Transparancy International

Huguette Labelle,
President of Transparency International

Transparency International, the only international non-governmental organisation devoted to combating corruption, brings civil society, business, and governments together in a powerful global coalition.

TI, through its International Secretariat and more than 85 independent national chapters around the world, works at both the national and international level to curb both the supply and demand of corruption. In the international arena, TI raises awareness about the damaging effects of corruption, advocates policy reform, works towards the implementation of multilateral conventions and subsequently monitors compliance by governments, corporations and banks. At the national level, chapters work to increase levels of accountability and transparency, monitoring the performance of key institutions and pressing for necessary reforms in a non-party political manner.

TI does not expose individual cases (that is the work of journalists, many of whom are members of TI chapters). Rather, in an effort to make long-term gains against corruption, TI focuses on prevention and reforming systems.

A principal tool in the fight against corruption is access to information. It is in this spirit that we offer this web site to everybody with an interest in the fight against corruption. We hope it will make a valuable contribution to assessing the gains made in recent years, and to contemplating the challenges that still lie ahead.

Building a world free of bribes

However ingrained corruption seems, it can be beaten. Transparency International (TI) has pioneered the no-bribes Integrity Pact, which includes sanctions such as blacklisting if a bidder for a public contract breaches the no-bribes agreement (page 59). Now used in more than 20 countries around the world, in 2003–04 TI’s campaigning bore fruit on a global level. The Integrity Pact is increasingly being used by multilateral development banks, a major breakthrough that will bring tremendous benefits to ordinary people in the developing world. In September 2004 the World Bank announced a decision to require companies bidding on large Bank-financed projects to certify that they ‘have taken steps to ensure that no person acting for [them] or on [their] behalf will engage in bribery’. This breakthrough is evidence of the increasing impact of the anti-corruption movement in shaping the global agenda. Another initiative of TI (together with Social Accountability International and a group of international companies), the Business Principles for Countering Bribery, offers companies practical guidance on how to prevent corruption throughout their operations. In January 2004 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 19 leading international companies took a major step towards building a corruption-free construction sector when they signed up to Business Principles customised for the engineering and construction industries (see page 49). The costs of corruption These and other initiatives are essential if we are to build a world free of bribes.

More than US $4 trillion is spent on government procurement annually worldwide. From the construction of dams and schools to the provision of waste disposal services, public works and construction are singled out by one survey after another as the sector most prone to corruption – in both the developing and the developed world. If we do not stop the corruption, the cost will continue to be devastating. Most horrifically, the cost will be lives lost. In the past 15 years alone, earthquakes have killed more than 150,000 people. As James Lewis writes, ‘[e]arthquakes don’t kill people; collapsing buildings do’ (page 23). Examples from Turkey and Italy demonstrate that buildings often collapse because building and planning regulations are ignored – and regulations are often ignored because bribes have been paid to bypass them. In economic terms, research gathered by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (page 12) demonstrates how corruption raises the cost and lowers the quality of infrastructure. Corruption also slows down development, reducing long-term growth rates. In short, corruption has the potential to devastate emerging economies. Corruption in the construction sector not only plunders economies; it shapes them. Corrupt government officials steer social and economic development towards large capital-intensive infrastructure projects that provide fertile ground for corruption, and in doing so neglect health and education programmes. The opportunity costs are tremendous, and they hit the poor hardest. Were it not for corruption in construction, vastly more money could be spent on health and education and more developing.