• G20High-Level Principles for the Effective Protection of Whistleblowers;
• G20Compendium of Good Practices for Promoting Integrity and Transparency in Infrastructure Development.

The first of them is dedicated to one of the priority topics announced by Japan for its G20 Presidency year: the protection ofwhistleblowers. The Guidelines adopted at the end of the Summit are based on existing best practices in the establishment and operation of relevant mechanisms in the EU and some other regions. The 12 principles presented are divided into 3 large sections:

• Creating an appropriate legal environment;
• Establishing appropriate procedures for protected whistleblowing, including possible retaliatory actions against whistleblowers;
• ensuring effective enforcement and evaluation of the impact of relevant legislation.

The creation of an appropriate legal environment should include adherence to the following principles:

1. The development and adoption of regulations and policies governing the protection of whistleblowers, with separate legislation dedicated solely to this topic being desirable;
2. clearly defining the situations for which disclosure will entitle the whistleblower to subsequent protection (defining the boundaries of the "offense" reported by the whistleblower);
3. Ensuring that the widest possible range of potential whistleblowers are protected, both within individual organizations and in the event that whistleblowers approach competent authorities outside the organization.

Shaping the procedural environment for protected whistleblowing should take into account principles such as:

1. Creating accessible feedback channels for whistleblowers to approach (within individual organizations, when approaching law enforcement agencies and when disclosing information to the general public) and providing them with adequate support, and prohibiting the use of non-disclosure clauses in employment agreements to prevent disclosure of wrongdoing;
2. Ensuring confidentiality of whistleblowing and, where possible, introducing anonymous whistleblowing mechanisms;
3. Identifying, as comprehensively as possible, a list of possible retaliatory measures against whistleblowers from which they should be protected;
4. ensuring robust and comprehensive protection for whistleblowers, including: protection from any form of retaliatory or reprisal action; effective remedies to redress direct and indirect harm suffered as a result of such action; protection during legal proceedings; proportionate allocation of the burden of proof; informing potential whistleblowers of the feedback channels available and how to use them, of the remedies available to them in the event of any retaliation against them; and
5. Establishing effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for those who use retaliatory measures against whistleblowers, as well as for those who violate the principles of confidentiality of disclosures, regardless of their position or status;
6. Ensuring that whistleblowers are not disciplined for making a protected disclosure (unless the whistleblower was himself or herself involved in wrongdoing or communicated information of which he or she was not certain); countries are also encouraged to provide for sanctions applicable to whistleblowers for knowingly making false reports.

Effective enforcement and evaluation of the impact of existing whistleblower protection procedures should be based on the following principles:

1. Raising awareness of existing whistleblower protection mechanisms (including with a view to changing public perceptions and attitudes towards protected disclosures and whistleblowers) and providing specialized training for those responsible for receiving reports of whistleblowing;
2. conducting periodic monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of existing whistleblower protection measures;
3. ensuring cooperation and exchange of best practices on whistleblower protection among G20 member countries.

The second document adopted at the end of the summit focuses on ensuring integrity and transparency in the design and implementation of infrastructure development projects (mainly in public procurement) and provides recommendations on how to create an appropriate regulatory environment, as well as other ways to mitigate the risks of corruption.

In particular, the Compendium notes that:

• regulation of infrastructure projects should apply to all actors, including private sector employees such as suppliers, lenders, subcontractors and consultants;
• control and oversight (both internal and external) of infrastructure projects should be exercised throughout the project cycle;
• whistleblower hotlines and other feedback mechanisms should be available to all stakeholders, public and private sector workers and citizens;
• clear rules and guidelines should be in place to prevent and manage conflicts of interest in such projects;
• transparency and open data should be widely applied to prevent and detect corruption.

For each stage of an infrastructure project, the paper provides recommendations to mitigate the risks of misconduct.

Thus, it is noted that there is a need to ensure transparency at the stage of determining the state's need for certain projects, as well as the validity of the declared need, for example, through the formation of medium- and long-term procurement plans. If necessary, it may be envisaged to create a special expert body responsible for the assessment of national infrastructure needs. The planned projects should not reflect the interests of any particular groups, but should be aimed at achieving a nationwide goal.

For the project appraisal stage, the need to improve the objectivity and credibility of social, economic and environmental feasibility studies through the use of proven methods, comprehensiveness and multidimensional evaluation is noted. This may involve, for example, the adoption of standardized appraisal guidelines and separate competitive procedures for the selection of appraisal experts. In addition, projects should be evaluated on the basis of value for money to ensure that they represent the best value for money.

At the planning stage of a given procurement, special attention should be paid to the tender documents and the drafting of the terms of reference, namely to ensure equal access to relevant information for all stakeholders (publicly available procurement documents in machine-readable formats, national or regional single procurement portals).

Procurement procedures should be conducted in the presence of clear and transparent selection criteria, impartiality of the decision on the winner, and absence of conflicts of interest among responsible officials. This can be achieved by measures such as, for example:

• Involvement of civil society in the process of assessing the qualifications of the procurement winner;
• detailing the circumstances that are considered to be a conflict of interest;
• anticipating, identifying and managing conflict of interest situations, including using data on situations that may affect the award of the contract, derived from previous experience;
• introduction of so-called "cooling-off periods", whereby former public servants, after leaving office, are restricted from accepting offers of employment with commercial entities in respect of which they made certain public decisions (e.g. in the framework of public procurement);
• applying clearly defined criteria for evaluating bids of procurement participants and comparative evaluation of bids on both financial and technical quality criteria;
• obtaining feedback from procurement participants and ensuring full access to procurement information;
• creating registers of unscrupulous suppliers, including those violating the principles of integrity, as well as lists of companies, their owners and top managers who have been convicted of administrative or criminal offenses (such as bribery, money laundering and tax evasion), violations of competition and labor laws;
• declaration of conflicts of interest by both potential executors of government contracts and responsible persons on the part of government customers;
• Adoption of integrity programs and guidelines for the private sector, creation of various platforms for communication between business organizations, including with the participation of government representatives;
• strengthening regulation for public organizations, for example, by encouraging them to develop codes of conduct;
• establishing registers of ultimate beneficiaries of companies and making them available to the public.

Directly to detect corruption violations in infrastructure projects, the paper also proposes to:

• Establish effective feedback channels for complaints and reports of irregularities, corruption and fraud for suppliers, public sector employees and individuals, establish clear procedures for handling complaints and investigating reports of wrongdoing;
• operate an integrated online platform that supports public procurement transparency and public accountability;
• adhere to international guidelines for companies to protect whistleblowers, such as the World Bank Integrity Guidelines and the UN Convention against Corruption, to form a specialized whistleblower protection system for public officials and employees;
• ensure an effective risk-based internal control process for public procurement;
• provide for criminalization of bribery of both national and foreign public officials, introduction of liability measures for legal entities for corruption offences, etc.

As additional measures, the document proposes:

• professionalization and capacity building of civil servants responsible for planning and implementation of public projects, as well as suppliers;
• standardization of data (e.g., taking into account semantics, unique identifiers, certain formats) and ensuring their interoperability to improve the quality of control and accountability within and outside the public sector;
• bringing together government, business and civil society in assessing corruption risks and minimizing them in infrastructure projects.