While conventions express important national government commitments, the key to their success is prompt government ratification, implementation, application and enforcement. None of these steps is a given since governments face many competing priorities, often contend with limited resources and may not take their convention commitments seriously enough.

Experience teaches that in order to ensure that the commitments made under anti-corruption conventions are translated into action; a convention needs an intergovernmental monitoring process. Thus, it is increasingly common for international conventions to provide for follow-up mechanisms involving some form of evaluation of progress.

Monitoring at its best calls for a designated organisation or body to regularly check on how much progress national governments have made in carrying out their treaty obligations. Where performance is inadequate, an effective monitoring system provides a framework for peer pressure and mutual support, as well as a channel for public pressure. By these means, monitoring helps sustain momentum for implementation and builds public confidence that the convention is being taken seriously.

Civil society organisations can make an important contribution by promoting the introduction of monitoring mechanisms, contributing to reviews and subsequent follow-ups, as well as carrying out their own independent reviews. TI and its national chapters are continuously active in all of these areas.