REC Caucasus maintains a strict policy of zero tolerance for fraud, financial mismanagement, corruption, money laundering, terrorism financing, and any other forms of malpractice, whether committed by staff, implementing partners, contractors, consultants, vendors, grantees, or any external entities associated directly or indirectly with its projects and programmes. REC Caucasus reaffirms its firm commitment to the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and accountability in all aspects of its operations and ensures that robust internal controls, oversight mechanisms, and compliance procedures are in place to prevent, detect, and address any such misconduct. All allegations are taken seriously and are subject to prompt investigation and appropriate corrective actions in line with institutional policies and applicable donor requirements. This commitment is embedded across the organization’s governance, financial management, procurement, compliance, and operational systems and is reflected in its institutional policies and procedures.

The REC Caucasus Prohibited Practices Policy establishes that all REC Caucasus employees, Board members, partners, contractors, and stakeholders are required to maintain the highest standards of integrity, accountability, transparency, and ethical conduct in all organizational activities. The policy explicitly prohibits fraud, corruption, collusion, coercion, obstruction, abuse, harassment, misuse of organizational resources, conflicts of interest, money laundering, terrorism financing, retaliation against whistleblowers, and any concealment or falsification of information. It further provides mechanisms for confidential reporting, whistleblower protection, independent investigations, disciplinary measures, sanctions, recovery of misused funds, and referral to national authorities where necessary.

In parallel, the REC Caucasus Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Policy and Procedures reinforces the organization’s zero-tolerance approach toward money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, corruption, and diversion of funds. The policy establishes risk-based due diligence and screening procedures for partners, vendors, consultants, grantees, contractors, and beneficiaries; requires sanctions and restricted-party screening; defines enhanced due diligence procedures for higher-risk situations; and sets out robust financial controls, monitoring mechanisms, reporting obligations, investigation procedures, and audit requirements.

REC Caucasus further ensures accountability through preventive internal controls, procurement safeguards, segregation of duties, multi-level approval systems, periodic audits, risk assessments, monitoring of suspicious activities, mandatory reporting obligations, and regular staff training and awareness measures. The organization also requires third parties engaged in REC Caucasus-funded activities to comply with applicable integrity, anti-fraud, and AML/CFT obligations and reserves the right to suspend funding, terminate contracts, recover funds, blacklist entities, or refer matters to competent authorities in cases of confirmed violations.

For further information, please refer to the following documents: