COLOMBO (News 1st); At the International Anti-Corruption Forum 2026 in Seoul, Sri Lanka was highlighted as one of the clearest examples of how a Korea-inspired integrity model can be adapted into a national anti-corruption system. The forum itself is framed as a decade-marking g…

COLOMBO (News 1st); At the International Anti-Corruption Forum 2026 in Seoul, Sri Lanka was highlighted as one of the clearest examples of how a Korea-inspired integrity model can be adapted into a national anti-corruption system. The forum itself is framed as a decade-marking gathering on transparency, accountability, and future governance, and the Sri Lanka experience is presented as part of that broader story of partnership-driven reform.Sri Lanka’s SDG Partnership on Integrity Efforts Assessment, running from 2023 to 2025 with a budget of USD 100,000, was carried out with the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, known as CIABOC, as the national partner. The project successfully adapted the Republic of Korea’s Integrity Efforts Assessment, formerly the Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment, to the Sri Lankan context and established a national integrity benchmarking system. It was then institutionalized through a Presidential Circular that created Internal Affairs Units across 106 public institutions to lead the assessments.The pilot produced tangible results across the public sector. Of the 67 target institutions, 51 completed all assessment stages, integrating Corruption Risk Assessments and Institutional Integrity Action Plans into daily routines. The project also strengthened institutional capacity through training for 318 public officials, including 180 men and 138 women, and helped top-performing institutions move from a near-zero baseline to integrity scores above 80. In parallel, 90% of the assessed institutions established or strengthened corruption reporting channels, aligning with Sri Lanka’s 2023 Anti-Corruption Act.The document says the reform arrived at a critical moment. Following the 2022 crisis, systemic integrity failures in Sri Lanka became highly visible, and a national survey found that 64% of respondents viewed the public sector as highly vulnerable to corruption, a view also validated by the IMF Governance Diagnostic. Against that backdrop, the new framework was designed to give ministries and departments a standardized, performance-based tool to identify governance gaps, encourage continuous improvement, and support inclusive economic growth.Implementation relied on close technical adaptation and sustained cooperation. An external research team worked with the partners to contextualize the Korean model into standardized assessment criteria for Sri Lankan ministries and departments. The project targeted 67 high-impact institutions, held orientation workshops, translated resource materials into local languages, and provided capacity-building for the newly established Internal Affairs Units on assessment methods and implementation responsibilities. Continuous knowledge-sharing with the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre and ACRC also helped CIABOC and UNDP manage practical implementation challenges.The mechanism was formally anchored in government operations through a Presidential Circular, specifically PS/SB Circular 2/2025, which established the 106 Internal Affairs Units. The pilot was also embedded within the Cabinet-approved National Anti-Corruption Action Plan 2025-2029, and the Presidential Secretariat now monitors Corruption Risk Assessment implementation through the IAU Monitor digital platform. A unified implementation architecture, including CRA templates and Institutional Integrity Action Plan guidelines, has been rolled out nationwide.The next phase is already expanding. The Presidential Secretariat is supporting an additional 250 newly established Internal Affairs Units, where Corruption Risk Assessments are already underway. The document says discussions are ongoing to evolve the assessment system so it remains effective and sustainable at scale, while continued technical collaboration with the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre and ACRC could help refine indicators for revenue, procurement-intensive, regulatory, and service delivery institutions. It also says peer-learning exchanges could help Sri Lanka and other countries systematically share good practices, lessons learned, and implementation innovations.The Sri Lanka case is presented within a broader forum focused on a decade of partnership between the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea and the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea. Sri Lanka is not just a country update in the publication; it is a concrete example of the forum’s central theme: turning shared policy tools into functioning public-sector reform.The story is also linked to the compendium’s larger message that anti-corruption cooperation can be localized, institutionalized, and scaled. Sri Lanka’s pilot is described as part of a wider set of SDG partnerships that use Korean policy experience to strengthen governance systems in partner countries.