15 April 2010.

On April 14, 2010 members of the UNCAC Coalition hosted a side meeting during the XII UN Crime Congress in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil to discuss opportunities for civil society action in the context of the upcoming UNCAC Review process.

The objective of the meeting was to raise awareness about the UN Convention against Corruption among civil society and government participants to the XII UN Crime Congress, and seek opportunities to build bridges with other civil society groups present at the event.

With participants from UNODC, members of academia and civil society representatives, the meeting achieved the objective of bringing UNCAC closer to new audiences and generating interest in following up. The Congress´own blog also highlighted the debut of the UNCAC Coalition in this forum, helping spread the word.

In addition, the Coalition also hosted an informal and informative meeting, to introduce the Coalition and its work, with around 30 participants attending. The meeting gathered civil society representatives from Latin America and Italy, as well as representatives of Brazil´s Ministry of Justice and members of the Judiciary. This meeting generated a lively event about steps ahead for civil society to participate in the UNCAC review and created an informal platform for participants to get to know each other´s work and explore initiatives for joint action.

At the same time, the Coalition also took the opportunity to submit two statements: one concentrates on recommendations for the upcoming review mechanism, and another one to focus on illicit money flows and assest recovery. Copies of these statements will be found online here soon.