OUR GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Since 2017, the Promise to Practice project has been tracking around 170 anti-corruption pledges from over 20 countries around the world through the use of a digital tracking tool, The Global Anti-Corruption Pledge Tracker, and eight national pledge trackers. These were developed to support national advocacy efforts of Mexico, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Jordan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
In November 2019, three years into the project, Transparency International UK held a learning workshop with the project’s key partners to assess the impact of the project and draw out key lessons learned in order to ensure the effort’s sustainability and resonance in the future work of the Transparency International movement as a whole.
This short report provides the background to this workshop, details of what the training sessions included and how impact stories can be used as an effective way not only to communicate activities, but also to tie them together to best showcase how they are leading to project objectives, and ultimately, change in society as a whole.
To maintain the relevance of the important pledges made at the 2016 London Anti-Corruption Summit, and make sure there is accountability, for the past three years Transparency International’s global movement has been tracking the progress of anti-corruption commitments made at the Summit through Transparency International UK’s Promise to Practice Project. Three years of pledge tracking have resulted in the ability to spot big trends in the progress of commitments related to certain themes such as beneficial ownership or asset recovery, as well as identifying specific country case studies and lessons learned.
Corruption is frequently described as a ‘cancer’: a malign force which undermines societal development and security, but one that is amorphous and devoid of deliberate intent. In many contexts, this is an accurate depiction; in others, it does not tell the whole story. This is especially the case where corruption is used, consciously and intentionally, as an instrument of statecraft, to help achieve foreign policy goals.
In September 2016 Transparency International (TI), The B Team, the Open Contracting Partnership and Wilton Park organised a conference, bringing together government and civil society representatives to develop an understanding of how they would advance implementation of the commitments made at the 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit.
More than two years later, TI and Wilton Park re-convened stakeholders from even more countries to take stock of progress made since the Summit, recognise implementation to-date and identify where there was more work to be done.
This conference note is a summary of conversations had by participants during this event and so the views summarised here may not necessarily reflect the views of TI-UK.
The Cost of Secrecy: The role played by companies registered in the UK's overseas territories in money laundering and corruption
For decades, the Overseas Territories have represented a weakness in the UK’s approach to tackling the flow of corrupt wealth around the world. The corporate secrecy afforded by these jurisdictions has made them destinations of choice for corrupt individuals seeking to hide criminal acts and enjoy the proceeds of their crimes with impunity.
Using evidence from 237 corruption cases from the last 30 years, this briefing shows how 1,201 different companies registered in the UK’s Overseas Territories have aided gross abuses of entrusted power for private gain around the world.
