The report, The Next Decade of Action for Public Integrity in Latin America and the Caribbean, examines the progress made in anti-corruption reforms over the past decade and identifies priorities for future action.

According to the authors, countries in the region have progressively moved from reactive approaches centred on detecting and sanctioning corruption towards more comprehensive integrity systems grounded in transparency, accountability and prevention. Institutional co-ordination has been strengthened, integrity units and ethics committees have been established, and the use of digital technologies to identify corruption risks has expanded.

Nevertheless, the report's findings reveal significant gaps between regulatory frameworks and the practical implementation of anti-corruption measures.

The assessment draws on the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PII), which evaluate national public integrity systems against specific criteria covering legal and institutional safeguards as well as their implementation in practice. Each criterion is assessed as either fulfilled or not fulfilled. The percentages presented in the report reflect the average share of criteria fulfilled across the assessed countries, rather than levels of corruption.

In particular, the OECD identifies the following challenges.

Conflict of interest. Countries in the region fulfil an average of 94% of the OECD's regulatory criteria in this area, but only 41% of the criteria on practice. While all 14 assessed countries have established asset and/or interest declaration requirements, only 5 out of 13 use a risk-based approach to select interest declarations for verification. Moreover, in only 4 out of 13 countries have the responsible authorities issued recommendations to resolve all detected conflict-of-interest situations over the past three years.

Lobbying. On average, countries in the region fulfil only 23% of the OECD's regulatory criteria and 10% of the criteria on practice. Only 5 out of 14 countries have legally defined lobbying activities and who qualifies as a lobbyist. None of the assessed countries has established cooling-off periods to prevent conflicts of interest when lobbyists move into public roles. Furthermore, only Chile and Mexico have introduced proportionate sanctions for breaches of transparency and integrity standards in lobbying.

Integrity risk management, internal control and audit. Countries in the region fulfil an average of 72% of regulatory criteria, compared with only 26% of criteria on practice. In 9 out of 11 assessed countries, integrity risks are explicitly addressed in risk management frameworks, but only 4 countries have issued guidelines on assessing these risks to all public sector institutions. The OECD also highlights insufficient ownership of risk management by public managers and weaknesses in internal audit systems.

Political finance. Countries in the region fulfil an average of 89% of the OECD's regulatory criteria, but only 48% of the criteria on practice. Although all 14 assessed countries require political parties and candidates to report on their campaign finances, only 4 countries have seen all parties represented in parliament submit their election-related accounts on time over the past two election cycles. In only 6 countries are the financial reports of parliamentary parties available through a single user-friendly online platform.

The OECD also draws attention to weaknesses in public sector human resource management. According to a 2022 survey, senior management positions were filled without a competitive recruitment process in 11 out of 15 countries in the region. Politicisation of the civil service, high staff turnover and widespread reliance on temporary contracts make it difficult to establish a sustainable culture of integrity.

Another challenge concerns whistleblower protection. Although mechanisms for reporting judicial and prosecutorial misconduct exist, most assessed countries lack adequate guarantees of confidentiality and protection against retaliation for internal whistleblowers. In particular, none of the assessed countries requires staff handling reports of misconduct in courts to undergo mandatory confidentiality training.

For the next decade, the OECD identifies six priority areas for action in the region:

1. Addressing undue influence in public decision making – enhancing transparency in political finance, strengthening lobbying regulations and improving conflict-of-interest management frameworks.
2. Empowering civil servants – strengthening the professional independence of public officials, improving merit-based recruitment, and expanding ethics advice and integrity training, including to address emerging risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence.
3. Renewing the citizen-government interface – developing mechanisms for citizen participation, ensuring access to information and creating conditions for independent public oversight.
4. Promoting integrity at subnational levels – adapting corruption prevention measures to local circumstances and strengthening integrity mechanisms in regional and municipal governments.
5. Identifying and managing integrity risks – increasing public managers' responsibility for identifying and mitigating risks, strengthening internal audit and improving independent assessments of the effectiveness of internal control mechanisms.
6. Tackling impunity by strengthening transparent and effective enforcement mechanisms – reinforcing the independence of judicial and law enforcement institutions, improving disciplinary procedures and strengthening international co-operation.

Particular emphasis is placed on measuring the actual results of public integrity policies rather than merely assessing the existence of regulatory requirements or formal compliance with established procedures. According to the report's authors, further progress will depend on countries' ability to strengthen the resilience of public integrity institutions, ensure the effective implementation of existing mechanisms and adapt them to emerging corruption risks.