On Friday, 15 September, the Independent Integrity Unit officially concluded its 2nd Integrity Forum in Bangkok, Thailand. This three-day conference brought together 54 participants from 36 Direct Access Entities from around the world for collective learning and knowledge sharing on integrity in climate action.

This Forum, taking place for the first time since 2019, was a valuable experience for the IIU to connect directly with integrity professionals at the DAEs and support them on their journey to aligning with the GCF Integrity Policy Framework. 

The agenda of the conference covered a wide range of topics, from conflicts of interest to fraud in the procurement process to how to foster a culture of integrity within an organisation. Participants engaged in groupwork activities, listened to panel presentations, and analysed case studies during these sessions. 

A key aspect of the Forum that the IIU facilitated was a series of one-on-one consultation sessions with participants on different integrity topics such as creating an effective whistleblower mechanism and proactive integrity reviews. These meetings allowed participants to sit with IIU staff to ask questions specific to their circumstances and their organisations. By focusing on a certain topic, IIU staff could deliver helpful advice to participants that they can then bring back home to implement in their organisations. 

Participants also had the opportunity to engage with some of IIU’s partners, including the World Bank Integrity Vice Presidency, the Asian Development Bank Office of Anticorruption and Integrity, Transparency International, and GIZ. Experts from these groups led sessions on procurement, corporate compliance programmes, peer-to-peer learning, and more. 

The Forum also featured sessions from two other GCF teams, the Independent Evaluation Unit and the Office of Sustainability & Inclusion. Daisuke Horikoshi from IEU spoke about the Direct Access Modality and Qian Cheng from OSI discussed safeguarding against Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment. 

IIU would like to thank all divisions across GCF who supported the successful implementation of this Forum. Summary notes will be made available soon on the IIU website at https://iiu.greenclimate.fund/event/2nd-gcf-integrity-forum. For more follow-up to the Forum and its outcomes, please reach out to the Organising Committee at [email protected].