Business Case for Anticorruption: Call for Collective Action
Thu, 11th December, 2014 @ The Lalit, New Delhi
To celebrate the successful completion of one of its Anti-corruption project in India, Global Compact Network India held a conference on 28th November, 2014 at The Lalit, New Delhi titled “ Business Case for Anticorruption: Call for Collective Action”. The Conference shared the learnings and findings of the Collective Action Project (CAP) in the past four years and was attended by business leaders from both public and private sector companies, as well as representatives from civil society. Stakeholders shared challenges, dilemmas and importance of developing a Business Case for Anticorruption and linking transparency initiatives to profits. The Conference marked a way-forward by scaling up the Anti-corruption Collective Action Agenda through the launch of GCNI Center of Excellence for Transparency and Ethics in Business in India.
Post the plenary session which linked global anticorruption initiatives to the anticorruption collective action agenda in India, the mantle was taken over by CEOs of prominent national and multinational companies, on the non-negotiables vis-à-vis transparency in business. The CEO Roundtable was enlightening, candid and appreciated by all stakeholders present.
Post lunch the conference moved into specific sessions, which were tailored around the initiatives that the Collective Action Project in India had taken up in its four years of operation. Panel discussions deliberated on Strengthening Anticorruption Efforts in Indian Policy Regime in light of UNCAC; explored Business Case for Transparency in Value Chain & Supplier Code of Conduct and finally deliberated on the issue of Procurement and developing a Business Case for it, since there seems to exist a policy paralysis around the issue in India.
The consensus emerging from the Conference was that more concrete forms of organic Anticorruption Collective Action Initiatives need to emerge from India, and these initiatives have to be directly linked to business profits to be of any serious reckoning.