Managing knowledge, enabling corruption: How information circulation shapes accountability

During the Iran–Contra affair in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration secretly sold arms to Iran and channelled the proceeds to support the Contras in Nicaragua, in violation of US law. When confronted, Reagan claimed he was unaware of the financial link between these operations, stating ‘I was poorly informed.’

This calculated performance of not knowing is a striking example of what has come to be known as ‘strategic ignorance’: a condition, whether deliberate or systemic, where information is selectively concealed, downplayed or dismissed in ways that obstruct accountability and enable misconduct. As this paper shows, it arises from both organisational routines and conscious choices, particularly in environments where confidentiality is prioritised over transparency.

While the absence of knowledge is often perceived as a vulnerability, there can be sound organisational reasons for deliberately maintaining patterns of non-knowledge. Strategic ignorance can support organisational resilience by allowing actors to command resources and project confidence in sensitive contexts. It can also be viewed as a useful means of managing risk by evading accountability, obscuring misconduct and corruption, and consolidating power.d77a3e7cc515 Yet these same mechanisms can obscure misconduct or shield organisations from scrutiny.

Accordingly, understanding strategic ignorance is a way to uncover strategies and techniques that can be used to hide irregularities, in particular unequal or fraudulent distribution of power and assets.

Multilateral organisations (MOs) are formal institutions established by multiple states through international agreements, operating on behalf of national governments. MOs often adopt compliance-based approaches to manage corruption risks,5a0259403365 using tools such as audits, risk assessments, and sanctions.c80e8ca68960 However, the effectiveness of these tools remains uncertain.36bfa0aa5bd8 Some scholars suggest they may serve more as performative safeguards than as genuine accountability mechanisms.728e50df6f00

Furthermore, if these mechanisms do uncover irregularities, strategic ignorance may play a central role in the evasion of accountability, allowing governance bodies within multilateral organisations to overlook or dismiss inconvenient truths, thereby sustaining environments where corruption persists.

Two critical questions are: Do existing information processes deliver effectively? And if not, what reforms are needed to enhance integrity and transparency?

In this U4 Issue, we examine the concept of strategic ignorance in relation to confidentiality and the management of sensitive information within MOs. Our focus is on intergovernmental MOs, primarily UN agencies which share key governance features such as state-led executive boards, legal immunities, and confidentiality regimes. While confidentiality and trust are essential to their operations, they can also create conditions in which strategic ignorance takes root.

The analysis focuses on two emblematic cases: the Oil-for-Food scandal, which revealed how information practices enabled systemic corruption; and the more recent UNOPS scandal, where strategic ignorance facilitated large-scale financial mismanagement. We examine how strategic ignorance is produced and sustained through internal information governance, and how it affects oversight and accountability. We conclude with recommendations to mitigate its effects.

The analysis draws on a review of investigation reports, academic literature, and 15 semi-structured interviews with senior officers from MOs (notably the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and UNICEF), and from donor agencies. All interviewees chose to remain anonymous.

Some of the terms used in this analysis may not be familiar to all readers. A brief glossary is provided below to clarify how we define and apply these concepts in the context of multilateral governance.

1. From procedure to practice: Operationalising strategic ignorance in multilateral organisations

Strategic ignorance is enacted through routine practices that govern how information is classified, restricted, and shared. In multilateral organisations (MOs), confidentiality protocols play a central role in shaping these practices. While intended to safeguard sensitive operations and build trust, confidentiality also creates discretionary spaces where information may be selectively retained, delayed, or suppressed.

Professionals working within these systems develop a procedural skillset: deciding what to disclose, to whom, and under what conditions. Over time, this discretion becomes habitual, embedded in routines and professional norms that equate limited sharing with good judgement. As a result, information flow is often minimised not through formal censorship but through informal strategies of caution and containment.

This routinised discretion does more than protect operational integrity; it can also obscure emerging risks and undermine oversight. The next sections explore how these practices contribute to a culture of selective visibility, in which information governance becomes a mechanism for strategic ignorance.

The power of information: Circulation, control, and confidentiality

The UN Oil-for-Food Programme (1995–2003) was designed to mitigate the humanitarian impact of sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under the programme, Iraq was permitted to sell oil, but the proceeds were deposited into an account under UN oversight, and could be used only for purchasing essential humanitarian goods such as food and medicine.

