This article is part of IIU's Integrity Champion Spotlight series, designed to highlight integrity best practices that GCF Direct Access Entities are developing and implementing. This series will showcase these best practices and provide some lessons learnt for other Direct Access Entities who may be interested in establishing similar systems.

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In 2023, Profonanpe, a GCF Direct Access Entity, launched a new set of online ethics and integrity courses for their employees. Designed to raise awareness about the organisation’s integrity policies, the courses take place in an animated virtual city to provide an engaging platform for learning. 

“Our objective was to make people think through these courses,” Milagros Moscoso, Compliance and Integrity Officer at Profonanpe, said. “I wanted to raise awareness of integrity, the mission and vision of our office, and that there are channels to report these things.” 

The idea for these courses first came about at the beginning of 2023, when Milagros wanted to develop trainings for Profonanpe staff but sought to be efficient in terms of budget and time required. So, she contacted a consulting firm and worked with them to design the virtual Profonanpe city. Each user has a personal avatar that they use to walk around and explore buildings set in Peru’s diverse ecosystems. The courses are hosted on an interactive platform called Widdu, which allows for easy tracking of progress, evaluating user data and generating reports.

Over the course of the year, Milagros, her team and the consulting firm developed four courses: Code of Ethics, Conflict of Interest, Money Laundering and Whistleblowing. Each one takes about 20 minutes to complete and includes presentations, voiceovers, example cases and trivia. At the end of each course the participant takes an exam. 

It is mandatory for Profonanpe employees to take these courses, as they are responsible for overseeing the implementation of two GCF projects valued at 19.1 million USD. This includes the first GCF-funded project, FP001, which focused on building the resilience of indigenous wetlands communities, and FP193, which will establish a facility to provide technical assistance and grant financing to eco-bio-businesses. 

As the platform that hosts these courses is online, employees can complete the modules in their own time and review the material later. Also, it is available throughout the year, so every new employee can take them immediately after they start working at Profonanpe. So far, at least 80 of the 125 employees have completed each course, and the feedback has been very positive. 

Since the courses are required, the Communications and HR teams have been actively sharing information about the courses through posts on the company intranet and staff-wide emails. The Executive Director also sent a message to all staff about the importance of these courses. As the Widdu platform can track user engagement, HR can see who has not completed them and share that information with team directors. 

While there were challenges that came up while working with the consulting company to get the correct look and feel of the virtual city and the graphics, Milagros feels that these modules are a success. “There are three things that have been achieved. First is the awareness that there is an integrity and compliance office that is there for you. The second is the delivery of clear integrity concepts. Third is that employees now can react to bad behaviours because they have the knowledge.” 

During the 2023 GCF Integrity Forum in September, Milagros discussed these courses with colleagues from other Direct Access Entities. These conversations reaffirmed for her the importance of developing these courses, as she realised that not many other organisations had similar online learning tools. “I had a clear awareness that I can share this with other institutions that need it,” Milagros explained. “Also, that we can receive feedback from them and receive access to other tools that we do not have.”

Another avenue for Milagros to share and receive feedback on these courses is the Peer-to-Peer Learning Alliance on Climate Finance Integrity, which is a network of seven GCF Direct Access Entities – including Profonanpe – facilitated by IIU, GIZ, and Transparency International. 

“I strongly believe that one of the most important benefits of having a community lead by IIU is that we have the opportunity to share best practices,” Milagros said. “The high standards on integrity we need to meet and the model the IIU gives in terms of policies and guidelines makes us be at the top of developing tools so that we can implement a culture of integrity in our organisation.” 

The Compliance and Integrity office at Profonanpe has plans to continue expanding on these courses in 2024. The fourth course, which covers the different channels people can use to file a complaint, will be translated into English so that it can be shared more easily with others. The team will also continue working with the consulting firm to develop a new course on internal controls and reputational risk. 

One of the biggest takeaways that Milagros has for other GCF Direct Access Entities is that you do not need a big budget to develop strong outreach tools on integrity policies. “If you do not have a lot of money, you need to use it efficiently,” she said. “So, let’s see what we can do with what we have.” 

Explore the platform and courses through the guide document at this link. To learn more about Profonanpe’s integrity courses, contact Milagros Moscoso at [email protected].