The Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN) is a global relations programme of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions (OECD[1]). The ACN was established in 1998 to promote anti-corruption reforms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, bring non-OECD member countries closer to international anti-corruption standards, and strengthen their implementation through peer review, peer learning, and experience exchange. The ACN Steering Group comprises National Co-ordinators from the ACN countries, donors, and other relevant stakeholders. Civil society contact points contribute to its work by participating in various activities. The Steering Group's annual meetings provide a framework for regional policy dialogue, experience exchange, and stakeholder consultations.
The Regional Policy Dialogue aims to promote successful anti-corruption reforms and experience sharing in the areas covered by the ACN Work Programme (OECD[2]). Annual reports identifying trends, achievements, challenges, and good practices, using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a framework for analysis, form an evidentiary basis for this dialogue.
In 2017, the ACN Steering Group agreed to develop indicators for monitoring and annual data collection. In 2022, the 27th ACN Steering Group approved the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP) fifth Round of Monitoring Assessment Framework (OECD[3]) and Guide (OECD[4]) following their pilot. In 2023, the ACN Steering Group agreed on pilot regional KPIs on Anti-Corruption Strategic Frameworks and Business Integrity. In co-operation with the OECD Working Party on Public Integrity and Anti-Corruption, OECD PIIs criteria on Quality of strategic framework (a selection of 18 criteria of Principle 3) were selected as regional KPIs to be included in this report, to bring countries in this region closer to OECD standards in the area of international anti-corruption and public integrity. The Business Integrity regional KPIs are primarily drawn from the IAP fifth Round of Monitoring Assessment Framework indicators. KPIs on integrity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) derive from the relevant OECD standards, Guidelines on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in State-Owned Enterprises (ACI Guidelines) and the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE Guidelines), and are adapted to the purpose and scope of this report.
The OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs) establish reliable, evidence-based benchmarks for government resilience to corruption risks and provide guidance on strengthening public integrity (OECD[5]). The OECD PIIs have been developed by the OECD Public Governance Committee based on the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Public Integrity and other international legal instruments from bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the Council of Europe. The OECD PIIs rely on primary data rather than expert assessments and proxies. The OECD Public Integrity Indicators Portal currently features data for 38 OECD member and 20 non-member countries. Within the region, OECD PIIs data is available for Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Kosovo*1, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine, with forthcoming data for Kazakhstan in 2025. The OECD PIIs is currently composed of three datasets: the Quality of strategic framework, Accountability of public policymaking, and Effectiveness of internal control and risk management.
This pilot report focuses on Anti-Corruption Strategic Frameworks and Business Integrity, showcasing trends, achievements, challenges, and good practices to serve as an experience and knowledge-sharing tool within the ACN region and beyond. The assessment period for this analysis is 2023 and the first half of 2024.
21 of 24 ACN countries are covered by the report,2 including Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.3
Chapter 1 on Anti-Corruption Strategic Frameworks analyses trends based on 18 regional KPIs (see Annex 1, “Key Performance Indicators”) that are aligned to the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs) “Quality of Strategic Framework” with the following caveat: while the OECD PIIs assess the whole strategic framework on anti-corruption (including strategic objectives to mitigate public integrity risks in many public governance areas such as human resource management, public financial management, and public procurement), the regional KPIs solely focus on the anti-corruption strategy in force during the reporting period. The report is based on OECD Public Integrity Indicators datasets for three OECD member countries in the region (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia), for three accession countries in the region (Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania), and non-OECD members: Armenia, Kosovo, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine,4 as well as on the responses to the questionnaire received by the ACN in spring 2024, the IAP fifth round of monitoring baseline and forthcoming follow-up reports on Armenia (OECD, 2024[6]), Azerbaijan (OECD, 2024[7]), Moldova (OECD, 2024[8]), Ukraine (OECD, 2024[9]) and baseline reports on Kazakhstan (OECD, 2024[10]), Kyrgyzstan (OECD, 2024[11]), Mongolia (OECD, 2024[12]), Tajikistan (OECD, 2024[13]), and Uzbekistan (OECD, 2024[14]) and additional research. Given the different scope and assessment periods, values for regional KPIs may differ from the OECD PII database (for Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania) that covers multiple strategies.
Chapter 2 on Business Integrity analyses regional business integrity trends using 15 regional KPIs drawn from the IAP fifth Round of Monitoring Assessment Framework indicators, with several additional quantitative indicators added to enrich the report. Given different scope, assessment period and methodology used, the assessments under KPIs 13-15 may differ from and do not represent, prejudice, pre-empt or affect the relevant analysis conducted in the context of the OECD Working Party on State Ownership and Privatisation Practices.
The preliminary findings of the report were discussed at the 29th ACN Steering Group meeting within the Regional Policy Dialogue Session on 19 September 2024, and the discussion fed into the report. The draft report was subsequently sent for the ACN country comments and data validation and finalised based on the received comments.
This report was prepared by the Anti-Corruption Division of the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs of the OECD: Ms. Natalia Baratashvili (Chapter 1) and Mr. Erekle Urushadze (Chapter 2), under the guidance of Ms. Rusudan Mikhelidze. Chapter 1 of the report benefited from the input from the Anti‑Corruption and Integrity in Government Division of the Public Governance Directorate: Mr. Jesper Johnson, Ms. Carissa Munro, Mr. Jean-Francois Leruste, and Mr. Ludovico Campagnolo. Ms. Liv Gudmundson and Ms. Genieve Crump provided communications support. The authors express their gratitude to the ACN's National Co-ordinators and other stakeholders for their input.