The programme became one of the UN’s largest corruption scandals,0ca26f773d96 with over US$1.8 billion in illicit payments, channelled through kickbacks on humanitarian contracts and surcharges on oil sales. High-level officials, including the programme’s director, were implicated. The Iraqi government exploited the system to reward allies and influence foreign actors, highlighting how weak controls and selective disclosure allowed manipulation on a global scale.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, records uncovered by the Coalition Provisional Authority exposed widespread corruption throughout the years of the Oil-for-Food Programme. This led to the creation of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), which reviewed 10 million documents and conducted thousands of interviews, uncovering how mismanagement and strategic inaction enabled fraud across the UN system.4afc2bb336a3

Despite extensive evidence, accountability was limited. While some individuals faced legal action, systemic governance failures were largely unaddressed. The case illustrates key aspects of strategic ignorance, explored in Box 2.

While this example reflects large-scale corruption, it highlights systemic patterns of information management that can be present at the operational level. Understanding these patterns requires moving beyond extreme cases to examine how information is governed in daily professional practice.

The circulation of information in MOs is routine and strategic. Though framed as operational necessity, it can reinforce opacity and restrict oversight. The next section explores the handling of information in practice.

How staff manage information and why it matters

In MOs, confidentiality is a professional norm that shapes how information circulates, who accesses it, and ultimately how oversight and accountability are enabled, or obstructed. This routinised handling of sensitive information creates fertile ground for strategic ignorance.

Professionals in these settings operate within well-established systems for managing information: classification protocols, restricted access, and role-based authorisations. These norms are not isolated to specific organisations; they circulate across agencies through staff mobility and professional socialisation within the multilateral system.

Our interviewees describe routine procedures such as labelling attachments, determining recipient lists, or managing log-in systems for secure files. As one officer noted:

Confidential information includes audits, legal opinions, and internal reporting. While such classifications are justified, they are rarely neutral, often shaped by discretion, culture, and perceived reputational risk, even before any formal vetting.

Importantly, the professional identity of staff is partly shaped by their ability to handle sensitive material with discretion. Several interviewees highlighted how context determines what is shareable, and with whom. For example, one officer said:

Discretion functions not only as compliance, but also as an adaptive strategy. As Weaver (2019) shows in her study of the World Bank, staff can resist transparency despite organisational reforms to encourage or mandate it, due to fears of reputational damage and weak incentives for openness. Strategic ignorance persists not only through internalised routines and discretionary practices, but also due to identifiable policy gaps. For instance, both the World Bank (2020) and the UN (2018) maintain personal data policies with vague or inconsistently applied data classification criteria, allowing broad discretion over information disclosure. As one interviewee put it:

While such practices ensure operational control, they also produce an organisational architecture in which visibility is asymmetrically distributed. Sensitive issues are often ‘kept under the radar’, not necessarily to protect individuals, but to limit exposure, avoid controversy, or manage donor relations. As a result, crucial governance information may be accessible only to a small inner circle, further entrenching power asymmetries.

This dynamic is particularly visible in donor relations, where the fear of a ‘transparency penalty’ influences disclosure decisions:

This cost-benefit logic transforms confidentiality from a protective mechanism into a tool of control. Strategic opacity is maintained not by formal censorship but by a culture of cautious disclosure, driven by both risk aversion and organisational self-preservation.

In sum, confidentiality in Mos functions both as a procedural safeguard and a strategic practice. Its professionalisation makes it difficult to distinguish between legitimate caution and systematic information control. While rules define what may be shared, organisational culture shapes how those rules are applied. Staff learn not only when to follow protocol, but also when to stay silent. In this way, strategic ignorance is sustained through both formal structures and informal norms. This suggests that onboarding processes and integrity training should include not only formal rules but also concrete examples of discretionary boundaries.

The next section examines how this discretion becomes embedded in norms, shaping the limits of acceptable information sharing and influencing the governance of risk.

The rules, limits, and risks of information sharing

In Mos, confidentiality is more than a rule – it is a behavioural norm that disciplines how staff think, communicate, and act. While designed to protect sensitive processes, it can also constrain transparency.

Professionals in these organisations are trained to manage information with caution. Most are familiar with protocols for classifying and limiting information flows. In some settings, formal systems guide classification while in others classification is more intuitive and context-dependent:

Yet, classification is only one layer. Discretionary judgment governs everyday decisions about what to say, how to say it, and to whom. Even unclassified information is shared selectively, reinforcing a culture where caution outweighs openness.

