Second Meeting of the Conference of States Parties to the MESICIC

The second meeting of the Conference of State Parties, which takes place November 20th and 21st of this year, will address several key issues.  In particular, the Conference will consider and adopt the Inter-American Program for Cooperation in the Fight Against Corruption, an initiative to strengthen cooperation between American states, civil society and international organizations. 

The Conference agenda will include presentations by civil society, as well as the Committee of Experts to the MESICIC regarding the Hemispheric Report, which details the results from the First Round.  In addition, the United Nations will participate to discuss ways to collaborate on the implementation of goals common to the anti-corruption conventions of both organizations.

Update on the Activities of the Committee of Experts of MESICIC

The second round of review started in April, 2006 and is scheduled to be completed in December, 2008. The topics under analysis correspond to the following provisions of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption: Systems of government hiring and procurement of goods and services (Article III (5)); Systems for protecting public servants and private citizens who, in good faith, report acts of corruption (Article III (8)); and, Acts of corruption (Article VI).

The country reports will also review the steps taken by each State Party to implement the recommendations adopted by the Committee in the respective report from the first round.

Currently the Technical Secretariat has prepared draft preliminary reports for those countries which will be analyzed at the 10th Meeting of the Committee of Experts (Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Ecuador and Honduras), which will take place December 11-16, 2006.

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UN Regional Meeting on the Ratification and Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption

Document available in Spanish only.

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Nicaragua Adopts National Plan of Action

This past July Nicaragua held a National Workshop and adopted a Plan of Action to implement recommendations from the First Round of the MESICIC process. Nicaragua is one of four countries participating in a pilot project to implement these recommendations. The OAS General Secretariat, with support of funds provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), began the pilot project last year to work with Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Colombia, the first four countries reviewed under the First Round of the MESICIC process.

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Transparency International Chair of the Board to Lecture at the OAS

Huguette Labelle, Chair of the Board of Transparency International, will speak at the OAS on November 28, 2006 at 3:00pm. Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the OAS Lecture Series of the Americas.

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