capacity of relevant parties to reduce the risk of integrity violations in ADB projects; and

In 2014, OAI continued to collaborate closely with other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to further promote global partnerships in the fight against corruption.

Future Trends

 

OAI expects the demands for its anticorruption initiatives, advisory support, reviews, and training requests to continue to grow.

 

To multiply the impact of its anticorruption activities, OAI will continue to work in tandem with internal and external development partners and stakeholders to promote collective and unified action against corruption. OAI will also continue to provide training to enhance ADB’s preventive and detective capacity and to encourage ADB staff to maintain and safeguard ADB’s intolerance for corruption.

 

To ensure that OAI’s finite resources are put to the best use, OAI will continue to streamline its processes and procedures in line with best practices. ADB will continue to critically evaluate the Integrity Principles and Guidelines to ensure that they are in line with internationally accepted standards.

 

OAI foresees greater reliance on technology to aid in preventive efforts and investigations.

 

In 2014, ADB implemented changes to its Consultant Management System, which automatically flags and prevents attempts by sanctioned parties from obtaining contracts on an ADB-financed or -supported project. OAI has begun the systematic capture of contract values for contracts which are the focus of OAI investigations and will report on these in OAI’s 2015 Annual Report.

 

OAI’s PPRR team has also implemented the use of new software with audit and review management functions that will facilitate the storage, organization, and comprehensive analysis of PPRR documentation, findings, and recommendations.

 

OAI will also continue to draw inspiration from its global anticorruption alliances and to share lessons learned from success stories in the fight against corruption. It will continue to delicately balance its resources between its proactive and reactive activities, to ensure a comprehensive anticorruption approach.

 

Contents

 

2014 Highlights

2014 at a Glance

Abbreviations

Executive Summary

Integrity Risk Mitigation through Due Diligence

Investigations and Sanctions

Proactive and Preventive Activities

Future Work

Appendixes

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This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 






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