This cautious sharing becomes habitual. Staff internalise the principle of ‘need-to-know’ and avoid over-disclosure. Such practices may serve operational efficiency, but they also limit spontaneous communication, which in organisational theory is known to facilitate oversight and informal accountability. As another interviewee noted, ‘there is no chit-chat’, an absence that reflects the suppression of unstructured information flow.

Protective protocols can also limit necessary information flows. Staff may avoid copying colleagues into messages, exclude actors from meetings, or delay reporting risks unless formally required. At the same time, trust-based exceptions emerge, close collaborators may share sensitive information informally, shaping internal risk visibility in uneven ways:

This results in a dual system: formal confidentiality frameworks restrict access, while informal trust networks govern disclosure. This uneven distribution of knowledge creates selective visibility, where insiders operate with far more information than others, and where governance gaps can be hidden to outsiders.

Trust as a filter: How informal norms shape knowledge sharing

Trust plays a central role in these dynamics, particularly in advisory roles where professionals must navigate political sensitivities and organisational boundaries. These exchanges are not only about discretion, they also involve informal processes that determine what gets acknowledged and what stays off the record. In complex or politically sensitive settings, informal conversations and relational cues help define what is actionable, how risks are interpreted, and which insights are better left undocumented.

While trust enables collaboration, it also defines the boundaries of what can be said or shared, effectively co-producing silences that can shield wrongdoing. The process of defining these boundaries shapes not just disclosure, but the construction of what counts as knowledge.

In such environments, professionals learn to manage not only information but exposure. Minimal disclosure becomes a strategy in contexts where risk and visibility are tightly linked. For instance, even non-sensitive decisions, such as job postings, might be delayed or concealed to nurture internal relationships. These everyday decisions reveal how discretion operates not only through formal classifications but through subtle, relational practices.

In effect, information becomes a strategic resource, distributed according not only to organisational roles but also to networks of trust and influence. This dynamic contributes to the production of strategic ignorance, not because information is absent, but because it is asymmetrically managed, held back, or kept informal.

The next section explores how these dynamics translate into organisational structures of control and how strategic ignorance becomes embedded in governance frameworks.

2. Confidentiality and strategic ignorance as information governance

Confidentiality protocols shape how multilateral organisations handle information, balancing the protection of sensitive processes with discretion over disclosure. Yet over time, this discretion becomes routinised, embedded in professional norms that favour caution, minimal documentation, and selective circulation.

As Carson and Thompson (2019) argue, opacity is more than bureaucratic inertia; it functions as organisational power. By controlling visibility, institutions shape what counts as a problem and who is accountable. Ambiguous rules create space for discretion, and selective disclosure curates public narratives while concealing internal tensions.

The UNOPS case demonstrates how information governance can be used to maintain an illusion of control while enabling misconduct. Through its S3i (Sustainable Investments in Infrastructure and Innovation) initiative, UNOPS aimed to finance social housing. Yet by 2022, over US$60 million had been disbursed – primarily to a single contractor, SHS Holdings – without any housing units constructed. The governance failure was not only financial but informational: critical data were withheld from donors and oversight bodies.e1be17509c3b

A third-party review revealed that senior leadership at UNOPS had concentrated decision-making power, bypassing oversight mechanisms and ignoring critical financial and operational risks.58796329a4d4 Independent auditing firm KPMG confirmed that investment decisions were made without adequate due diligence, leaving UNOPS highly vulnerable to financial losses.9a4ebb80706f

The breakthrough came from whistleblower Mukesh Kapila, who exposed the misconduct publicly. Under pressure, Executive Director Grete Faremo resigned, and her deputy was dismissed. UNOPS announced governance reforms, but the episode highlighted how control over information had enabled organisational evasion rather than governance (see Box 3).

For board members, the UNOPS case shows that formal oversight structures without independent reporting lines are vulnerable to manipulation. By bypassing independent checks, restricting access to critical data, and fostering a culture of fear, UNOPS leadership insulated itself from accountability, enabling large-scale financial mismanagement. To avoid similar failures, boards should regularly review who controls access to information and how dissent is handled.

