15.02.2017
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Noor Naqschbandi, the Director of the Alliance for Integrity, participated in the panel discussion “Innovation Strategies and Investment Opportunities” at this year’s Latin American Forum in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. In his presentation, Noor Naqschbandi highlighted the strong business case for both the public and the private sector to invest in integrity.
For the private sector, corruption deters investment because it serves as an informal tax for and raises risks of doing business. For the public sector, corruption decreases competitiveness. This is especially valid for emerging market countries where labour and location costs are rising but business risks remain largely the same. As a result, investments are often made elsewhere. Integrity is therefore increasingly important for both the public and the private sector.
Governments and businesses increase their own credibility and public trust and can attract more investment from domestic and foreign investors, e.g. by improving procurement processes. Integrity builds reputation of the respective companies. This in turn increases investment in that region which can enhance business opportunities and create new jobs, eventually contributing to a sustainable, inclusive growth in emerging markets.
In this context, Noor Naqschbandi presented the compliance training programme “De Empresas Para Empresas” (DEPE) of the Alliance for Integrity that helps to build capacities, especially among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The DEPE programme is active in seven Latin American countries (besides the other project-countries of the Alliance for Integrity), namely: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Uruguay, allowing participants and their business partners to learn, train, and implement concrete measures for increasing integrity in their organisation.
Furthermore, collective action was presented as a good practice that establishes trust between different stakeholders (public sector, private sector and civil society) in order to create framework conditions that further attract investment and promote innovation.
The title of this year’s Latin American Forum was “An Integrated Latin America – Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth”. Noor Naqschbandi participated in the first panel together with Daniel Gómez Gaviria, Head of Competitiveness Research, World Economic Forum; Mauricio Munguía, International Director at Santander-Investment Opportunities in Latin America; Benjamin Reid, Head of International Innovation at Nesta and Carolina Arriagada Peters, Managing Director at Cities & Collaboration.