Financial Transparency Coalition

Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle wrote a great article in The Huffington Post today. As the G20 meets in Los Cabos, Mexico today, world leaders will try and solve global issues. Financial transparency has always been on the agenda, but world leaders have at times struggled to act.

Corruption is notoriously difficult to measure. It’s not just because it is an illicit activity. In part it’s because the concept itself is undefined and relative. Transparency International found a (brilliant) way around this when they began surveying each nation’s public perception of corruption, rather than trying to define a concrete set of corrupt activities. So what is corruption? Transparency International uses the following working definition of corruption: “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” I imagine that's vague on purpose. So how do we define specific corrupt activities? Corruption isn’t just bribe paying, although that’s often it. It’s not just...

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?

“If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it,” was the press headline when Severn Suzuki addressed heads of states in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She was twelve years old, at what was then the world’s biggest-ever political gathering. In an impassioned critique of unfettered industrialism, Severn lamented the decline of the natural world, and the many injustices that man has wrought upon it. “I’m fighting for my future,” she said.