Feb
2017
State Capture in South Africa
A recently-released report on State Capture indicates that one family could seemingly succeed in skewing the spending priorities of the government in Pretoria. It’s a crisis induced by weak state institutions and it has enraged many South Africans. South African Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s much anticipated report on state capture released on November 3, 2016 […]
Posted by Jan Hofmeyr
Young change makers using tech to solve land corruption
Fifteen bright young minds from Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe came together late last year to brainstorm innovative solutions to combat land corruption. Across Africa, one in every two people needing access to land-related services is affected by corruption. This could be a politician issuing title deeds to a select community to […]
Posted on 06 Feb 2017 by Annette Jaitner
What’s next for Ukraine?
Ukraine said it planned to confiscate $290 million of assets believed to be stolen through corruption in 2016. So far they’ve recovered and returned to state budget just $5,683. While that’s a tiny improvement from $3,813 recovered last year, it shows the struggling country has a long way to go before it can successfully recover […]
Posted on 16 Dec 2016 by Chris Sanders
Cleaning up sport: conflicts of interest at the top
The tension between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has never been greater than this year, when WADA recommended a ban on all Russian athletes from participating in the Rio Olympic Games, only to have the IOC reject that position. This points to a fundamental challenge for the relationship between […]
Posted on 09 Dec 2016 by Catherine Ordway
OGP: France must do more to tackle corruption
Opening up government data to fight corruption has been a stated aim for many Open Government Partnership members. When data is open by default information is easier to work with, investigate, understand and leverage to combat corruption. With open data, released according to agreed standards, people have a key means to hold their institutions and […]
Posted on 09 Dec 2016 by Robin Hodess
Pharma companies in Slovakia: Uncovering conflicts of interest
Two years ago, the leading German pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim, applied to Slovak authorities for its new anti-diabetes drug, Synjardy, to be covered by health insurance. Drug manufacturers are keen for their medicine to be covered since it would reduce its price and therefore could sell more. Boehringer estimated in its application that within four […]
Posted on 09 Dec 2016 by Gabriel Sipos
The FATF report on the USA: More roof than holes on average
You arrive in a new city on a rainy day and check into your top floor hotel room, only to find the roof is leaking. When the receptionist comes to check, he looks up and says, “I don’t see what the problem is, madam. There is clearly more roof than holes on average.” This has […]
Posted on 05 Dec 2016 by Shruti Shah
Cleaning up Georgia’s elections
Georgians are getting the message: elections are important and tampering with the process has consequences. This year, there were fewer violations, leading to a cleaner election. It was hard work, however. From when the election process started in June to when people went to the polls on 8 October, Transparency International Georgia was on the […]
Posted on 28 Nov 2016 by Levan Natroshvili
In spite of the political whirlwind, climate change is no less real
Last week the world changed with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. In Marrakesh this week the first Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA1) had intended to consolidate commitments to keep global temperature rise below 2o Celsius and limit it even further to 1.5o. Instead, the spectre […]
Posted on 18 Nov 2016 by Gareth Sweeney
Stiglitz and Pieth Panama Papers report: a roadmap for global transparency in the 21st century
After resigning from Panama’s official effort to clean up its financial sector, Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and transparency expert Mark Pieth have come out with their own independent report. And it’s a good one. Overcoming the Shadow Economy moves the focus away from Panama itself, to tackle the global problem of secrecy and its […]
Posted on 15 Nov 2016 by Max Heywood
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