On 16 January, European Commission and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the project ‘Strengthening the Corruption Prevention Framework’ at a high-level online event. The project will be implemented on the initiative of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB), and KNAB will be the responsible institution in Latvia for the implementation of the project.
The opening event of the project ‘Strengthening the Corruption Prevention Framework’ was attended by more than 150 representatives from the public and non-governmental sectors, and the academic and international communities. The stakeholders were briefed on the project’s objectives and main activities.
The overarching objective of the project ‘Strengthening the Corruption Prevention Framework’ is to support Latvia in developing and implementing reforms in the area of corruption prevention. The project has three sub-objectives: to review the compliance of the regulatory framework governing the prevention of conflicts of interest with the current situation, to conduct a qualitative assessment of the internal anti-corruption control systems prepared by public institutions, and to prepare a methodology for assessing national corruption risks.
The Law On Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Activities of Public Officials came into force in Latvia on 10 May 2002. Over the years, the law has been amended several times, however, no comprehensive assessment of its compliance with international best practices has been carried out yet. The project foresees a number of activities to revise and modernise the provisions of the law, thus promoting compliance with the requirements of the law in the activities of State officials.
The legislation requires all public institutions in Latvia to develop and implement an internal control system to mitigate the risks of corruption and conflict of interest. To date, no analysis of the quality of the systems nor the institutions’ understanding of the requirements of those systems has been carried out, therefore the project intends to review the legal norms and guidelines regulating internal anti-corruption control systems, including by focusing on the methodology that public institutions can use to assess the quality of the system in place and training the practitioners in use of the methodology.
To improve the effectiveness of preventing and combating corruption, the project also plans to develop a national corruption risk assessment methodology tailored specifically to Latvia. The development of the methodology will, inter alia, provide guidelines for identifying latent corruption risks.
The project ‘Strengthening the Corruption Prevention Framework’ will be implemented over a period of 18 months. It is funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support under the Technical Support Instrument. Technical assistance is provided by both the European Commission and the OECD.
