From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), page 12 (box within article on corruption)

An international movement

From its establishment in 1993, the prime focus of Transparency International (TI) has been to stimulate anti-corruption initiatives worldwide. Although initially greeted with suspicion, the non-governmental organization (NGO) has since helped bring the rather sensitive issue squarely onto the international development agenda. The group's annual Corruption Perception Index -- which ranks countries around the world according to how corrupt they are perceived to be -- is now widely reported in the media. TI itself has grown into a real international movement, with a secretariat in Berlin and 77 national chapters across the globe.

Of those chapters, 17 are on the African continent. Some of the African chapters, however, have been formed only recently and others are not very strong, TI Chairman Peter Eigen conceded in an interview with Africa Recovery just after the close of the International Anti-Corruption Conference. One reason for the weakness of some chapters is actually a reflection of broader political progress, as leading figures "are elected into parliament or they become president," Mr. Eigen noted. That happened, for instance, with Botswana's President Festus Mogae and Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, a founder of TI and previously chairman of its international advisory council.

Mr. Eigen recalled that his own focus on corruption began in Africa, when he was a World Bank director based in Nairobi, Kenya. But because raising the problem of corruption was then still "out of bounds" within the Bank, he resigned in 1991 and, with several others, later launched TI. World Bank President James Wolfensohn, at the Durban conference, acknowledged TI's role in helping provoke open discussion of corruption, the "c" word as it was once known within the Bank.

Aside from supporting the national chapters -- which function as autonomous NGOs, "not satellites" of the international body -- the Berlin-based secretariat directs much of its attention toward donor governments and multinational corporations. "Many major actors in the international market are deeply involved in corruption," he says. TI tries to "build bridges" for multinational corporations interested in abandoning corrupt practices. To provide further pressure, it released its first Bribe Payers Index in October, to highlight those countries whose corporations are most active in foreign bribery (see the TI website: <www.transparency.de>).

There has been progress among some corporations -- scores have toughened their stance on bribery and some actively contribute to TI activities -- as well as among donor institutions and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But the World Trade Organization, Mr. Eigen adds, "is still not interested in the whole subject, even though its main mandate is to keep trade free and open, and grand corruption is a trade restriction, no doubt about it, a tariff barrier to free trade."

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