The UN should listen to civil society

The 15th session of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) Monitoring Group will be held in Vienna from August 28 to September 6. Participating States will seek options to improve the functioning of the CPC compliance monitoring mechanism. This mechanism is needed to assess the implementation of the UNCAC obligations by participating states, which includes Russia, and is administered by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Together with our colleagues from the UNCAC Coalition and more than 400 public organizations from 110 countries, we have prepared proposals to improve this mechanism; 5 key recommendations are briefly presented below:

1) Increased transparency: publish all materials related to the work of the review mechanism and make them available on the UN website.

2) Strengthening the participation of civil society: ensure the mandatory involvement of all stakeholders in the work of the mechanism, allow representatives of civil society to participate as observers in meetings of the Group for monitoring the implementation of the Convention, increase funding and support for civil society to ensure their active participation in the work of the mechanism.

3) Increase efficiency: instruct the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to publish and regularly update the mechanism’s work calendar. If delays occur, explain their reasons, improve coordination with other monitoring mechanisms, and allow experts to take into account their results.

4) Follow-up: require states to complete checklists on the implementation of recommendations from previous stages of the review, take into account the degree of implementation of previous recommendations when conducting future reviews, require annual reports on the progress made by the state, new problems and plans for further action.

5) Assess the implementation of the Convention in practice: develop indicators to assess the effectiveness of national anti-corruption measures, ensure transparency and participation of civil society in the provision of technical assistance to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

We are confident that independent public organizations must be involved in the fight against corruption. We propose that NGOs could provide alternative reports and comments on the implementation of the Convention by specific countries.

Russia actively opposes such measures . Together with China and Iran, the Russian delegation is blocking initiatives to strengthen the role of civil society. Opposes open access to meetings of the Group for monitoring the implementation of the Convention as observers. Russia itself releases the minimum permitted amount of information on assessing the implementation of the provisions of the Convention, limiting itself to the publication of basic information.

We will continue to work to advance these initiatives to ensure transparency and civil society engagement in monitoring the implementation of Russia's and other states' commitments under the UNCAC.