transparency Archives

Treasure Island: Leak Reveals How Mauritius Siphons Tax From Poor Nations to Benefit Elites

Jul 29, 2019Jul 29, 2019 Vanessa Malila

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has revealed a large scale investigation which reveals how multinational companies used Mauritius to avoid taxes in countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

Mauritius Leaks is an investigation into how one law firm on a small island off Africa’s east coast helped companies leach tax revenue from poor African, Arab and Asian nations.

Based on 200,000 files, Mauritius Leaks exposes a sophisticated system that diverts tax revenue from poor nations back to the coffers of Western corporations and African oligarchs.

Some of the key findings:

Law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman and major audit firms, including KPMG, enabled corporations operating in some of the world’s poorest nations to exploit tax loopholes;
A private equity push into Africa backed by anti-poverty crusader and rock star Bob Geldof benefited from Mauritius’ treaties that divert tax revenue away from Uganda and elsewhere;
Multi-billion dollar U.S. companies Aircastle and Pegasus Capital Advisers cut taxes through confidential contracts, leases and loans involving Mauritius and other tax havens;
Officials from countries in Africa and Southeast Asia told ICIJ that tax treaties signed with Mauritius had cost them greatly and that renegotiating them was a priority.

For the full report and revelations go to the ICIJ website

Another successful year for Africa Integrity Indicators!

Apr 17, 2019Apr 17, 2019 Vanessa Malila

This article was first published on the Global Integrity website here

Global Integrity is pleased to announce the release of provisional data for the seventh round of its Africa Integrity Indicators (AII), available here.

This provisional data is available for public comment until May 31, 2019. We invite interested stakeholders to examine the data and share any feedback that can help increase its quality and usefulness. Don’t be shy – We value your input!

Preliminary findings

Below are some of our preliminary findings, but stay tuned! In the upcoming weeks, we will be starting a conversation to better understand how our data could help support your work.

The independence of the judiciary is under threat: In several countries, notably Ghana and Kenya, governments have taken steps to hamper the independence of the judiciary.

Bypassing public procurement guidelines: While regulations are supposed to control public procurement, there is a surge of contracts awarded without competition in Liberia, Benin and Mauritania. In Kenya, allegations of corruption in public procurement are increasing.

Crackdown on the publication of information: While some countries made progress towards open publication of information (notably Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, with substantial improvement from last year), more countries regressed, experiencing more censorship and/or self-censorship of media organizations and citizens’ online content (social media, blogs, etc).

What is the Africa Integrity Indicators Project, anyway?

Every year since 2013, the Africa Integrity Indicators project assesses the state of governance and aspects of social development across all 54 African countries. It produces qualitative data through 102 indicators in 13 categories addressing transparency and accountability, as well as social development.

The Africa Integrity Indicators data is a stand-alone assessment published by Global Integrity. It presents snapshots of evidence for each indicator, providing a score, the justification, and supporting sources.

Our goal is simple: to build accurate and reliable data, with an interface that enables the data to be examined at the country level (say, by tracking a country’s progress over time with regards to one particular indicator), and at the subject level (say, by comparing different countries’ performance on one indicator).

We want our data to empower actors at the national and regional and international levels working to advance governance reforms, and to foster a discussion on how governance challenges can be tackled.

We also strive to be rigorous and transparent; you can find our methodology here.

What’s new this year?

Previous rounds have addressed both “in law” and “in practice” indicators. In this round, we decided to focus solely on the “in practice” indicators. This is because prior rounds have highlighted “implementation gaps,” or the lag between the adoption of regulations aiming to improve certain issues, and the actual improvement on the ground.

So this year, we are prioritizing citizen’s experience in practice. (Don’t worry, we’ll include updates on the laws every three years to make sure we capture big changes and continue to provide a basis for assessing the implementation gap, a measure which we continue to feel provides an important starting point for understanding whether and why gaps persist, and what might be done to close the implementation gap).

How is our data unique?

How can you use our data?

Our work has been used by several institutions. Data that we collect against a number of questions feed into the Ibrahim Index of African Governance and into the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) by the World Bank. Through the WGI, the data also provides the Millennium Challenge Corporation with information that informs its decisions about country eligibility for Millennium Challenge Corporation compacts.

But you can use our data, too!

