Members of the World Bank Group's Sanctions Board Secretariat attended the fifth annual conference of sanctions appeals bodies of the multilateral development banks ("MDBs"), held on October 26, 2017, in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The event was hosted by the African Development Bank Group.This annual conference serves to facilitate substantive discussion regarding questions in the sanctions and anti-corruption arena and supports a continued dialogue and comparison of sanctions systems and approaches among the five original signatories to theCross-Debarment Agreement. Issues of mutual interest discussed at the conference included diversity of applicable sanctions, timeline and process of decision issuance, evidentiary standards, finality of sanctions decisions, and measurement of the impact of sanctions decisions on various stakeholders. Participants included members of sanctions appeals bodies and secretariat staff of theAfrican Development Bank Group,European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,Inter-American Development Bank, and theWorld Bank Group. The conference also welcomed the participation of theGlobal Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which operates a similar internal anti-corruption system to address misconduct in funded projects.Throughout the discussions, participants concurred with respect to the importance of continued high-level dialogue, particularly as the institutions' respective sanctions systems mature, take stock of their accomplishments, and identify goals for future development.The next conference of the MDBs' sanctions appeals bodies is expected to take place in the Fall of 2018, and to be hosted by the World Bank Group Sanctions Board.
