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Transparency International
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Transparency International (TI) is an international non-governmental organization addressing corruption. This includes, but is not limited to, political corruption. It is widely known for producing its annual Corruptions Perceptions Index (see below), a comparative listing of corruption worldwide.
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Encyclopedia
Transparency International (TI) is an international non-governmental organization addressing corruption. This includes, but is not limited to, political corruption. It is widely known for producing its annual Corruptions Perceptions Index (see below), a comparative listing of corruption worldwide. The international headquarters is located in Berlin, Germany.
Organization and role
TI is organised as a group of some 100 national chapters, with an international secretariat in Berlin, Germany. Originally founded in Germany in 1993 as a not-for-profit organisation, TI is now an international non-governmental organisation, and claims to be moving towards a completely democratic organisational structure. TI says of itself:
"Transparency International is the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption. It brings people together in a powerful worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world. TI's mission is to create change towards a world free of corruption."
It rejects any idea of "northern superiority" regarding corruption and is committed to exposing corruption worldwide.
Since 1995, TI has issued an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI); it also publishes an annual Global Corruption Report, a Global Corruption Barometer and a Bribe Payers Index. However the TI USA Chapter has never commented within its publications on any corruption case within the USA, and has taken money from the Boeing Corporation, whose executive Darleen A. Druyun was imprisoned for corrupt activities, leading to the resignation of Boeing CEO Phil Condit.
TI does not undertake investigations on single cases of corruption or expose individual cases. It develops tools for fighting corruption and works with other civil society organisations, companies and governments to implement them. The goal of TI is to be non-partisan and to build coalitions against corruption.
TI's biggest success has been to put the topic of corruption on the world's agenda. International Institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund now view corruption as one of the main obstacles for development, whereas prior to the 1990s this topic was not broadly discussed. TI furthermore played a vital role in the introduction of the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.
Corruption Perceptions Index
The CPI—besides the World Bank corruption index—is the most commonly used measure for corruption in countries worldwide. Based on many different studies, it is known for its accuracy. To form this index, TI compiles surveys that ask businessmen and analysts, both in and outside the countries they are analyzing, their perceptions of how corrupt a country is. Relying on the number of actual corruption cases would not work since laws and enforcement of laws differ significantly from country to country.
The CPI is criticised for two main reasons. The first is a danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Country analysts might be influenced by past corruption indices and therefore not realise changes. Secondly, the use of the index values in time-series statistics is problematic due to the way it is calculated.
Competitiveness and corruption
A review of the linkages between countries' competitiveness and the incidence of corruption was initiated at a TI workshop in the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Prague, November 1998.
Venezuela
In May 2008, TI attracted controversy by claiming in a report entitled Promoting Revenue Transparency that Venezuela's state-owned oil firm PDVSA had failed to disclose basic financial information such as their revenues and how much royalties they paid, and had not produced properly audited accounts. As a result, the report gave PDVSA the lowest possible ranking in assessing the oil companies in 42 different countries, and ranking them according to whether they were of high, medium or low transparency. In fact, the report was incorrect, and all the data from PDVSA was publicly available, leading to claims of a bias by TI against the Venezuelan government.
See also
- Bribe Payers Index
- Corruption Perception Index
- Transparency (humanities)
- Nu Da Spaga, TI campaign in Romania
- Bolje pakt nego rat, TI campaign in Croatia
- Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International since November 2005
- Garret FitzGerald, Board Member of
- Boris Divjak, Global Board of Directors member and founder of the Bosnia and Herzegovina branch
- Frank Costigan, chair
- Frank Vogl, Global Board of Directors, co-founder, former Vice Chairman, publisher www.ethicsworld.org
External links
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- Indymedia UK article
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- in Forbes (April 2007)
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