In recent years, the issue of business integrity has come to the forefront of public and private agendas. With government and corporate scandals all around, it is not surprising the public is pushing back.

Corruption and fraud misdirect public funds away from the people they are supposed to support. The reality is that the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a broadly recognized series of targets for governments and society to achieve by 2030, are unlikely to be attained without also achieving SDG Target 16.5 – to “substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms”.

Another important priority of the SDGs is youth employment, and in particular, decent jobs for youth, whereby young women and men have access to decent, productive work, everyone benefits, and our future is more prosperous. To achieve this, it is critical for young entrepreneurs, setting up their businesses for

the first time, to get started on the right foot.

This Business Integrity Toolkit is very much a joint effort. Conceived as part of a training programme organized by UNDP for the Youth Co:Lab, our community of social entrepreneurs in ASEAN countries, it is an example of “collective action” – a concept in the fight against corruption which you can read more about in the Toolkit. See detail here.