Mission

Promote fair market conditions and ethical business practices in Myanmar

Goals

This project aimed to reduce opportunities for corruption and create a culture of integrity by enhancing public-private dialogue and improving the legal framework against corruption in Myanmar.

Corporate integrity is rarely at the top of the agenda in the private sector and most private companies in Myanmar have not yet adopted codes of conduct or guidelines on corporate integrity. The lack of anti-corruption standards is slowing down development in most of the important economic sectors. For example, the licensing system in the extractive industries is open to corruption and risk of conflict of interest. Bribery, particularly involving public officials, is reported as common in daily business and civilian interactions.

Public-private dialogue and collaboration to design incentives for strengthening corporate integrity and cooperation have started recently but are only at early stages and are only concentrated in specific sectors. To address the defined gaps, this project promoted:

• The adoption of anti-corruption legislation;
  -The development and adoption of codes and guidelines in the private sector;
• The development of a culture of integrity in businesses in Myanmar.

Activities

The project focused its activitiies on awareness raising and the development of business integrity tools, including a Business Integrity Game to promote awareness and initiate dialogue on business integrity among Myanmar companies; a model speak-up policy and a model internal reporting system, an online corruption risk assessment tool for businesses.

Business integrity webinars as well as training sessions on business ethics awareness and internal policy improvement were also conducted.

Under the project, a report benchmarking good practices in the area of business integrity for companies operating in Myanmar was published.