Announcements

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Public-Private Strategies to Improve Governance

February 2011

Forum Hosted by Government of Lesotho, BAAC and Commonwealth Business Council (CBC)

Maseru, Kingdom of Lesotho

Date: 23 - 24 March 2011

Background

The Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) was established by Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1997 to mobilise trade and investment throughout the Commonwealth. Business Action Against Corruption (BAAC) is a programme developed by the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) at the invitation of the Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to improve the conditions for doing business and thereby promote investment and sustainable development

BAAC is a programme of joint action by government and the private sector to tackle corruption. The first work followed an invitation from the President of Botswana and BAAC now operates in seven African countries. It has been formally endorsed by the Presidents of Nigeria, Malawi and the Prime Minister of Cameroon. The programme supports practical initiatives which improve good governance and improve the investment climate. The programme approach aims to create partnerships between business and government to fight corruption and fraud through collective action, education and training.

Purpose of the Forum

The purpose of the Forum is to build on best practice and share experience on successful efforts by African government and the business community to tackle corruption and improve economic and corporate governance.

It will provide new templates for practical action which can feed into the governance strategies of the African Union, African Peer Review Mechanism, and the economic governance activities of the African Development Bank. It will stimulate leadership from business leaders to adopt ethical and good corporate governance practices.

Content

The Forum will draw on recent public private initiatives in amongst others: Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia and elsewhere.

CBC will mobilise 5-6 leading global companies to present on their own strategies for combating corruption including design of whistleblower systems, integrity rating and reporting, and corporate governance systems.

Presentations will be made by government leaders from countries which have implemented successful and innovative strategies to tackle corruption.

Organisation

The Forum will be co-organised by the Government of Lesotho and CBC

It is proposed to invite approximately 60 delegates from the private sector and 60 from governments across the continent.

Results/outputs

The expected outputs are:

• recommendations and best practice guidelines for companies and governments
• training and leadership strategies
• recommendations to the APRM Secretariat and ADB on inclusion of benchmarking tools on tackling corruption in their oversight mechanisms
• a new African website/portal on governance and how to tackle corruption

For further details please contact:

Rohit Badhwar

Program Administrator
Commonwealth Business Council (CBC)

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7024 8200
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7024 8201
Email: rohit.badhwar@cbcglobal.org
Web: www.cbcglobal.org