Samoa’s senior public servants and department heads are aiming to agree on implementation of ongoing integrity development with the UN Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption (U.N-P.R.A.C) Project in Apia, Samoa this week.  

Opening the Validation Workshop with over 40 senior participants, the Minister of Justice and Courts Administration, Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu, said: “Integrity is an avenue to improve all our livelihoods.

“Our aim must be to restore trust in our government, communities, private sector and civil society,” the Minister said.

While Samoa is one of only three P.I.Cs yet to accede to U.N.C.A.C (UN Convention Against Corruption), the (UN-P.R.A.C) Project continues to work very closely with the Samoan Government, parliament, civil society, youth and media on integrity issues.

UN-PRAC’s Mihaela Stojoska, United Nations Development Fund (U.N.D.P) Anti-Corruption Specialist, said that UN-PRAC had prioritised working with Samoa and the nation’s public servants demonstrated a huge commitment to ownership of integrity issues by coming together to prioritise policies and implementation of U.N.C.A.C related best practices. 

Already this year, the UN-P.R.A.C team have undertaken workshops in Samoa with civil society, youth, media and presented at the S.D.Gs Induction for Parliamentarians, while Samoa's youth, civil society and MPs have participated in UN-P.R.A.C regional workshops over the past year as well.

Cook Islands Minister of Justice, Nandi Glassie, chair of G.O.P.A.C Cook Islands (Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption) is sharing the integrity perspective and benefits of U.N.C.A.C of the Cook Islands, which acceded to UNCAC in 2015.

UN-P.R.A.C is a Joint U.N.D.P – United Nations Organisation U.N.O.D.C project  supported by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).  

Framed around UNCAC and Sustainable Development Goal 16  (Governance, Justice and Anti-Corruption), UN-PRAC aims to:

- to provide Niue, Samoa and Tonga with sufficient information and support to enable their accession to the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and to support Pacific States parties to participate in the UNCAC review process; 

- to support PICs to strengthen their national anti-corruption legislation and policies, as well as institutional frameworks and capabilities to effectively implement UNCAC;

- to provide support on the demand side of accountability, primarily through supporting a stronger engagement of non-State actors in the oversight of corruption and in the design of tools for a more transparent service delivery.