More broadly, the case highlights systemic vulnerabilities within other MOs, as these vulnerabilities are not unique to UNOPS. As Baumann (2021) explains, across the UN development system, there are stark disparities in project-level transparency: while UNDP and the World Food Programme (WFP) provide detailed data on project content, funding, and performance, agencies like UNICEF and UNFPA prioritise programme-level reporting and disclose little at the project level. Others, such as UN-Habitat and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), offer minimal or no project information. These inconsistencies reflect not technical constraints but divergent organisational incentives and the absence of a system-wide transparency standard.

The following sections will further explore these structural weaknesses, examining power asymmetries, information control, and organisational cultures that discourage speaking up.

How organisations handle and restrict information

Access to information is a defining factor in governance, shaping how decisions are made, risks are managed, and accountability is enforced. In MOs, who controls information and how it is shared, or withheld, can determine the extent to which oversight mechanisms function effectively.

As illustrated in the UNOPS case, confidentiality can serve as a tool for limiting scrutiny and consolidating power, where senior leadership control the flow of critical information, restricting access to oversight bodies and donors. One interviewee described how UNICEF, like many multilateral agencies, tightly manages internal information:

Information control is often framed as necessary to protect confidentiality or ensure impartial investigations. Yet in practice, it can insulate senior leadership from scrutiny, especially when oversight is weak or accountability diffuse. This centralisation of discretion allows a small group of decision-makers to manage visibility with limited external challenge.

This selective knowledge management reflects a broader pattern in multilateral governance, where accountability is primarily vertical, directed towards senior leadership. However, leadership is not a neutral entity; it operates based on its own rationale and interests. Accordingly, it exercises discretion in deciding which cases to follow up, weighing multiple factors beyond strict compliance or ethical considerations.

Decisions around investigations are often shaped less by governance norms than by organisational imperatives: budget continuity, reputational protection, or the shielding of key individuals. Information management becomes a strategic calculation, determining which risks are acknowledged and which remain invisible.

Yet, when knowledge is selectively disclosed, delayed, or fragmented, it creates an environment where fraud or corruption can persist unchecked. One interviewee noted how agencies often disclose information reluctantly and in a fragmented manner, referencing the UNOPS case:

Strategic ignorance can be produced not only by withholding information, but by timing its release to prevent scrutiny. As one official from a Danish donor organisation noted, the delay turns donors into passive observers, undermining their ability to engage meaningfully with risk mitigation:

Donors often demand greater transparency, but the UN officer we interviewed cites limited capacity and reputational risk as reasons for caution. One senior official noted that investigative teams spend increasing time managing donor expectations. Moreover, unfiltered transparency can be risky, especially in cases involving whistleblowers or sensitive political dynamics. To manage this, the UN restricts disclosure until investigations are verified. But this approach has costs: delayed reporting weakens oversight, makes coordination harder, and allows governance gaps to persist.

Moreover, donor–UN relations are shaped by political sensitivities. Many donors face internal pressures and may hesitate to challenge UN partners publicly, even when disclosure is lacking. This mutual caution can entrench information asymmetries, reinforcing a system where strategic ignorance remains unchallenged.

Ultimately, the tension between transparency and controlled disclosure reflects competing institutional priorities. Donors seek timely data to manage risk, while the UN often prioritises control to protect staff or maintain independence.

The next section examines how these tensions manifest in asymmetries of information distribution – and the broader implications for risk governance in multilateral organisations.

Power asymmetries in information distribution: How unequal access to information hinders accountability

Both transparency and confidentiality contribute to information asymmetry, as the manufacture and control of information remain in the hands of certain actors. For donors, relying solely on official reports may provide a false sense of security. Requiring multi-source reporting or triangulation with field feedback can mitigate this risk.

‘Overflowing information’ occurs when reports or communications become overly detailed, burying key insights under excessive data. This happens when too much irrelevant or minor information is included, making it difficult for the reader to identify the main points. Reports may lack structure, prioritise data over clarity, or include unnecessary visuals, leading to confusion and disengagement. As a result, the essential message is lost, causing decision paralysis and reduced effectiveness in communication.

This challenge is particularly relevant in multilateral organisations, where donors, oversight bodies, and internal stakeholders struggle to extract meaningful insights from dense documentation. As one official observed:

This quote highlights how voluminous reporting can create an illusion of oversight while failing to capture concrete risks and internal control weaknesses, ensuring that critical gaps remain unnoticed and limiting the effectiveness of external scrutiny.

