Virtual | OECD-IDB Latin American and Caribbean Public Integrity Network Integrity and Transparency in Infrastructure in times of COVID-19

? 8 September 2020 ? 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (EST)
Virtual meeting

Session 3: Infrastructure to recover the economy post-pandemic: How to ensure transparency and integrity?

During the COVID-19 crisis, governments of the region have focused their attention on addressing immediate needs, especially in the health sector and social protection areas.

This has put the existing infrastructure to the test and at the same time emphasized what still needs to be done for an adequate provision of water and sanitation, transport, and energy services. Infrastructure will play a very important role in the post-pandemic economic recovery, and governments should plan their infrastructure plans thinking about how to do it with transparency and integrity. According to the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017-2018, corruption is one of the main factors that affects the business climate in the region, along with the government bureaucracy.

The session will seek to answer the following questions:

• How can governments, during times of tight budgets, promote the infrastructure sector in a transparent way?;
• What impact can the lack of integrity and transparency, have on the allocation of resources from the private sector in infrastructure financing?
• What efforts from governments and the private sector are being implemented to mitigate the risks of corruption in infrastructure?

Original source: IDB