Integrity at the IDB Group

The Office of Institutional Integrity (OII) plays a key role in the IDB Group’s integrity efforts. OII receives and investigates allegations of fraud and corruption within IDB Group-financed activities, and performs prevention work by preparing lessons learned from the investigations to improve the IDB Group’s integrity policies and mechanisms.

The Bank’s integrity program is derived from its Strengthening the Systemic Framework against Corruption for the Inter-American Development Bank, adopted by the Bank’s Board in 2001. This framework is based on three distinct, but closely related areas:

• Ensuring that Bank staff act in accordance with the highest levels of integrity and that the institution’s internal policies and procedures are committed to this goal;
• Ensuring that activities financed by the Bank are free of fraud and corruption and executed in a proper control environment; and
• Supporting programs that will help borrowing member countries of the Bank strengthen good governance, enforce the rule of law, and combat corruption.

Although OII works in all three areas, its principal function is to help the IDB Group ensure that the activities it finances are free of fraudulent or corrupt practices. OII’s resources are mainly utilized to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption in IDB Group-financed activities and to develop outreach and preventive programs.

The IDB Group applies the following standardized definitions of fraud and corruption, which include those adopted by the International Financial Institutions (IFI) Anti-Corruption Task Force.

i. A corrupt practice is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting, directly or indirectly, anything of value to influence improperly the actions of another party;

ii. A fraudulent practice is any act or omission, including a misrepresentation, that knowingly or recklessly misleads, or attempts to mislead, a party to obtain a financial or other benefit or to avoid an obligation;

iii. A coercive practice is impairing or harming, or threatening to impair or harm, directly or indirectly, any party or the property of the party to improperly influence the actions of a party; and

iv. A collusive practice is an arrangement between two or more parties designed to achieve an improper purpose, including influencing improperly the actions of another party.

v. An obstructive practice is (a) deliberately destroying, falsifying, altering or concealing evidence material to the investigation or making false statements to investigators in order to materially impede a Bank Group investigation into allegations of a corrupt, fraudulent, coercive or collusive practice; and or threatening, harassing or intimidating any party to prevent it from disclosing its knowledge of matters relevant to the investigation or from pursuing the investigation, or (b) intentionally acting to materially impede the exercise of the Bank Group’s contractual rights of audit or access to information.

All parties participating in IDB Group-financed activities are held to the highest standards of integrity. This includes borrowers, grant recipients, executing agencies and contractors participating in IDB Group-financed activities. Bank staff is obligated to report any possible violation of the IDB Group’s anti-corruption regulations.