by Kate Sturgess

An interview in Le Monde with chapter president Daniel Lebègue stressed the need for an adequate response from the French Government to the serious issues raised in the inquiry.

The Minister’s response underlined the French authorities’ resolve to launch prosecutions as a result of the inquiry and recalled that France supported retention of the records to make them available for prosecutors. France seems to be standing by this pledge. Recently, French investigating judge Philippe Courroye sent portions of the Volcker report and other documents to Paris prosecutors, allowing them to start an investigation into French companies suspected of corruption in the programme. Of the more than 2,200 companies from 40 countries listed in the Volcker report, 172 were French.

While France is the first European country to see such results, other TI national chapters have been following up with their respective authorities. For further information or to exchange information, please contact TI France at transparence@online.fr.

by Amber Poroznuk

“Promoting good governance, including fighting corruption, and mutual accountability are essential to efforts to achieve the MDGs. We agreed on the need for efforts to improve governance in all countries, to help build effective states with strong national systems and to work together on implementing global initiatives to improve governance, increase transparency and build demand for good governance at the country level in a way that strengthens ownership. The [World] Bank and [International Monetary] Fund should play a full supporting role. We asked the Bank to further develop disaggregated and actionable indicators in areas such as quality of public financial management, and procurement practices. We noted the diagnosis in the Global Monitoring Report that a significant level of corruption is a symptom of poor governance. Building on work over the last decade, we called on the Bank to lay out a broad strategy, to be discussed at our next meeting, for helping member countries strengthen governance and deepen the fight against corruption, working closely with the Fund, other multilateral development banks and the membership, to ensure a coherent, fair and effective approach. This strategy should lead to clear guidelines for operations.”

by Marta Erquicia

Over the past ten years, civil society has played a major role in holding the current 33 signatory states to their anti-corruption commitments. In March, Transparency International presented its recommendations on strengthening the Convention’s monitoring to the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism, the formal follow-up entity established under the Convention. These recommendations included the need for governments to publicly demonstrate how they have implemented the Convention, with both a description of legal changes and state practices, and statistical information that reflects concrete results.

At the March 2006 meeting, the Committee of Experts presented the approved methodology for monitoring implementation. According to TI’s Americas Department, it shows some improvement but is insufficient to ensure compliance with the Convention. Transparência Brasil presented its independent report on compliance with the Convention, stressing the need for an access to information law in Brasil. A report by Transparencia Venezuela evaluated the progress of countries on implementing recommendations.

For the Convention’s tenth anniversary, the Nuevo Herald published an op-ed by Huguette Labelle: The Future of the Americas Depends on the Anti-corruption Fight. Click here to read the op-ed and the accompanying feature story.