11 February 2020
During the Conference on Integrity held on February 11th, business leaders, public sector officials, international partners, academic personalities and civil society activists gathered in Tirana to share their initiatives their efforts and challenges faced in the fight against corruption today in Albania and worldwide.
Organized by ICC Albania, this Conference was the concluding event of the Week of Integrity an initiative introduced for the first time in Albania this year and adopted from ICC Netherlands.
The panel discussions and academic debate sessions provided an overview of the most endemic challenges faced by the society, academia or at the company level and a conclusions and recommendations paper was produced.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Ilir Daci, Chairman of ICC Albania said:
“The International Chamber of Commerce in Albania has committed to promote the moral feature of integrity into the business culture and the Albanian society as a whole, as a necessary condition for a sustainable economic and societal development.”
On the importance of collective actions, Minister of Justice and at the same time National Coordinator against corruption, Mrs. Etilda Gjonaj said:
“We learned, once again, that through fruitful collaboration, though there are things that put us apart such as our daily engagements or the sector we work for, matters that make us together are always greater. Fight against corruption is one of these matters and during this first edition of the Week of Integrity we learned that collective actions can help in promoting continuous process improvement, minimize risk, increase service quality and that corruption cost.”
Under the motto “Integrity is everyone’s responsibility”, the conference provided a forum for all stakeholders. An international partner such as the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Albania has been a pioneering partner in this initiative since a long time in Albania and has worked closely with different stakeholder groups.
H.E. Mrs. Guusje Korthals Altes, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Albania, by assessing the experience in collective actions said:
“Laws, rules and regulations are important; equally important is the question how to implement these. And that question requires continuous dialogue of all stakeholders.’’