Multilateral organisations are central to delivering Official Development Assistance (ODA), but safeguarding funds from corruption is increasingly challenging. With tighter budgets and a growing number of ODA-eligible organisations, multilaterals face mounting pressure to demonstrate transparency and efficiency.
Against this backdrop, robust corruption risk management is more important than ever, but current safeguards vary widely. Political sensitivities and growing geopolitical fragmentation mean donors struggle to influence anti-corruption practices and they often lack the reliable information on risks required to suggest improvements.
Despite these challenges, there is an opportunity. Multilaterals, seeking to retain donor confidence amid funding cuts, may be more open to transparency and reform. A critical entry point is anti-corruption requirements in contracts between donors and multilaterals, known as framework agreements. These documents define reporting and accountability conditions for donor portfolios, shaping how organisations apply corruption safeguards and providing a strategic lens to assess coherence, robustness, and harmonisation.
We reviewed 40 framework agreements and templates across eight major donors to assess the design of existing safeguards, identify gaps, and propose a clear, harmonised set of anti-corruption requirements. Because framework agreements differ by country, we explored the variations while suggesting ways to improve and strengthen their standard provisions. These changes would help tackle corruption, improve public trust and ensure development assistance reaches its intended recipients.
Financial information
Financial information is essential for donors to verify spending, detect risks, and assess value for money. Without timely, detailed reporting, fund flows cannot be traced, leaving gaps in accountability and anti-corruption safeguards. Donors rely on multilateral-led audit reports under the ‘single audit principle’, which prevents donors from commissioning their own. Access to detailed information on how funds are spent varies considerably, with Finland and the UK able to trace expenditure to results and risks, such as inflated costs or unexplained transfers. Other countries receive mainly high-level financial statements that make it difficult to detect corruption.
Standardised reporting that links expenditures to results, breaks down data by activity, and clarifies the use of earmarked funds would help donors identify risks and strengthen accountability. Presenting this information clearly, so donor staff can focus on priority risks without being buried in detail, would also build trust and support collective oversight.
Fraud reporting
Fraud reporting is vital for oversight. It enables timely responses to irregularities or malpractice, protection of funds, and identification of systemic weaknesses. Multilaterals usually notify donors of fraud only once allegations are substantiated or investigations are underway. While this protects confidentiality and due process, it limits early donor action.
UNICEF’s policy to report ‘Significant Impact Events’ at the earliest credible stage offers a promising model that combines timely disclosure with safeguards to whistleblowers and ongoing investigations. Denmark has also secured provisions that require agencies to notify it of credible fraud allegations if the case is deemed significant. Extending such practices across other agencies and donors would strengthen corruption safeguards before risks escalate.
Evaluation rights
Independent evaluations give donors a direct way to check whether multilateral partners are delivering results and applying anti-corruption safeguards. Most agreements leave evaluations of projects to the multilaterals themselves, leaving donors dependent on broad, agency-led reports. Countries such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Germany have negotiated some influence in checks, but these remain narrow and uneven across donors.
Frameworks could be improved by allowing donors more input into evaluation scope and methods, or allowing independent reviews for strategic or high-risk projects or those of significant financial value. Denmark’s example shows this is possible within UN rules, and the wider use of third-party evaluations would reduce reliance on agency-led narratives and improve accountability.
Site access
Site visits are essential to complement desk-based oversight, but only Denmark, Finland, and Norway have explicit access rights in some agreements. Other donors could align with these countries to ensure consistent access and support accountability.
Repayment modalities
Repayment modalities determine what happens after confirmed wrongdoing or the recovery of misused funds and influence incentives for compliance. Strict clauses, such as those in agreements from Germany and Norway, allow donors to demand that unspent or misused funds are returned. By contrast, the UK, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark have no contractual right to repayment and allow multilaterals to handle recovery internally.
Aligning repayment modalities would give donors stronger collective leverage. Adopting a graduated system where repayments are based on the seriousness of the case would bring predictability while still allowing for flexibility in lower-risk cases. Transparent reporting on recovered funds would reinforce accountability.
Donor coordination
Effective management of corruption risks in multilateral organisations depends not only on the strength of formal agreements but also coherent engagement across institutional levels and donors.
Headquarters set strategic priorities, but their effectiveness depends on how well they coordinate with permanent missions and embassies, which are often overstretched with fragmented responsibilities and constrained by political sensitivities. High-profile multilaterals may receive less scrutiny and reliance on bureaucratic reports limits real-time risk assessment.
The recent UNOPS scandal illustrated how these factors resulted in a lack of coordination from donors and widely different responses. Some froze funds, while others were unaware of the irregularities until they appeared in media reports. These fragmented responses stand in sharp contrast with the more unified approach donors adopted in addressing sexual exploitation and abuse.
Lessons from the SEA precedent
Following the 2018 Oxfam sexual exploitation scandal in Haiti, donors faced a reputational crisis and systemic safeguarding failures. In response, they reacted promptly and developed a joint strategy to harmonise sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) standards in framework agreements. This strategy unfolded in phases: building coalitions, harmonising language, broadening advocacy, and reinforcing monitoring.
It helped to strengthen reporting mechanisms and enhance safeguards. The SEA reforms showed how coordinated donor pressure and harmonised agreements can drive institutional change.
Conclusion
Framework agreements remain donors’ primary contractual tool for shaping integrity standards in multilateral organisations. They set baseline expectations on reporting, investigations, and audit access.
Yet this review shows that many of these provisions are either weakly formulated or missing altogether. Improvements are possible through clearer requirements and stronger enforcement clauses. Donors could press for systematic and timely fraud notification, consistent access to audit findings, clearer provisions for independent evaluations, stronger protection for whistleblowers, and rights to verify through site access.
The SEA precedent demonstrates that progress is achievable. Framework agreements can be strengthened, and donors can emulate good practice from one another to establish higher standards. Stronger agreements would enhance oversight and help prevent corruption by improving accountability.
While framework agreements alone cannot ensure effective oversight, when combined with collective donor action, political pressure, and systemic monitoring, they can serve as effective anti-corruption safeguards.
