Qatar's anti-corruption practices can inspire others: UN official
A top official of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted that other countries can take inspiration from some of the good practices identified by Qatar against corruption.“We have a review mechanism, which is a peer review mechanism of all the countries who are part of the Convention. Basically two countries are selected to look at the record of each country. It is a participatory process, there is no ranking, so it's very difficult for us to compare countries to each other,” said Shervin Majlessi, chief of the Implementation Section in the Corruption and Economic Crime Branch, UNODC, on the sidelines of the ongoing 11th Conference of the State Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The conference completed the second day of the proceedings Tuesday.“All of these countries go through this peer review and Qatar has gone through it. And they have identified very good practices as well as challenges for Qatar. So we hope that other countries can look at some of the good practices which were identified by Qatar's work and take inspiration from that,” highlighted, Majlessi.The official noted that the conference is the only universal anti-corruption instrument. “This year, more than 2,500 people have come together to discuss the convention, the obligations that countries have under this convention to prevent corruption, engage in law enforcement, engage in international cooperation and to recover stolen assets. So it is quite significant because we have people from all different sectors, not only governmental representatives, but from the private sector, civil society, academia, and it is an opportunity for them to really engage in a conversation at different levels,” Majlessi explained.He said that one new topic this year is transparency in political financing and corruption that affects other types of crimes like migrant smuggling or environment. “There are also bilateral meetings where countries sit together to discuss case-related work on anti-corruption cases where they need international cooperation from each other. So there is a range of activities happening under one roof, which is really a rare opportunity,” he continued.Majlessi said that one of the crucial outcomes expected from this conference is a decision on the next phase of the implementation of the review mechanism of the convention and there is a range of 11 resolutions that are expected to come out of this conference.He elaborated: “This is very important to continue the process of monitoring mechanism or rather the peer review process continuing in the years ahead. There are also a number of resolutions on issues like artificial intelligence, use of artificial intelligence in the fight against corruption, on political finance and election campaign transparency, on the link between corruption and other forms of crime, on education, law of youth and the children.”He noted that the government level corruption and corruption at private sector are the two sides of the same coin. “ It is impossible to separate private sector corruption from government corruption. They are very much related. So we need to tackle it from both sides and that is why it is important for us to have governments and private sector and civil society in this space together,” added Majlessi.