Asset and interest disclosure of public officials is a well-established tool to prevent corruption and to help strengthen integrity in public administration. Countries use it to identify unexplained wealth, prevent conflicts of interest, and promote accountability and integrity of public officials.
Asset and interest disclosure is a mechanism by which public officials must submit information about income, assets, liabilities, expenditures, and other interests of the officials and their family members. This mechanism includes many elements, including the disclosure form, the scope of declarants (filing population), methods of submission (paper or electronic), procedures of submitting the form, validation and verification of the forms, publication of information, institutional set-up to deal with the disclosure system, sanctions, and others.
This technical guide focuses on the disclosure form. How and what data are requested in the form represents the disclosure system's main and most important input. It also defines declarations' role in the anticorruption value chain.