Financial Transparency Coalition

Integrity, trust and culture can seem like the most intangible and abstract of concepts in a hard-edged business environment – until they disappear. As the finance industry has discovered in recent years, failing to tend to a culture of integrity can cost you dearly. There are the record fines of course – such as those meted out to Goldman Sachs, Barclays and UBS – and they have grabbed most of the headlines. But there is also the incalculable reputational damage, which in the longer term can have a very tangible impact in terms of lost customers, investment and contracts.

Transparency International today launched Keeping REDD+ clean – a step-by-step guide to guarding REDD+ against corruption, before it sets in. Many of the world’s most densely forested countries have a poor track record for corruption. Politicians have been known to accept bribes – sometimes huge – to grant companies access to forest zones that should be protected.

This manual helps interested parties to understand and address corruption risks associated with forest carbon accounting – particularly REDD+ – programmes and strategies at the national level. Users will learn how to identify corruption risks and instruments to help address these risks within the development of national Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) action plans and strategies, and the implementation of REDD+ and other forest carbon projects. The manual’s scope does not extend to corruption risks at the international level. Rather it is deliberately focused on processes that occur in country, to facilitate the participation of national and...

BERLIN - The biennial International Anti-Corruption Conference will take place from 7 -10 November in Brasilia. The four-day event will be opened by President Dilma Rousseff. As the world’s leading anti-corruption forum, the conference will bring together more than 1500 members of the anti-corruption community, including heads of state, civil society and the private sector. The conference will run more than 50 workshops and plenary sessions under this year’s theme, Mobilising People: Connecting Agents of Change.