On 22 July 2021, the Council of Europe Economic Crime and Cooperation Division held a Webinar on improving existing legal framework on whistleblower protection for the Anti-Corruption Agency of Kazakhstan (ACA). The event brough together the Agency’s representatives from the Office in Nur-Sultan and 14 regional offices.

The Webinar was organised with the purpose of presenting and discussing the findings and recommendations of the Council of Europe Technical Paper providing a review of Kazakhstan’s current legal provisions and draft amendments, covering the issue of whistleblower protection.

Some of the key recommendations from the Technical Paper focused on the need to expand the scope of application of whistleblower protection, to consider prohibiting so called “confidentiality clauses or non-disclosure agreements”, as well as to introduce and regulate reporting mechanisms and procedures to secure the effective implementation of whistleblower protection. The latter would include training and designation of competent persons to receive reports and the provision of information to potential whistleblowers on the operations of such channels. Furthermore, the authorities were encouraged to implement a number of other recommendations, such as to specify that a reporting can be made by any means of communication, to expand the scope of confidentiality to any “identifying information” as well as to consider introducing the possibility to submit information anonymously through different channels.

In addition, the Webinar provided an opportunity for the ACA employees to increase their knowledge on Council of Europe and other international standards on whistleblower protection, to analyse concrete case studies and to hear about the experiences of other countries.

This activity was organised in the framework of the project “Promoting Transparency and Action against Economic Crime”, part of the Central Asia Rule of Law Programme 2020-2023, joint initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe. The project is aimed at strengthening capacities to fight and prevent economic crime in five Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan.