The Korea Creative Content Agency, or KOCCA, said on Oct. 26 it signed an agreement on integrity and ethics management with 5 public institutions that operate overseas networks and will establish a joint response system.

The agreement involves 6 organisations: KOCCA, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corp (aT) and the Korea Trade Insurance Corp (K-sure).

The cooperation was designed to jointly respond to ethical risks such as conflicts of interest and human rights violations that could occur in overseas networks that are difficult for headquarters to manage directly.

The 6 organisations held their first working-level council meeting on Oct. 23 at the Korea Tourism Organization’s Seoul Center and shared the status and cases of ethics management operations for overseas networks at each organisation.

They plan to benchmark each other’s systems and jointly prepare a declaration on ethics management for overseas networks and an implementation checklist. They will also review jointly promoting a conflict-of-interest prevention campaign that reflects regional conditions.

They aim to share management experience and networks accumulated in running overseas hubs to strengthen internal controls and ethics management systems for overseas networks.

KOCCA President Yun-ji Kim (김윤지) said, "We will share experience and cases by institution and prepare specific measures that can be implemented in the field overseas to raise the level of integrity and ethics management for overseas networks."