Our dataset is a practical entry point for research, advocacy and action:

Transparent: our methodology and sources are transparent, and data is open source;
Efficient: for each indicator, scores make it quick and easy to identify patterns across countries and across time;
Action-oriented: indicators are based on fact-based and country-specific qualitative research, which provides insight on what should be priorities for reforms.

This article was first published on the Global Integrity website here

Join the conversation!

We want to hear from you. Check out our preliminary data and give us your feedback. You have 2 months to help us improve our work!

If you have comments on specific facts and narratives or if you have suggestions related to the accuracy of our research, please contact us at aii@globalintegrity.org.

If you have general comments and suggestions about the usefulness of the data, how you use it, and how it can be improved, please submit your feedback in this form or the aforementioned email address. You can also connect with us on Twitter (@GlobalIntegrity).

Overcoming Hurdles to Citizen Activism for Fiscal Governance

Apr 17, 2019Apr 17, 2019 Vanessa Malila

By Shaazka Beyerle and Davin O’Regan. Originally posted here

Policy and programs seeking to advance transparency and accountability in public budgets have tended to focus on the state apparatus. Whether it be new laws that require greater openness or punish malfeasance or entirely new commissions and regulatory agencies to strengthen checks and balances, many initiatives focus internally on the state – the civil service, the courts, the legislature, or the executive.

These efforts are critical for enhancing accountable fiscal governance, but they are insufficient for producing lasting change or surmounting some of the tallest reform hurdles. Oftentimes they are simply subverted or coopted by persons in power. As a result, they have limited ability to reduce corruption, which in turn means they cannot stem the continued loss of government funds necessary for public investments nor the political destabilization and potentially violent conflict-inducing effects of an increasingly aggrieved and frustrated citizenry.

Reform, however, is not always the result of technocratic tinkering and innovation but can be driven by popular, broad-based citizen action. Whether it be labor or environmental policies or various human and civil rights issues, social movements deploying various nonviolent tactics have consistently demonstrated the ability to achieve genuine – sometimes transformative – shifts in policy and government performance. The underlying dynamic involves grassroots organizing to amplify citizen voices and wield power.

Can such bottom-up citizen initiatives be fostered to advance fiscal governance? Based on a series of interviews and focus group engagements with transparency and accountability reform advocates in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ukraine conducted as part of a United States Institute of Peace (USIP) project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, activists recounted two major challenges in mobilizing grassroots citizens for fiscal governance, and some lessons from our own initial research approach revealed a third challenge.

Challenge 1: Fiscal governance issues are technical and not immediately accessible for average citizens

The topic itself is arcane and technical, and therefore not immediately accessible for average citizens. As one activist in Kenya noted, there already is quite a bit of information on budgeting and spending available in Kenya, but “the question is how do you channel these things in an understandable ways that then create the [popular] action that is required” to pressure for more reform. In Ukraine, an anti-corruption advocate lamented that a new technological initiative to increase access to budgetary details of one oblast administration “gave citizens a tool to control budget funds but the other problem is that people don’t really understand it.” Another Ukrainian activist echoed the same sentiment, saying that the “end user [i.e., citizen] doesn’t really understand new anti-corruption terms and we have to explain in detail.”

Surveys of individuals’ experiences with bribery and corruption in Europe and Central Asia reinforce this notion of a substantial learning curve to actively mobilizing citizens in efforts to improve transparency or accountability. In most countries, difficulty in reporting incidents due to a lack of knowledge of how, where, or the associated costs to do so were consistently cited as the top reasons individuals did not report bribery or corruption, more so than fear of retaliation or a sense that there would be no consequences for the perpetrator.

Challenge 2: Maintaining mobilization after bursts of activism

Activists in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ukraine also cited sustainability as a challenge. Fiscal transparency and accountability are ongoing struggles, and maintaining mobilization after bursts of activism is difficult. A scandal might briefly grab headlines and galvanize popular support around the investigation of a specific individual, but it is hard to prolong citizen participation in the budgetary process or to monitor outputs and projects. Likewise, disillusionment can set in after grand victories that do not immediately result in perceptible accountability gains, such as the 2010 constitutional referendum in Kenya or recent electoral transitions in Nigeria. In Ukraine, many citizens were encouraged by the slew of dramatic, positive reforms that emerged following the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014, but, one activist noted, by 2018 “people began to lose confidence in reforms and that these reforms are being implemented effectively…there are doubts regarding how it is all going and whether it’s the right way or not.”

