Rationale

As we concluded the 21st International Anti-Corruption Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2024, more than 2,000 participants from over 140 countries agreed: the urgency and importance of our mission has never been greater. Democratic values and freedoms are being eroded — often intentionally. Societies are fracturing, and fear, violence, and armed conflicts are spreading at a pace unseen since the last century. The rules-based order, and its laws and institutions are being undermined and ignored.

Authoritarian regimes, traffickers, organised crime networks, enablers, and kleptocrats are fuelling a rise in human rights violations, flows of illicit financing, crimes against humanity, and environmental destruction. The result is increasing violence against women, minorities, investigative journalists, migrants, and environmental defenders. Those with power will stop at nothing to secure their impunity.

Despite these challenges, hope endures. Movements for integrity, justice, and regeneration are growing. From climate defenders to whistleblowers, indigenous leaders to academics, women leaders to investigative journalists, public servants to captains of business, young change-makers to global decision-makers — people of integrity are uniting to reclaim good governance, to rebuild trust, and to fight for systems and institutions that serve the common good.

Under the theme Igniting the Power of Integrity, the 22nd International Anti-Corruption Conference — to be held in Punta Cana, Santo Domingo, from 1 to 4 December 2026 — calls on people of integrity from every region of the world to stand up for our shared vision of a world free from corruption.

Together, we can forge alliances, define bold and innovative strategies for change, and unleash the power of integrity as a guiding force in politics, justice, business, and finance — from the local to the global.