On the other side of the balance, confidentiality can be used to reinforce power hierarchies, evade accountability, or manipulate narratives. As illustrated in the UNOPS case, the concentration of information at the executive level meant that external stakeholders, including donors and oversight bodies, were dependent on what UNOPS leadership chose to disclose.

One of our interviewees is critical of the overuse of confidentiality in the multilateral sector. To them, confidentiality sometimes prevents the needed information from flowing and the risks from being openly discussed:

When decisions are made within small, insulated circles, there is a greater risk that critical weaknesses remain unchallenged, oversight mechanisms are bypassed, and vested interests shape policies without scrutiny. For example, bureaucratic procedures that classify information as confidential may be used to prevent scrutiny, limit accountability, or delay necessary interventions. In such cases, confidentiality ceases to serve its intended purpose (protecting sensitive information) and instead becomes a mechanism for opacity, keeping evidence away from external accountability.

Beyond policies: The missing ‘speak-up’ culture

Multilateral organisations can rely on a full ethical infrastructure, including whistleblowing policies and codes of conduct. However, organisational culture shapes what is considered ‘knowable’ or ‘sayable’. Employees learn to stay silent in the absence of protection or organisational appetite for disclosure. This suggests that strategic ignorance can be deeply embedded in governance and decision-making structures. It influences not only what information is shared but also the things employees feel they can or cannot speak about.

The challenge of speaking up is grounded in the conditions for dialogue and communication. According to Hunt-Matthes and Gallo (2017), the UN Ethics Office rejected 96% of applications for whistleblower protection between 2006 and 2016. As highlighted in the BBC documentary Whistleblowers: Inside the UN, those who report irregularities often face harsh consequences, including retaliation and reputational damage.6b7ea4144775 Whistleblowers are frequently portrayed as traitors, and for women, the risks are even greater due to limited organisational support.

According to Stoyanova,58768a29d0b3 ‘there are elements of the UN system’s internal culture that contribute to the UN’s apathy in protecting whistleblowers’, including a lack of accountability from leadership, an absence of incentives to reward ethical decisions, and a pervasive fear of retaliation.86023d493372 In addition, precarious employment conditions further discourage reporting. As of December 2022, non-staff personnel constituted approximately 43% of the total UN system workforce, reaching as high as 91% at UNOPS. Short-term contracts and job insecurity create disincentives for personnel to challenge authority, reinforcing a culture of silence.

Decision-making within the UN Secretariat ultimately lies in the hands of permanent representatives from member states. However, many delegates are deeply embedded in diplomatic networks and attuned to their own international career trajectories. Their incentives often prioritise maintaining the UN’s image over addressing governance weaknesses.42f6430b44b3

This may explain the reluctance of executive boards to act when presented with red flags, as seen in the UNOPS case. While the example here concerns the UN, similar dynamics can be found in other intergovernmental organisations, where reputational concerns and career incentives influence institutional responses.

The next section offers recommendations on how information governance and related practices can be structured to foster transparency rather than opacity.

Turning insight into reform: Recognising and reducing strategic ignorance

Strategic ignorance is not a symptom of failure, it is a consequence of how information is governed. It emerges where discretion, power asymmetries, and professional norms interact, shaping what remains unseen.

Having examined how strategic ignorance operates through information practices and organisational culture, we can now turn to practical recommendations. The following sections offer concrete strategies to address this challenge, giving insights to recognise strategic ignorance, strengthen oversight, and increase disclosure.

How to recognise strategic ignorance within an organisation

Confidentiality remains vital in protecting sensitive negotiations, safeguarding personnel, and upholding diplomatic discretion. But when misused, it can facilitate opacity, suppress accountability, and conceal misconduct. Likewise, transparency must not be confused with data overload or symbolic disclosure, both of which can obscure more than they reveal.

To illustrate both extremes and the expected middle point for disclosure, the illustration below maps the continuum between unfiltered transparency and strategic opacity. A balanced disclosure implies not just timely information-sharing but also structured transparency that protects sensitive sources while enabling oversight. For instance, according to an interview with a UNICEF staff member, a disclosure model combining semi-annual summaries with alerts for high-risk cases has been developed to balance confidentiality with donor oversight needs.