Challenge 3: Transparency and accountability activists rely heavily on support from external actors

Many of the activists and organizations we encountered were heavily reliant on financial assistance from external actors. Our research sought to understand the effects of this support on the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability campaigners. To do so we endeavored to interview and engage domestically funded organizations and activists and compare their experiences and approach to foreign funded groups. It proved difficult. Attempts at snowballing from foreign funded groups as well as outreach to in-country representatives of external actors produced few candidates. We did try reaching out to labor organizers and activists within religious organizations, given that these often have reliable domestic resources, but they typically did not work directly on transparency and accountability issues. Some independent or newer activists were referred to us, but they also did not always work on these issues, and some actually did obtain grants or foreign support over the course of our research.

Although our research has not yet concluded, a few factors seem to be at play. In some countries, there may just be limited activism around transparency and accountability that isn’t reliant to some extent on foreign funding, or such activism may be of such a different nature that it would be difficult to compare to externally financed organizations and groups even if we were able to identify and research it. Alternatively, initial groups and key informants we contacted may be so detached from domestically resourced movement actors that snowballing was not a viable technique for reaching them. For instance, there have been notable citizen- led and -funded efforts in other countries, such as the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’s experience in India, discussed by Nikhil Dey in a previous Fiscal Futures post.

How can activists overcome these challenges and mobilize citizens?

First, take cues from the grassroots. As was the case with the Indian Right to Information movement profiled in the aforementioned blog post, the entry point is not rallying the public around abstract fiscal transparency issues and technocratic measures, but linking these directly to immediate problems. “We would like to have proper toilets, fit to be used by humans, disabled people and children,” declared Bukela Gincana, a social audit volunteer in South Africa. Insufficient, substandard sanitation afflicts marginalized communities and can lead to gender-based and communal violence. Up to 50 people share one toilet, many with no locks, and women have been raped at night, reported residents in Wattville, a collection of informal settlements in Cape Town. From 2015-2016, the Social Audit Network (SAN), Social Justice Coalition (SJC), the International Budget Partnership South Africa, and citizens engaged in two social audits focusing on sanitation service outsourcing. SJC, a “membership-based social movement” also launched a campaign to include the poor in budget decisions. Nonviolent tactics ranged from research, community organizing, education/training, engagement with locals/sanitation workers/officials, and advocacy, to physical inspections, protests, stunts, and citizen-state public forums. Finally, residents flooded the municipality with 3,000 formal submissions concerning the draft Cape Town budget, a creative mass action combining institutional and extra-institutional pressure.

A more recent example comes from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. ReAcción, a youth-led hybrid civil society organization, has been mobilizing students for several years to map and monitor disbursements for public school infrastructure from FONACIDE (National Public Investment and Development Fund) in order to impact corruption and channel funds to marginalized schools prioritized by the Ministry of Education. After David Riveros García, reAcción’s founder, encountered difficulties building anti-corruption awareness amongst high school students, in 2013 he and friends latched on to public discontent over FONACIDE’s weak transparency and monitoring mechanisms and ensuing scandals.

Second, it may not be love at first sight. Even when their grievances and problems are central to the civic initiative, citizens won’t be clamoring to jump on the fiscal transparency bandwagon. Apathy, low self-confidence, and sometimes fear can be common obstacles. Nonviolent action initiatives cultivating collective responsibility, collective ownership, and collective identity help to overcome these challenges. ReAcción underscored to fellow students that they should be FONACIDE’s beneficiaries; corruption affected them and their schools; and they could make an impact. High-schoolers had a role in planning and decision-making, and through peers learned useful skills not only for monitoring but also for their own development, including dialoguing with elites, data visualization, and computer programming.

Third, spice it up. To get citizens involved in fiscal transparency, civic initiatives have added contextually-relevant culture, humor, fellowship, and social recognition into communications, skills, leadership-building, engagement, and nonviolent tactics. In Wattville, community volunteers canvassed fellow residents. They wore easily recognizable in T-shirts with slogans such as, “Sanitation is dignity” and “Sifuna Ukwazi Iqiniso (We Want to Know the Truth).

