The risks of fraud and corruption to NGOs and aid organizations increase dramatically when operating in high risk environments or under emergency conditions, such as the current pandemic and related economic distress.
Adding to the unpleasantness funders are cracking down on their anti-fraud and reporting requirements, with significant penalties for non-compliance, which sometimes are more worrisome than the consequences of the underlying frauds.
Attached are two papers that address these issues. The first is “Enhanced Anti-Fraud Measures in High Risk Environments” which describes additional measures, beyond the essential basic suite of ethics policies and compliance programs, that organizations can employ in difficult times and places.
The second is a white-paper by the Washington, DC based law firm, Nichols Liu “How to be a Good Partner to USAID.” The paper describes the importance of having robust ethics and compliance programs to mitigate the risks of disallowances, investigations and debarments, and reduce the anxiety of reporting possible fraud losses.
