16/04/2015 - Widespread corruption continues to be a major challenge for Kyrgyzstan’s development, despite efforts to streamline its anti-corruption policy and strengthen the institutional framework since 2012. However, the anti-corruption legislation is still largely inconsistent with international standards and law enforcement institutions still lack sufficient cooperation and resources to fully enforce anti-corruption laws. Kyrgyzstan should better prevent conflicts of interest in the public sector, and swiftly proceed with the reform of the judiciary, says a new OECD report.

The report commends Kyrgyzstan for adopting several new anti-corruption policy documents and strengthening institutions in charge of anti-corruption policy coordination and prevention. Amendments have been made to criminal legislation and work is ongoing to thoroughly revise the legal framework in line with international standards. Kyrgyzstan has also started to verify and publish asset declarations of public officials, improved the capacity of internal audit in public institutions, launched a public procurement portal and established the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court.

To improve the efficiency of its anti-corruption efforts, Kyrgyzstan should:

• strengthen monitoring of implementation of anti-corruption policy, by further analysing results and impact on the level of corruption;
• ensure anti-corruption policy co-ordination and preventive institutions have sufficient resources, specialised staff and necessary independence; 
• bring its legislation to fight corruption in line with international standards;
• improve separation of functions, level of cooperation and capacity of law enforcement anti-corruption bodies; 
• implement the reform of civil service to ensure its professionalism and integrity; 
• strengthen conflict of interests and ethics rules for public officials and focus on their effective implementation in practice;
• strengthen monitoring and transparency of financing of political parties and electoral campaigns; 
• take measures without delay to ensure the integrity and independence of the judiciary. 

The full report with recommendations on Kyrgyzstan is available in English here, and in Russian here.

The report is published under the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan initiative launched in 2003 under the Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN), which is a part of the OECD Working Group on Bribery outreach work. More information is at http://www.oecd.org/corruption/acn/.

For further information, contact Mrs. Rusudan Mikhelidze at the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division at +33 1 45 24 99 64 or anti-corruption.contact@oecd.org.