Financial Transparency Coalition

It is increasingly recognised that corruption can only be tackled effectively through the joint action of all stakeholders, i.e. the public sector, business and civil society. There is a growing trend to include the private sector in development initiatives to ensure that it becomes part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. But can companies that are driven by short-term business interests really be part of the solution to corruption? And can multi-stakeholder groups made up of actors with very different aims and approaches really lead to effective solutions?

Recognizing the relationship between anonymous shell corporations and stolen assets, the World Bank released a collection of case studies entitled “The Grand Corruption Cases Database Project” last week. Part of a larger anti-corruption report The Puppet Masters: How the Corrupt Use Legal Structures to Hide Stolen Assets and What to Do About It, the global collection has made 150 beneficial ownership case studies available online. Thus, users can compare instances of shell corporations between countries and see the state of individual cases and appeals.

The Department of Good News brought us a great story today. The Thomas Reuters Foundation - who, among other things, run the good governance, non-profit journalism outlet TrustLaw - has hired Stella Dawson to fill their new position of Special Corruption Correspondent. From the foundations' press release:

In December of 2011, nearly a year after South Sudan voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from its northern neighbor, I asked a very important question. Will South Sudan defy the resource curse? The “resource curse” is the tragic phenomenon that countries well-endowed with natural resources tend to have slower economic growth and poorer development than those without. According to an analysis of developing countries by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, the more an economy relies on mineral wealth, the lower its growth rate. Countries with significant natural resource endowments also tend to have an increased likelihood of experiencing war...