Corruption Risk in the Public Sector

The purpose of this article is to assist public sector organizations, including integrity officers and other personnel involved in integrity and anti-corruption efforts, to establish and institutionalize corruption risk management, as well as to empower anti-corruption authorities to exercise preventive functions. Integrity is a core value that underpins our decisions, actions and behaviors on an ongoing and consistent basis. In concrete terms, for public organizations, the decisions and actions of a person of integrity result in or conduct faithful to the organization’s mission, the prevailing value system, and the applicable ethical, legal, and regulatory frameworks. It provides a list of recommendations to achieve this goal and thus prevent an implementation deficit. It also includes the recommendation to seek a balance between control and incentive approaches, as well as to structurally anchor integrity management in the organization (through an integrity committee or office), a list of specific integrity management tools which can be applied by public sector managers to support ethical behavior for themselves and for organizational members.