TED Video: Peter Eigen, Transparency International

Posted in: Anti-Corruption, Blog, Foreign Assistance, Video by Marco Puccia on April 28, 2010

Peter Eigen was one of the very first people to bring the issue of “corruption” to the mainstream. Institutions like the World Bank, his former employer, had policies against interfering in the internal affairs or politics of any member country — and at the time corruption was written off as merely a political issue. But Peter Eigen recognized the deeper social and economic consequences of corruption: It destroys credibility in institutions, tears apart societies, and serves as a barrier to economic growth and a black hole for investment in development projects. Peter Eigen was a trailblazer when he started Transparency International! Check out his TED talk here:

It’s Our Money, Where’s It Gone?

Posted in: Anti-Corruption, Blog, Video by Marco Puccia on December 28, 2009

Global Integrity posted this video on their blog, Global Integrity Commons, a while back and I wanted to make sure I share it with our readers as well. The following documentary was put together by The International Budget Partnership and shows how community members in Kenya are standing up to challenge corruption in their district by demanding access to information and conducting their own “social audits”.

This is a process that has been taken up in many countries across the globe, where ordinary citizens or councils of elders are taking charge of holding those with the discretion of spending taxpayer money to account through social/communal audits. It’s an awesome trend to see, and this documentary does a great job of capturing the movement!

Rooting Out Corruption in Afghanistan

Posted in: Anti-Corruption, Blog, Government, Video by Marco Puccia on December 7, 2009

Corruption in Afghanistan stands to be the largest prospective challenge to overcome in the country’s “nation building” effort. It can be argued that fight against corruption and an illicit underground economy in Afghanistan will be a larger force to combat that both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Aleksandr Shkolnikov recently published a post on the CIPE Development Blog posing the question, “What is to be done?”

His post included this excellent video from CBS News that I wanted to make sure I share with my readers here:

Read more…

Lifting the Veil on Foreign Assistance and Lobbying

Posted in: Blog, Foreign Assistance, Government, Video by Marco Puccia on December 3, 2009

I’ve been following the Ujima Project for a few months since its launch back in September. It was put together by New York Times reporter Ron Nixon and has partnered with technology partner Appfrica Labs. There are several projects working on AID transparency, including AiDA which is a project run by DC-based Development Gateway where I worked for a while. In fact, I just found out that AiDA will be teaming up with Project-Level Aid (PLAID) and the Secretariat of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee to create a joint, easily accessible and independent repository of aid activities. See the announcement here.

Ujima is described as an investigative reporting tool that uses “reverse transparency” to aggregate foreign assistance data from multiple sources and present it in an open and easily accessible database. One of the most interesting features on Ujima is the “Lobbying” section of the site, where you can access how much the government of Uganda, for instance, is paying for firms to lobby the US government for favorable trade legislation. Here’s a video of Ron Nixon presenting Ujima at TEDxKampala in Uganda. Enjoy!

Also, check out this Appfrica podcast interview with Ron Nixon about the Ujima Project.

UK Conservative Party Calls for Transparent Aid

Posted in: Blog, Government, Video by Marco Puccia on October 26, 2009

Earlier this week, David Cameron of the UK’s Conservative Party laid out plans for a new approach to international aid. Noting “lost” or “misplaced” funding, Cameron called the current system of aid “far too opaque”. Cameron stated that his party’s platform calls for “transparency over what is spent, where; [and] accountability so people know we’re paying for real results.” Read more…