Fourth, invest in education. IBP not only helped to gain documents from Cape Town’s municipality, it carried out local trainings in public finance, budget analysis, and procurement. The fiscal governance field can also support capacity building in effective grassroots engagement. At present, there seems to be an over-emphasis on “sustaining mobilization” and an under-investment in community-organizing, movement building, and leadership.

Fifth, develop incremental goals with tangible outcomes. According to scholar-practitioner Marshall Ganz, “without clear outcomes, neither leaders nor participants have any way to evaluate success or failure, to learn, or to experience the feedback essential to motivation.” How does this play out for fiscal transparency? Over two years, the Cape Town social audits yielded new toilets, improved employment conditions for janitors, citizen input into the subsequent tender document, and more generally, improved citizen-state communication. Moreover, in 2018, SJC, SAN, IBP, Planact, and the Wattville and Thembelihle communities joined forces to expand social audits to ten informal settlements. The objectives are not only to improve fiscal governance and direct sanitation service, but to change government systems. In Paraguay – through annual mapping and visualizations of the administrative process, cross-data research and visualizations, and monitoring of selected schools – reAcción’s volunteers contributed to increasing FONACIDE’s transparency from the Ministry of Education down to Ciudad del Este. Recently, reports Riveros García, the General Auditor’s report sent to President Abdo Benítez included the youth group’s 2018 Annual Report on the management of FONCIDE funds.

Fiscal governance poses unique challenges for activists. Annual budgets, government accounting, and procurement regulations are unlikely to turn average people to the streets. But dedicated efforts to punch through these more abstruse procedures and link them to citizen’s immediate well-being can help mobilize popular support for fiscal responsibility.

By Shaazka Beyerle and Davin O’Regan, United States Institute of Peace— Apr 17, 2019

This post is part of the Fiscal Futures blog series exploring some of the biggest issues that fiscal accountability enthusiasts are likely to encounter over the next 10 to 15 years. Learn more about the Fiscal Futures project and download resources here.

Shaazka Beyerle is a Senior Research Advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Davin O’Regan is Senior Program Officer for Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace. They oversee several research initiatives that examine the impact of foreign donor support for activists and social movement organizations in Nigeria, Kenya, Ukraine, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, and Burma.

World facing a global compassion deficit finds new CIVICUS report

Apr 3, 2019Apr 3, 2019 Vanessa Malila

Civil society organisations providing humanitarian assistance to migrants and refugees are being targeted as the world faces a crisis of global compassion.

This alarming trend is one of the findings of the State of Civil Society Report 2019, an annual report by global civil society alliance CIVICUS, which looks at events and trends that impacted on civil society in the past year.

In one cited example, the Italian government prevented a boat operated by international medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from docking in Italy, leaving it stranded at sea for a week with more than 700 passengers, including unaccompanied minors. In the USA, organisations were prevented from leaving life-saving water supplies for people making the hazardous journey across the desert from Mexico.

“Civil society, acting on humanitarian impulses, confronts a rising tide of global mean-spiritedness, challenging humanitarian values in a way unparalleled since the Second World War,” said Lysa John, CIVICUS Secretary General.

“We need a new campaign, at both global and domestic levels, to reinforce humanitarian values and the rights of progressive civil society groups to act,” added John.

According to the report, in Europe, the USA and beyond – from Brazil to India – right wing populists, nationalists and extremist groups are mobilising dominant populations to attack the most vulnerable. This has led to an attack on the values behind humanitarian response as people are being encouraged to blame minorities and vulnerable groups for their concerns about insecurity, inequality, economic hardship and isolation from power. This means that civil society organisations that support the rights of excluded populations such as women and LGBTQI people and stand up for labour rights are being attacked.

As narrow notions of national sovereignty are being asserted, the international system is being rewritten by powerful states, such as China, Russia and the USA, that refuse to play by the rules. Borders and walls are being reinforced by rogue leaders who are bringing their styles of personal rule into international affairs by ignoring existing institutions, agreements and norms.

The report also points to a startling spike in protests relating to economic exclusion, inequality and poverty, which are often met with violent repression, and highlights a series of flawed and fake elections held in countries around the world in the last year.

“Democratic values are under strain around the globe from unaccountable strong men attacking civil society and the media in unprecedented – and often brutal – ways,” said Andrew Firmin, CIVICUS’ Editor-in-Chief and the report’s lead author.

