NATO's Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) hosted the Building Integrity Annual Discipline Conference in Stavanger, Norway from 28 to 29 September 2016. The conference was organized by the Centre for Integrity in the Defence Sector (CIDS), in cooperation with NATO HQ in Brussels and Allied Command Transformation (ACT).
Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of JWC, Rear Admiral John B. Skillman delivered the welcoming remarks. The aim of the conference was to explore and identify potential solutions for the gaps in NATO's Building Integrity (BI) in Education and Training requirements and to further develop the BI discipline. According to CIDS, BI is a strategy to prevent corruption and promote good governance.
“Corruption has grown over the last several decades with devastating effects on inter alia, security and stability. And leaders worldwide recognize that corruption is a major threat to global security,” said Dr Alberto Bin, NATO International Staff.
(What is BI? Read more here: http://cids.no/?page_id=3490)
Operational importance of dealing with corruption
Mr Per Christensen, the Director of CIDS, emphasized the operational importance of dealing with corruption in his introductory remarks. He believes an operational commander will have a greater chance of success in operations if corruption is dealt with.
“If you send out people not prepared to handle corruption, we are in danger of putting them into a very tricky situation, because all of our countries, I think, have legislations that make it illegal to be involved in corruption also abroad. So from a moral point of view we need to prepare ourselves and that’s why our conference is so important,” said Mr Christensen.
The conference also aims to implement BI into the education, training and exercises in NATO where JWC has an important role.
Dr Alberto Bin spoke about NATO’s BI policy and development of the action plan. Dr Bin reminded the audience that throughout history and across cultures corruption has always existed, but has grown increasingly sophisticated over the last several decades with devastating effects on security and stability. Leaders worldwide increasingly recognize that corruption is a major threat to global security.
According Dr Bin, an obvious consequence of such recognition is that both NATO and NATO partner countries should substantially increase their commitment to fight corruption “because this has clearly strategic implications and becomes a strategic imperative more and more.”
“At the most recent NATO Summit in Warsaw in July 2016 our leaders underlined NATO as a community of values. And it is on this basis that those same leaders endorse a NATO building integrity policy which in our view represents a milestone in terms of NATO’s commitment to strengthen integrity, transparency, and accountability, and good governance in the defence and security sector,” said Dr Bin.
Other topics at the conference included: NATO Education Training Exercise and Evaluation (ETEE) policy and the role of the Annual Discipline Conference (ACT); Anti-Corruption in Interventions (Transparency International UK Defence and Security Programme) as well as two panel discussions: “How to include BI in NATO collective training and exercises?” and “How to implement the new BI policy in national/NATO doctrines?” Additionally, ACT briefed on the way ahead and an update on the Discipline Alignment Plan (DAP).
CIDS: The Centre for Integrity in the Defence Sector exists to promote and enhance professional integrity and good governance in the defence and security spheres. CIDS participates and organizes training programmes, seminars and conferences to build competence, raise awareness and reduce risks of corruption. The centre serves as Department Head for NATO’s Building Integrity (BI) programme.
