Introduction

There are two big extra advantages to working by sector. First, sector knowledge is not confined within national boundaries, and you can access this expertise all over the world. Second, people within a profession are usually very willing to share their knowledge for the benefit of others in the profession, and we have found that this is certainly the case in helping others with their anti-corruption efforts.

Gain from the international efforts are active in tackling corruption in your sector. They may be sources of knowledge, ideas, support and assistance in the development of your initiative. Sector-specific organisations include:-

• professional sector associations (many have an ‘anti-corruption working group’ or similar forum);
• Initiatives and programmes targeted on building integrity, raising transparency and reducing corruption in the sector; and
• Multilateral organisations associated with the sector (eg World Health Organisation). They too may have anti-corruption knowledge and capability.

Non-sector-specific organisations also have sector knowledge. These include:

• Multilateral economic organisations such as World Economic Forum, IMF and OECD;
• Among multi-laterals, OECD has a major focus on public integrity and anti-corruption.
• There are multiple stand-alone initiatives focused on issues such as beneficial ownership transparency, or access to information.
• Multilateral development organisations, like the World Bank, UNDP and U4, can hold valuable sector knowledge and expertise, whether or not you are based in a developing country.

Sectoral anti-corruption initiatives

At the sector-level, the first transnational initiative was in the extractives sector – oil/gas and mining. In the late 1990s civil society, governments and some international companies were striving to find ways to reduce the levels of corruption in the oil and mining sectors. Originally this was expected to evolve into a corporate social responsibility standard for companies, but instead it evolved into a disclosure standard implemented by companies. This is now well established as the ‘Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’, or EITI, with 51 implementing countries as at September 2018. The Netherlands is the most recent country to join (on June 28, 2018).

The table below summarises the current range of sector-specific anti-corruption initiatives. Let us know if you know of others that are also active and useful.

Each sector review gives more detail and details of other supportive organisations and initiatives in the sector.

Non-sectoral multilateral anti-corruption initiatives

The first wave of transnational anti-corruption initiatives was in the 1990s, when UNCaC and the OECD Convention were being developed. UNODC, who provide technical assistance in various corruption-related thematic areas for UNCaC (see here) and OECD have been joined by other international organisations such as the World Bank, the European Commission and more specialist groups such as the Financial Action task Force (FATF) on money laundering and the Group of States against Corruption set up by the Council of Europe (GRECO), monitoring compliance with anti-corruption standards.

More recently, initiatives such as promoting stolen asset recovery (e.g. see here), making beneficial ownership transparent (e.g. see here), the Open Government Partnership ( OGP) and the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) have attracted diverse groupings of nations in supportive partnerships.

The table below gives more details, plus an overview of the utility of each one, plus access these bodies. You can also find an overview of these bodies here, plus more on regional initiatives from bodies such as IADB, OAS, AU, etc.