2018 was a year in which regressive forces appeared to gain ground. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civil society in all countries around the world, civic space – the space for civil society – is now under serious attack in 111 of the world’s nations – well over half of all countries. Only four per cent of the world’s population live in countries where our fundamental freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression are respected and enabled.

But the past year was also one in which committed civil society activists fought back against the rising repression of rights. From the successes of the global #MeToo women’s rights movement to the March for Our Lives gun reform movement led by high school students in the USA to the growing school strike climate change movement, collective action gained ground to claim breakthroughs.

“Despite the negative trends, active citizens and civil society organisations have been able to achieve change in Armenia, where a new political dispensation is in place, and in Ethiopia, where scores of prisoners of conscience have been released,” said John.

The report makes several recommendations for civil society and citizen action. The report calls for new strategies to argue against right-wing populism while urging progressive civil society to engage citizens towards better, more positive alternatives. These include developing and promoting new ideas on economic democracy for fairer economies that put people and rights at their centre. Notably, the report calls for reinforcing the spirit of internationalism, shared humanity and the central importance of compassion in everything we say and do.

Ends.

For an executive summary of the report, click here.

For the full report, click here.

Further reading:

Access the CIVICUS Monitor here and for more information on the latest CIVICUS Monitor ratings, click here.

About the State of Civil Society Report 2019

Each year the CIVICUS State of Civil Society Report examines the major events that involve and affect civil society around the world. This report looks back at the key stories of 2018 for civil society – the most significant developments that civil society was involved in, responded to and was impacted by.

Our report is of, from and for civil society, putting front and centre the perspectives of a wide range of civil society activists and leaders close to the major stories of the day. In particular, it presents findings from the CIVICUS Monitor, our online platform that tracks threats to civic space in every country.

For further information or to request interviews with CIVICUS staff and contributors to this report, please click here or contact: media@civicus.org

Can mining be corruption-free?

Apr 3, 2019Apr 3, 2019 Vanessa Malila

Recently, Cape Town in South Africa hosted one of its biggest events of the year: The Mining Indaba.

With two heads of state, 35 government ministers, and the world’s biggest mining companies attending thousands of meetings, and securing millions of dollars’ worth of deals — this conference remains the leading deal-making forum for the mining sector.

A couple of kilometres to the east, the industrial suburb of Woodstock hosted the Alternative Mining Indaba: a considerably less flashy congregation of community groups, church groups, and non-government organisations — including, of course, us, Transparency International (TI).

(Actually, our team worked around the clock attending both conferences and various side-events around South Africa’s beachfront city.)

So why is TI interested in this multi-billion dollar global industry?

It will come as no surprise to most people that corruption affects the extractive industries.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire — or in this case, where there’s money, lurks the risk of corrupt individuals abusing their entrusted power for private gain.

Remarkably, a quarter of all corruption cases in the oil, gas and mining sectors arise at the very start of those extractive projects?

This startling fact motivates us — a network of 20 TI chapters working in some of the world’s most resource-rich countries — to take a closer look at the very start of the mining value-chain: the awarding of mining licences, permits and contracts. If we can improve the system and ensure mining projects are developed on clean, accountable and transparent foundations, then the rest of the mining project is more likely to be corruption-free.

We need to tackle corruption in mining because when corruption compromises an industry as large, impactful and capital-intensive as the extractive industries, everyone loses.

People stand to lose their share of their nation’s mineral wealth, the cohesion of their communities and the health of their environments. Governments stand to lose important sources of revenue for public services such as schools or hospitals, and politicians risk losing the trust and confidence of citizens. Companies also stand to lose the business certainty and community support they need to secure their operations.

TI is working across our 20 country-strong network to shine a light on the often complex and obscure processes governing how mining licenses are granted. We are building coalitions against corruption across government, industry, civil society and community groups; and we are strengthening bonds across our anti-corruption networks to share information, tools and contacts.

This is a type of corruption that is not often spoken about but has serious impacts on human rights.

“Communities should feel and be part of the transformation,” says Farai Mutondoro, senior researcher for TI Zimbabwe, “in an ideal scenario, their voice is felt, their voice is heard by mining companies […] they have a say in terms of corporate social responsibility and the kind of infrastructure that they want to see.”

