by Georg Neumann

The Central American Anti-Corruption Resource Network, RECREA for short (“Red Centroamericana de Recursos Anticorrupción”) provides an in-depth view of anti-corruption efforts in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama; including information on the performance of the main actors in each country based on the TI’s National Integrity Systems (NIS). The NIS approach provides a framework with which to analyse both the extent and causes of corruption in a given national context, as well as the adequacy and effectiveness of national anti-corruption efforts.

RECREA will be used, for example, to monitor the follow up to the “Guatemala Declaration for a Corruption Free Region” signed by all Central American Presidents and the Dominican Republic during the 12th International Anti-Corruption Conference last November.

To access the website, please go: www.transparency.org/recrea .
For further information on the project, please contact: ahernandez@transparency.org

by Felgona Atieno

The WSF, hosted in Nairobi Kenya from the 20-25 January, gathered more than 100,000 delegates from around the world.

Transparency International (TI) hosted a stall to showcase TI’s work on anti-corruption, and delegates attended workshops that provided an opportunity to reinforce relationships, exchange views and design a new agenda for the future.

Transparency International was represented by Ivy Ndiewo, Jane Wanjiku, Joy Okech and Dominic Mutuku from the Kenyan chapter and Ms Lavina Bandulah from Sierra Leone.

by Veronica Rossini

The PACI Principles are based on TI’s Business Principles Against Corruption, which are the result of an extensive field consultation with many stakeholders. The PACI Signatories companies that have publicly adopted the PACI principles and a zero-tolerance policy towards bribery, currently number more than 120.

The focus on PACI at the WEF 2007 was two-fold: First, the clarification of the implementation process, including a self-monitoring commitment from the signatories, based on TI’s tools to support the Business Principles; and second, obtaining a commitment from the top accounting firms to work on an assurance approach for companies’ no-bribes programmes in the next 12 months.

The PACI initiative is a good example of how TI can increase its influence by working with partners with strong convening powers – like the WEF – that can provide access to important players in the corporate sector. The project constitutes one of TI’s initiatives to improve anti-bribery behaviour in the business world and to reduce the detrimental effects of the supply-side of bribery. Recognising that corporate bribery cannot be fought by law enforcement alone, TI’s work in the private sector is based on building preventive mechanisms and on monitored voluntary private sector commitments to improve business conduct.

For more on the PACI initiative, please go to: www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/paci/index.htm
To read more about TI’s Business Principles for Countering Bribery, and the full suite of implementing tools, please go to: www.transparency.org/global_priorities/private_sector/business_principles