Stronger efforts are needed to address corruption, particularly at a high level, as reflected in the OECD’s recently published assessments of five Central-Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
The reports show that most of these countries have anti-corruption strategies in place. Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have enhanced the transparency of public procurement; Kazakhstan has implemented measures to improve business integrity, and Mongolia has significantly reformed its judiciary in line with international standards. However, overall progress in fighting corruption in these countries is limited, anti-corruption reforms are stagnating, and some countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, have moved backwards on several aspects.
Conflict-of-interest and asset and interest disclosure regulations are lacking or have been ineffective. Uzbekistan has recently adopted a law in this area and its efficacy will be assessed in the future. In Kazakhstan, the asset declaration system is tied to tax returns, which does not achieve the goals of preventing corruption and detecting both conflicts of interest and illicit enrichment. Mongolia has put in place an asset declaration system; however, it is fragmented and lacks transparency, limiting public scrutiny.
All five countries are yet to introduce legal and institutional frameworks for much needed whistleblower protection, especially with respect to restricted civic space. The OECD reiterates that a strong civil society is of central importance to the region’s anti-corruption reform efforts.
The level of enforcement of corruption offences is average to low in the assessed countries. Only Mongolia provides for criminal liability of legal persons for corruption offences and enforces it in practice, but there are gaps vis-a-vis international standards. All five countries need to concretely strengthen the independence of the judiciary, prosecution service and anti-corruption bodies to ensure stronger enforcement of corruption offences and tackle high-level corruption.
Note to editors
These five monitoring reports was prepared within the framework of the fifth round of monitoring of the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP), a sub-regional peer review programme of the OECD Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN) under the OECD Working Group on Bribery. Launched in 2003, the IAP has been supporting anti-corruption reforms in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia*, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan through comprehensive and regular peer reviews. Other jurisdictions of the ACN region, OECD member countries, international organisations, and non-governmental partners participate in the implementation of the IAP as experts and donors.
The fifth round of monitoring uses a novel indicator-based assessment framework derived from international standards and regional good practices. The peer review combined with qualitative and quantitative indicators allows countries to benchmark their progress against peers in the region and helps promote anti-corruption reforms. The adopted reports provide for a clear, country-specific roadmap for such reforms, identifying gaps and challenges.
The reports were developed with the support of the United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD Media Office and visit oecd.org/corruption/acn.
* In a letter dated 16 February 2023, Georgia informed the OECD of its decision not to join the IAP's fifth round of monitoring.