A key part of our work involves working with communities to enhance their access to information about mining projects, and to support them to know their rights and have their voices heard. Without transparency or access to this kind of information, communities cannot meaningfully participate in decisions that affect them. Worse still, they can be manipulated and taken advantage of. This is a type of corruption that is not often spoken about but has serious impacts on human rights.

“Transparency is so important to tackle corruption because transparency builds trust,” says Farai, “it ensures there is a social contract between communities and government.” Communities can then hold governments to account “because they have access to information that allows them to do so.”

Nicole Bieske, head of TI’s Mining Programme, found similar sentiments expressed at the Mining Indaba — “mining companies and politicians are reflecting more and more on how to build better relationships with the communities affected by mining operations.”

Nicole spoke at the Mining Indaba about the business imperative for building strong relationships with the communities living near mining projects. Community support matters, and companies must act responsibly if they are to build that trust.

“The great thing about TI’s work is that we are talking to everyone. And business is eager to learn more about how to improve business integrity, governments are listening to ideas to improve accountability, and people want more information about how mining licenses are granted on their land.”

This article was first published here

To learn more about TI’s work to improve transparency in mining, visit our website here.

Government, parliaments, civil society call for greater accountability in health and agriculture service delivery in Southern Africa

Mar 22, 2019Mar 22, 2019 Vanessa Malila

Reflecting on the findings of health and agriculture service delivery monitoring in Southern Africa, a cross-section of 87 representatives from government, parliament, civil society and farmers organisations, who met in Lusaka, Zambia from 4 – 7 March, issued a communiqué today. The communiqué calls upon SADC and its member states to improve accountability to accelerate the achievement of regional commitments.

“Social accountability is a prerequisite for the delivery of quality social services, and ultimately for the achievement of food security and good health for all people of Southern Africa,” said Mr. Barney Karuuombe, Manager: Parliamentary Capacity Development (PCD), SADC PF, addressing the meeting on 6 March.

The final communiqué of the meeting urged the SADC National Parliaments and the SADC Parliamentary Forum, among other recommendations, “to promote awareness of the regional health and agriculture commitments at both the national and regional levels and ensure oversight of the same through appropriate mechanisms.”

“What happens in one country in our region, affects all of us. It is our responsibility as citizens to ensure the regional agreements which our governments sign are realistic and representative of our aspirations. We must then hold them accountable for their realisation,” explained Ms. Gertrude Mugizi, Coordinator of the Regional Learning Programme at the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM).

In response to the new SADC Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Strategy (2019-2030), the meeting communiqué calls for “SADC Member States to commit 5% of their national health budget for implementation of the SADC SRHR Strategy (2019-2030). Additionally, local government authorities, where relevant, should at least commit 10% of their own sources for the facilitation of the implementation by local health departments.”

“As adolescents and young people of the region, we demand that nothing should be developed for us, without our involvement. Nothing for us, without us. If governments commit to delivering sexual and reproductive services for youth, we should be able to access these in our communities,” a social accountability monitoring (SAM) champion from Zambia, Mr. Ng’andwe Ng’andwe, told the delegates.

In the area of agriculture support for smallholder farmers, the communiqué stated “[we] urgently call upon SADC Member States to support innovative research and development as well as the implementation of alternatives to hybrid seeds and chemically intensive agriculture such as (i) integrated pest management (ii) use of community-based seed systems (iii) improvement of soil fertility through increasing soil organic matter and to (iv) facilitate the diversification of farmer support programmes and the redirection of funds towards the adoption of agroecological practices.”

“We need farmer support programmes that respond to the needs of smallholder farmers in the region. The FISPs undermine our sustainable practices by only providing hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilisers. What we need is support for us to better use our own seed systems and adopt sustainable agroecological practices,” explained Zambian smallholder farmer and member of ESAFF Zambia, Ms. Mary Sakala.

The Partnership for Social Accountability (PSA) Alliance held two events – a Regional Learning Forum and Regional Budget Summit – from 4 to 7 March 2019 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia. The Regional Learning Forum explored examples of good practices and working models in promoting social accountability in service delivery in the region.

The Regional Budget Summit, held in partnership with the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF), focused on the findings of ongoing national and local level social accountability monitoring across four countries – Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia – and how these impact on the realisation of regional SADC commitments in health and agriculture. Participants also reflected on the critical oversight role of parliamentarians and parliamentary committees in ensuring the accountable use of public funds.

