Our senior advisor Air Commodore Alan Waldron, together with our ATT project officer Tobias Bock will take part  in the conference “The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) – Tackling Corruption, Saving lives” organised by Transparency International (TI) Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on 19 April. They will highlight the importance of strong anti-corruption mechanisms for a robust ATT and discuss all the other elements that would be needed for a bulletproof ATT.

This half-day conference will focus on the implications of the ATT process for Malaysia and the ASEAN region. TI Malaysia is inviting representatives from the relevant Malaysian government departments, the Parliament of Malaysia, the defence industry, academia, the media, the embassies and high commissions in Kuala Lumpur, and civil society. 

The government of Malaysia (as well as the governments of Indonesia and Singapore) have been rather sceptical of including anti-corruption in an ATT. TI Malaysia have already challenged this position in op-eds etc., and one key focus of the seminar is to get civil society to lobby for a robust ATT, including strong anti-corruption measures, in the run-up to the July negotiations.

Laurence Cockroft (one of TI-UK trustees) will chair a panel discussion on corruption in the arms trade in Africa, in light of the forthcoming Arms Trade Treaty negotiations which will take place in the UN's New York headquarters this July. Serious Fraud Office's Director Richard Alderman, author Andrew Feinstein, journalist Paul Holden and Chatham House Fellow Knox Chitiyo will discuss how corruption in the arms trade has fuelled both conflicts  and infamous arms deals in the region (such as the South African Arms deal of 1999, or the arms deal with Tanzania). This event is being organised by the Royal African Society.

Read more about this event.

Tiffany will represent Transparency International's Defence and Security Programe in the third Symposium of the Europen Club for Countertrade & Offsets (ECCO), which will take place in Brussels on December 14 and 15. The Forum will address the enforcement of the EU Defence Procurement Directive and it will also include a workshop on best practices in offsets.

Our director will participate in this forum focusing on Afghanistan's civil society. This will happen two days before the Bonn Conference, which will see more than 1,000 delegates from approximately 90 countries discussing the future of the country.

The “Civil Society Forum Afghanistan” is organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in close consultation with the Friedrich-Ebert-
Stiftung, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. It is a platform for the representatives of
the Afghan civil society to share their expectations for the political decision-making process in their country and to present them
to the public.

Our director Mark Pyman and our project officer Tiffany Clarke will be hosting a seminar on defence procurement and corruption at the Kellogg Centre for the Study of Governance and Transparency, University of Oxford.

Mark Pyman will provide an outline of Transparency International Defence and Security Programme's current initiatives and our approach when addressing and tackling corruption in defence procurement.

Tiffany Clarke will explain our work with the defence industry.

Tobias Bock, one of our project officers, will participate in the Third Symposium for a study project on counterinsurgency as a comprehensive civil-military effort.

The German Federal Ministry of Defence has assigned the Institute for Security Studies at the University of Kiel (ISPK) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) with this study, which aims is to advise the German Ministry of Defence on how to improve the effectiveness of civilian and military interaction in countering the insurgency in Afghanistan. It also seeks to prepare political recommendations for the creation of new guidelines in order to being better prepared for possible future scenarios which merge the challenges of state building and countering opposing armed militant groups.

The focus of the current symposium will be the way ahead in Afghanistan and the preparation for possible future scenarios.

Nick Seymour, one of our senior advisors, will represent our programme in the The International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres (IAPTC) Annual Conference in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The aim of the association if to facilitate communication and exchange of information between various peacekeeping training centres.

Peacekeeping trainers and educators use this forum to understand the increasingly complex environment, exchange well-tested practices and information, and strengthen the community of practice.

The theme for this year's conference is Evolving Peace Operations: Challenges, Requirements and Possibilities for Education and Training.

You can find more information on the IAPTC Annual Meeting's website.

Leah Wawro, one of our project officers, will participate in an experts meeting on civilian influence on transitional security sector reform in North Africa.

The "Arab Spring" is reshaping the role of the citizen and its relationship with the state. This calls for new understandings of the (shifting) roles, constraints and relationships of the actors involved.

