Prologue Luis Almagro Secretary General of the OAS Chair of the JSWG In response to the complex and multifaceted nature of the Public Administrations of the Americas” (OAS, 2017), the corruption, heads of state and government of the Americas Summits Secretariat convened a capacity-building workshop for adopted the “Lima Commitment: Democratic Governance the member states in connection with mandates 9, 10, and 11 of against Corruption” (OAS, 2018) in the framework of the Eighth the Lima Commitment, geared to promoting a culture of integrity Summit of the Americas held in Lima, Peru, on April 13-14, in the region’s civil service as a key aspect of the fight against 2018. The Lima Commitment deems that corruption is one of corruption, as well as to highlight the practical experiences our Hemisphere’s major challenges and exhaustively addresses of public administrations in the merit-based selection of civil actions to prevent and combat this scourge, as well as its servants and conflicts of interest in public administration. implications for democratic governance. As for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and The OAS, through the Summits of the Americas Secretariat Development (OECD), in its Recommendation on Public Integrity (hereinafter the Summits Secretariat), as the technical secretariat (2017), it recommends promoting professional development of of the Summits process, has undertaken since 2018 a series of civil service, based on merit and dedicated to public values and actions to support the efforts of member states to implement the good governance to guarantee responsibility and ethics in public mandates adopted in the Lima Commitment, including actions service. The OECD Action Plan on Integrity and Anti-Corruption to strengthen coordination of the institutions making up the Joint drawn up as a follow-up on the Lima Commitment and adopted Summit Working Group (JSWG). as a result of the Third High-Level Meeting of the OECD Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Programme (LACRP), The Mechanism for Follow-up and Implementation of the Lima held in Lima, Peru, on October 18-19, 2018, contains a series Commitment: Democratic Governance against Corruption was of recommendations to strengthen civil service in line with the proposed by the Peruvian Government chairing the Group at the guidelines of the OECD Handbook on Public Integrity. time and was adopted by the states participating in the Eighth Summit in the framework of the Summit Implementation Review With this objective, the OAS Summits Secretariat and the OECD Group (SIRG) in November 2018 (SIRG, 2018). Likewise, a Directorate for Public Governance convened the workshop on Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the institutions “Integrity in the Civil Service,” which was held online on September of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) in September 2018 30, 2020. Delegations from the region’s public administrations, to harmonize and coordinate its efforts (JSWG, 2018), along coming from both anti-corruption offices and those in charge of with the JSWG Action Plan (2019-2021) (JSWG, 2021). These civil service issues, shared challenges, experiences, and best efforts made it possible to steer actions to support the states practices in connection with building a culture of integrity in their in effectively implementing the mandates adopted at the Eighth administrations, marked by the specific context arising from the Summit of the Americas. COVID-19 pandemic. Moderated by the OECD Directorate for Public Governance (Integrity Division), the workshop benefited On the basis of this background and the recommendations made from the participation of the Technical Secretariat of the in the “Guidelines for the Management of Policies for Probity in Mechanism for Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter- Cultivating a culture of integrity in the civil service in times of crisis 1