This year the Conference was organised by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea and Transparency International with Monsta X, a Korean boy group, acting as its honorary ambassadors. The event under the theme “Designing 2030: Truth, Trust and Transparency” saw the participation of over 7,000 people from 135 countries, including representatives of public bodies, research institutions, the media, civil society and the private sector and artists.
The Conference agenda consisted of five plenary meetings focused on:
- transparency standards;
- integrity strategies;
- countering fake news and manipulation;
- collective action for integrity;
- countering dirty money and impunity.
Besides that, over 130 different workshops were held in the six days of the Conference. The discussions were centered, in particular, on:
- the fight against corruption in times of the pandemic;
- possibilities for enhancing effectiveness of anti-corruption bodies;
- methods for preventing conflict-of-interest situations;
- the role of whistleblowers;
- the use of blockchain technologies to counter corruption;
- management of frozen, seized and confiscated assets detected in the course of investigation of corruption crimes;
- the role of civil society in the fight against corruption and return of assets, etc.
During the Conference there were also specific events aimed at telling about anti-corruption through art: music (Fair Play Anti-corruption Music), movies (Films for Transparency) and journalism (Journalists for Transparency). Kazakh whistleblower Botakoz Kopbayeva and Afghan journalist Zaki Daryabi (Etilaat Roz) were selected as the winners of the 2020 Anti-Corruption Award.
A number of projects and practical instruments for countering different manifestations of corruption were presented in the Conference. For instance, the GlobaLeaks team told about its free automated software for creating systems for anonymous reporting of corruption and other misconduct. In a separate session, Transparency International presented its regular report from the Global Corruption Barometer series focused on the analysis of corruption in Asian countries.
The event concluded with the adoption of a declaration, containing, among other things, a call to enhance accountability of public governance, increase participation of civil society in the fight against corruption, protect freedom of the media and whistleblowers, build new alliances to address gendered forms of corruption and forge alliances across sectors to counter corruption that stretches across national borders.