The PSA Alliance is a consortium led by ActionAid together with PSAM, ESAFF and SAfAIDS, and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), has been implementing a social accountability project in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia since May 2016. In each of the four countries, the multi-stakeholder project has provided training to build the capacity of state officials and parliamentarians to more effectively manage public funds, as well as support for civil society organisations, smallholder farmers and the media in holding their leaders to account.

For more information on the project ‘Strengthening Social Accountability and Oversight in Health and Agriculture in Southern Africa’, please contact Chrispin Chomba, +260211257652, safaids@safaids.co.zm, SAfAIDS Zambia or Maureen Zulu, +260974757586, maureen.zulu@actionaid.org, ActionAid Zambia.

The PSA Alliance consists of: PSAM – Public Service Accountability Monitor, Rhodes University – www.psam.org.za; SAfAIDS – www.safaids.net; ESAFF – Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum – www.esaff.org; and ActionAid – www.actionaid.org. The PSA Alliance is online at http://copsam.com/psa or @psaalliance (Twitter / Facebook).

Africa Data Revolution Report 2018

Feb 7, 2019Feb 7, 2019 Vanessa Malila

The Africa Data Revolution Report 2018 delves into the current state and recent evolution of Open Data – with an emphasis on Open Government Data – in the African data communities. It explores key countries across the continent, researches a wide range of open data initiatives and benefits from global thematic expertise.

This second edition improves on process, methodology and collaborative part-nerships from the first edition. It draws from country reports, existing global and continental initiatives and key experts’ input and provides a deep analysis of the actual impact of open data in the African context.

Key Recommendations

Open Data needs the commitment of political leadership, to be entrusted to a dedicated and adequately resourced custodian and embedded through permanent data processes and a pervasive culture within all relevant government institutions. This takes sustained leadership and commitment inspired by a true belief in the benefits of open data to society as a whole. It cannot be achieved by short-term standalone, once-off externally funded initiatives focused on purely quantitative objectives such as making a given number of datasets available.Externally funded Open Government Data projects need to focus more on local capacity-building within governments, insist on institutionalizing open data processes, ensure that the datasets released are the ones that address needs rather than those that are easy to open, and involve stakeholder consultations.

Additionally, a different type of intervention or support mechanism is required to improve the impact of open data initiatives: support for OGD intermediaries needs to be more agile, less formalized, easier to access, allowing for more failures (i.e. higher risk tolerance), and focused on multi-pronged and more holistic outcomes.The intrinsic value of data as a strategic and social asset should be recognized by all the stakeholders in the data value chain, including those who capture the data as well as managers and decision makers at all levels of government institutions.

You can access the executive summary here

You can also find more information here

Sub-Saharan Africa: undemocratic regimes undermine anti-corruption efforts

Feb 5, 2019Feb 5, 2019 Vanessa Malila

This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) presents a largely gloomy picture for Africa – only eight of 49 countries score more than 43 out of 100 on the index. Despite commitments from African leaders in declaring 2018 as the African Year of Anti-Corruption, this has yet to translate into concrete progress.

Seychelles scores 66 out of 100, to put it at the top of the region. Seychelles is followed by Botswana and Cabo Verde, with scores of 61 and 57 respectively. At the very bottom of the index for the seventh year in a row, Somalia scores 10 points, followed by South Sudan (13) to round out the lowest scores in the region.

With an average score of just 32, Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest scoring region on the index, followed closely by Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with an average score of 35.

Corruption and a crisis of democracy

Sub-Saharan Africa remains a region of stark political and socio-economic contrasts and many longstanding challenges. While a large number of countries have adopted democratic principles of governance, several are still governed by authoritarian and semi-authoritarian leaders. Autocratic regimes, civil strife, weak institutions and unresponsive political systems continue to undermine anti-corruption efforts.

Countries like Seychelles and Botswana, which score higher on the CPI than other countries in the region, have a few attributes in common. Both have relatively well-functioning democratic and governance systems, which help contribute to their scores. However, these countries are the exception rather than the norm in a region where most democratic principles are at risk and corruption is high.

Improvers

Notwithstanding Sub-Saharan Africa’s overall poor performance, there are a few countries that push back against corruption, and with notable progress.

