Integrity Pacts: Safeguarding public investments through multi-stakeholder collective action

The Integrity Pact , conceived by Transparency International in the 1990s, is one of the most popular types of multi-stakeholder collective action initiatives in public procurement. It involves a public agreement between public contracting authorities (the government bodies purchasing goods and services) and bidders (companies seeking to provide them) to refrain from corruption in a public procurement process, with a monitoring system providing independent oversight by civil society. It may also include dispute resolution mechanisms, sanctions and incentives to foster compliance with applicable laws. In the past three decades, Integrity Pacts have been implemented in at least 28 countries worldwide, bringing benefits to hundreds of different public contracts.

Public procurement, the process through which governments purchase goods, services and works, is essential for good governance and the public interest. It allows governments to build infrastructure and provide public services, such as health and education, and it’s a “multiplier” for sustainable development, impacting over 80 per cent of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. The numbers testify to its importance: In total, public procurement is estimated at US$13 trillion a year, and it makes up an average of 13-20 per cent of GDP across countries.

Yet because of its influence, its complexity and the huge amount of money involved, public procurement is too often marred by corruption. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates 10 to 20 per cent of investments are lost to corruption. Public resources are misallocated, costs rise, delays abound, quality drops, and sometimes the projects themselves can involve human rights abuses. As demonstrated by malfeasance during the Covid-19 pandemic and in projects to mitigate or adapt to climate change, corruption in public procurement is also undermining governments’ efforts to respond to global crises.

Traditional policies to protect procurement, include increased transparency and digitisation, oversight and control, citizen engagement, and robust law enforcement mechanisms, but they aren’t sufficient. The best way to ensure integrity is to complement these measures with multi-stakeholder collective action between governments, the private sector and civil society, that engage diverse partners and hold everyone to account – that’s where the Integrity Pacts come in.

Thanks to their flexibility, Integrity Pacts have been implemented in a wide range of public contracts from the purchase of medicines to infrastructure development. The process has constantly evolved in line with broader good governance trends in public procurement, helping stakeholders to ensure regulatory compliance, strengthen institutional capacity, foster a culture of integrity, identify and resolve potential irregularities, and meaningfully involve citizens.

Drawing from the wealth of experience and the lessons learned, and in consultation with our national chapters and partners, we have developed a new, global blueprint for future Integrity Pacts. Addressed to governments, development finance actors, businesses and CSOs wishing to safeguard procurement projects and investments with strategic policy, financial and social value, the blueprint aims to foster more uniform implementation throughout the three key phases of initiation, preparation, and execution, while allowing for flexibility and innovation.

Based on the new Integrity Pact blueprint, we are forming a multi-stakeholder coalition to initiate and implement ambitious collective action initiatives to safeguard public procurement projects that will help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This is complementary to our movement’s efforts to foster cleaner public procurement systems through improved digitisation, risk management, oversight and integrity, in line with the first-ever UN Convention Against Corruption resolution on the topic, adopted in 2023.

Leveraging our movement’s expertise and network, we are supporting global, regional and national actors in the adoption, adaptation and implementation of the Integrity Pact in specific sectors and contexts:

• In partnership with the European Commission (DG REGIO), we are developing an “Integrity Pact Helpdesk” to provide technical assistance to public authorities across 15 EU member states that have committed to apply the IP to strategic EU-funded projects. As part of the project, which builds on the success of our recent pilot initiative in the EU, we are also regularly training public officials and building a community of practice to foster cross-border exchange and cooperation.

• As part of our Climate Governance Integrity Programme, we are working with the Green Climate Fund’s Peer-2-Peer Alliance on Climate Finance Integrity to develop policy guidance for the implementation of Integrity Pacts, according to the new blueprint, to climate-related procurement projects.

The Integrity Pact cannot work as a policy tool unless there is an independent and professional civil society that can act as initiator, facilitator and monitor in specific initiatives. For this reason, we are developing resources, training programmes and bootcamps to build the capacity of TI chapters and local civil society organisations to effectively fulfil that role. More than just training individual organisations, our goal is to build regional and national networks that can advance strong demands for transparency and social accountability in public spending.

In addition to capacity building, we are also supporting our national chapters in their efforts to promote Integrity Pacts at the national level and initiate specific initiatives targeting high-value and high-risk projects. For example, our chapter in Romania is currently working with the Ministry of Transport on an Integrity Pactto monitor the development of sustainable naval transport in the Danube Delta region, while our Chapter in Kosovo, as part of the first-ever Integrity Pact initiative in the Western Balkans, is currently implementing Integrity Pacts in two municipalities.