H.E. Minister Amr Adel, Chairman of the Administrative Control Authority and President of the Ninth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (COSP9), chaired the meetings of the UNCAC’s  Working Groups on Asset Recovery, International Cooperation and,  Implementation Review Mechanism, held from 7-11 November in Vienna.

Over the course of 5 days, the Working Groups discussed bolstering international cooperation, exchanging knowledge, experience, and mutual efforts to implement the UNCAC, while addressing best practices and challenges in implementing the “Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration” on strengthening international cooperation in the prevention of and fight against corruption during times of emergencies and crisis response and recovery.

During the meetings, the Administrative Control Authority delineated the cruciality  and the reasons underlying Egypt's adoption of the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration, as a first of a kind, tackling international cooperation in preventing and combating the ongoing issue, corruption, during times of crisis. 

Egypt's efforts in fostering governance and fighting corruption amidst the repercussions of Covid-19, including the social protection programmes Egypt  launched, have also been presented, while underscoring the strides Egypt made in reinforcing informal international cooperation with anti-corruption bodies around the world to address transnational corruption. The delegations of the United States, Australia, Brazil, Italy, Romania, the World Bank Group (WBG), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), took part in the review of Egypt’s efforts in the implementation of the Sharm El-Sheik Declaration. 

Side meetings were held with the heads and officials of anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies in some of the States Parties and international stakeholders. This, together with conducting discussions on identifying priorities to enhance corruption risk management. The meetings concluded by adopting the reports of the Working Groups.