The proposed event will explore:

• Identifying non-state actors who contribute to people-centred security reform
• Exploring donors' options of engaging with these actors
• Identifying non-states actors' contribution to local security
• Identifying components of SSR that benefit from non-state actor engagement

You can find more information on the Clingendael Institute's website.

Our team and The Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University will host a brown bag lunch to discuss corruption and conflict.

Corruption threatens the success of the international mission in Afghanistan and has been a major factor in other recent conflicts. Corrupt actors undermine the principles on which settlements are based, reduce the effectiveness of capacity and institution building and increase the costs to the international community.

Moreover, international intervention can have the unintended effect of stimulating corruption flowing from the money and resources deployed. Yet, the importance of addressing corruption when managing and resolving conflict has not been systematically recognised.

Our director Mark Pyman, together with one of our senior advisors, Sir Stewart Eldon, will talk about our programme's approach of factoring counter-corruption activities into work on conflict to allow negotiators to think more systematically about ways to reach sustainable long-term outcomes. Key to this is a full analysis of the political economy of the conflict and a coordinated international approach designed to combat and control corruption; TI is working with other interested organisations to develop tools and strategies to improve the chances of success.

Our Director Mark Pyman and our senior advisor Justine Walker will lead the workshop 'Addressing crime risks in the defence and security sectors' as part of the 29th International Symposium on Economic Crime. This University of Cambridge conference will take place from September 4 until September 11 at Jesus College.

Pyman and Walker will present Transparency International Defence and Security Programme' s typology of corruption risks. One of the team's areas of expertise is the identification of these risks in specific country scenarios, and the development of specialised tools to tackle them.

Our director has also been working on a paper uncovering the links between corruption and organised crime together with Bill Hughes, one of Britain’s most experienced counter-organised crime practitioners and former Director General of the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

The annual Cambridge Symposium is a referent when it comes to understanding the issues involved in preventing and controlling economically motivated serious crime. This year the focus will be on the responsibility of those who look after other people’s wealth, or who advise or oversee those who do, to identify and manage risk.
 

Transparency International's Defence and Security Programme (TI DSP) continues its efforts to lobby for a strong anti-corruption mechanism in a robust UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). From 11 to 15 July, our senior expert Rob Wright and project officer Tobias Bock are participating in the Third Preparatory Committee for the ATT Conference which will take place in 2012.

In this PrepCom, UN member states are tasked with making 'recommendations on the elements that would be needed to attain an effective and balanced legally-binding instrument on the highest possible common international standards for the transfer of conventional arms.'

TI DSP works with civil society (Oxfam, Saferworld, the Arias Foundation, and many others), governments, and the defence industry to illustrate the benefits of addressing corruption risks at all stages of an arms transfer and to demonstrate options as to how anti-corruption provisions can best be practically implemented.

Read more on the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

Transparency International's Defence and Security Programme's Manager, Anne-Christine Wegener, is one of the keynote speakers at the Annual Security Review Conference (ASRC) hosted by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Anne-Christine will be talking about corruption and organised crime as drivers of conflict.

The ASRC was established by the 2002 OSCE Ministerial Council in Porto to enhance security dialogue among OSCE participating States and review the OSCE's security work. With 56 States from Europe, Central Asia and North America, the OSCE is the world's largest regional security organization. It offers a forum for political negotiations and decision-making in the fields of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation, and puts the political will of its participating States into practice through its unique network of field missions.

Read more on the OSCE's Annual Security Review Conference.

The Embassy of Norway will launch our latest report, Codes of Conduct in Defence Ministries and Armed Forces: What Makes a Good Code of Conduct? It will be hosted by Ambassador of Norway Mr. Kim Traavik at the Ambassador's residence. Speakers at the event will be: Roger Ingebrigtsen, State Secretary, Ministry of Defence of Norway; Ray Bromwich, Inspector General, Australian Defence Forces; Mark Pyman, Director of TI's Defence and Security Programme; and Steve Shaw, Head of Contractor Responsibility at the Pentagon and Head of Debarment at the US Air Force. 

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. If you are interested in attending, please contact us.