Figure 1: The information circulation spectrum in multilateral organisations. Strategic opacity emerges when discretion becomes a tool of evasion rather than protection.

This continuum reflects how information circulation operates, not only through deliberate choices, but also through structural constraints and informal norms that shape control and limit scrutiny. For compliance teams, understanding these informal norms is critical. Risk information may not flow through formal channels; audit procedures should be designed to capture off-the-record dynamics.

The following questions can help determine when discretion has shifted from protective caution to evasive silence:

External visibility

• Are donors and external auditors granted access to full investigation reports or financial reviews?
• How often are joint monitoring missions or site visits conducted?

Disclosure patterns

• Is there a formal process to justify delays or non-disclosure of governance risks?
• Do decision records show changes in language, risk emphasis, or omissions between internal and external versions?

Board-level engagement

• Are integrity risks meaningfully and regularly discussed in executive board meetings?
• Is there a mechanism to flag and analyse delays in risk disclosure or gaps in information sharing?

Recognising strategic ignorance is the first step. But awareness alone is insufficient. Organisations must act decisively to reinforce oversight mechanisms that resist information capture and institutional silence.

Strengthening oversight and preventing selective information control

Organisational autonomy plays a critical role in the effectiveness of oversight bodies. Internal audit and investigative units perform best when structurally independent from executive leadership, thereby minimising conflicts of interest. At UNOPS, the Internal Audit and Investigation Group (IAIG) reported directly to the executive director, significantly limiting its capacity to investigate misconduct independently. Genuine autonomy requires that internal audit and compliance functions report to independent governance bodies, such as executive boards or audit committees with enforcement powers.

Standard practice can include third-party audits and regular independent evaluations. As evidenced in the UNOPS case, internal reporting processes are vulnerable to manipulation or suppression. The full extent of the case was only uncovered after KPMG’s external review, demonstrating the importance of an autonomous, external layer of scrutiny. Independent audits reduce the risk of selective disclosure and enhance credibility in oversight mechanisms.

To pre-empt the emergence of strategic ignorance, oversight systems can monitor early indicators of information control and organizational opacity. These can include:

• Transparency on whistleblower complaints and related follow-up
• Staff survey on the level of trust and integrity in the leadership
• Reporting line of internal audit and investigations

Establishing regular reviews of these indicators would allow oversight bodies to intervene before strategic ignorance becomes institutionalised.

Enabling disclosure through better governance and integrity culture

Strategic ignorance is sustained not only by organisational design but by workplace norms and informal practices.Information is often shared cautiously or informally, shaped by fear of reputational harm, retaliation, or diplomatic fallout. Organisations must therefore build formal and informal systems that normalise disclosure.

A constructive practice would be for multilateral organisations to provide regular, structured updates on governance risks and misconduct cases directly to donors’ country offices, even before investigations are finalised. This proactive communication would help build trust, demonstrate a commitment to transparency, and support timely, coordinated responses. Metrics such as the frequency of shared risk assessments and donor satisfaction with the quality of disclosure could be used to monitor performance.

Yet even the best-designed systems fail when silence is rewarded and speaking up is unsafe. Organisational culture determines whether staff trust internal processes and whether risk information circulates freely. Staff surveys and culture diagnostics can help identify barriers to disclosure and highlight where silence is institutionalised. For example:

• Annual staff surveys on willingness to report misconduct and fear of retaliation
• Staff perception of whether misconduct is tolerated when committed by senior personnel
• Gender-disaggregated reporting data, enabling the development of context-specific integrity frameworks

A values-based approach can also complement compliance mechanisms in mitigating corruption risks.f2772434e62d In particular, indicators related to employee well-being and job satisfaction can contribute to corruption risk assessments, linking workplace well-being and a safe reporting environment to the development of a stronger integrity culture.

To reduce the incentive to ignore inconvenient information, organisations can normalise disclosure by integrating risk reflection into programme reviews, creating safe spaces for staff to raise concerns, and using internal learning formats to highlight constructive handling of sensitive issues. Rather than sanctioning silence through performance metrics, these softer mechanisms foster a culture in which raising problems is seen as part of good professional judgement.

Finally, robust whistleblower protection is essential.196be430a248 This includes anonymous reporting, safeguards against retaliation, and transparent follow-up. Without such systems, concealment becomes the safer option, and strategic ignorance prevails.