A/HRC/41/20 international cooperation. In the resolution, the Commission made a number of recommendations addressed to the States members of OAS. A. Contribution of panellists 11. The Chief of the Implementation Support Section, Corruption and Economic Crime Branch of UNODC, Candice Welsch, recalled that 2018 marked the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of United Nations Convention against Corruption. The Convention was one of the most widely ratified international treaties, which attested to the importance given worldwide to addressing corruption. It was not only a crime convention, but also contained comprehensive provisions on preventing corruption. Under the Convention, States parties were required to ensure transparency, integrity and accountability in all parts of government; to strengthen judicial and prosecutorial integrity; to provide access to information to the public; to call for the active engagement of society; to ensure the rights of victims to compensation; to protect witnesses, victims and whistle-blowers; and to return assets to the countries from which they were taken. These requirements were consistent with a human rights-based approach to anti-corruption. 12. Moreover, the Convention had been endowed with the Implementation Review Mechanism. This unique peer review mechanism was an entry point to cooperation with Governments to strengthen their implementation of the Convention and to identify gaps in implementation, as well as good and promising practices. While the involvement of other stakeholders was not mandatory, more than 90 per cent of States involved them. 13. Key areas of the UNODC technical assistance programme included corruption risk assessments in government institutions and the development of strategies and actions to mitigate corruption risks; judicial integrity; whistle-blower protection; access to information laws; development of national anti-corruption strategies; development of educational materials and networks; and support for investigations and prosecution of corruption. All work in those areas was based on human rights standards. UNODC also encouraged South-South cooperation that favoured sustainable solutions. 14. Ms. Welsch made a number of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts. She recommended that the international community urge States that were not a party to the United Nations Convention against Corruption to ratify or accede to the Convention, and States parties to implement the Convention as a means to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 16. She highlighted the importance of preventing and combating corruption as a means of protecting human rights, and emphasized that anticorruption measures and human rights-based approaches were complementary. Lastly, she underscored the importance of human rights bodies addressing corruption to consider the framework of the Convention and to build on the findings of the Implementation Review Mechanism. 15. The Global Programme Adviser on Anti-corruption of UNDP, Anga Timilsina, presented the experiences of and lessons learned by UNDP, particularly in the area of building synergies between human rights and anti-corruption. These experiences and lessons learned were derived from the support of UNDP for anti-corruption and human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes in more than 100 States around the world. He focused on communalities and differences between human rights and anti-corruption processes; key lessons learned by the anti-corruption community from the human rights community; and recommendations on strengthening synergies between human rights and anti-corruption communities. 16. With regard to communalities between preventing corruption and protecting human rights, Mr. Timilsina highlighted the following areas: (a) Well-documented data showed that poor, marginalized and vulnerable segments of the population were usually the victims of both human rights violations and corruption; 4