Two countries – Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal – are, for the second year in a row, among the significant improvers on the CPI. In the last six years, Côte d’Ivoire moved from 27 points in 2013 to 35 points in 2018, while Senegal moved from 36 points in 2012 to 45 points in 2018. These gains may be attributed to the positive consequences of legal, policy and institutional reforms undertaken in both countries as well as political will in the fight against corruption demonstrated by their respective leaders.

With a score of 37, Gambia improved seven points since last year, while Seychelles improved six points, with a score of 66. Eritrea also gained four points, scoring 24 in 2018. In Gambia and Eritrea, political commitment combined with laws, institutions and implementation help with controlling corruption.

Decliners

In the last few years, several countries experienced sharp declines in their CPI scores, including Burundi, Congo, Mozambique, Liberia and Ghana.

In the last seven years, Mozambique dropped 8 points, moving from 31 in 2012 to 23 in 2018. An increase in abductions and attacks on political analysts and investigative journalists creates a culture of fear, which is detrimental to fighting corruption.

Home to one of Africa’s biggest corruption scandals, Mozambique recently faced indictments of several of its former government officials by US officials. Former finance minister and Credit Suisse banker, Manuel Chang, is charged with concealing more than US$2 billion dollars of hidden loans and bribes.

Many low performing countries have several commonalties, including few political rights, limited press freedoms and a weak rule of law. In these countries, laws often go unenforced and institutions are poorly resourced with little ability to handle corruption complaints. In addition, internal conflict and unstable governance structures contribute to high rates of corruption.

Countries to watch

Angola, Nigeria, Botswana, South Africa and Kenya are all important countries to watch, given some promising political developments. The real test will be whether these new administrations will follow through on their anti-corruption commitments moving forward.

With a score of 27, Nigeria remained unchanged on the CPI since 2017. Corruption was one of the biggest topics leading up to the 2015 election and it is expected to remain high on the agenda as the country prepares for this year’s presidential election taking place in February.

Nigeria’s Buhari administration took a number of positive steps in the past three years, including the establishment of a presidential advisory committee against corruption, the improvement of the anti-corruption legal and policy framework in areas like public procurement and asset declaration, and the development of a national anti-corruption strategy, among others. However, these efforts have clearly not yielded the desired results. At least, not yet.

With a score of 19, Angola increased four points since 2015. President Joao Lourenco has been championing reforms and tackling corruption since he took office in 2017, firing over 60 government officials, including Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of his predecessor, Eduardo Dos Santos. Recently, the former president’s son, Jose Filomeno dos Santos, was charged with making a fraudulent US$500 million transaction from Angola’s sovereign wealth fund. However, the problem of corruption in Angolan goes far beyond the dos Santos family. It is very important that the current leadership shows consistency in the fight against corruption in Angola.

With a score of 43, South Africa remains unchanged on the CPI since 2017. Under President Ramaphosa, the administration has taken additional steps to address anti-corruption on a national level, including through the work of the Anti-Corruption Inter-Ministerial Committee. Although the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) has been in place for years, the current government continues to build momentum for the strategy by soliciting public input.

In addition, citizen engagement on social media and various commissions of inquiry into corruption abuses are positive steps in South Africa. The first commission of inquiry, the Zondo Commission, focuses on state capture, while the second focuses on tax administration and governance of the South African Revenue Service (SARS). Given that previous commissions of inquiry produced few results, the jury is still out on whether the new administration will yield more positive change.

Another example of recent anti-corruption efforts in South Africa is the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report on corruption in the Gauteng Department of Health. While the report never saw the light of day under previous administrations, under President Ramaphosa it exposed several high profile individuals, including members of the ruling party.

In both Kenya and South Africa, citizen engagement in the fight against corruption is crucial. For example, social media has played a big role in driving public conversation around corruption. The rise of mobile technology means ordinary citizens in many countries now have instant access to information, and an ability to voice their opinions in a way that previous generations did not.

In addition to improved access to information, which is critical to the fight against corruption, government officials in Kenya and South Africa are also reaching to social media to engage with the public. Corruption Watch, our chapter in South Africa, has seen a rise in the number of people reporting corruption on Facebook and WhatsApp. However, it remains to be seen whether social media and other new technologies will spur those in power into action.

Recommendations

Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa must intensify their efforts and keep in mind the following issues, when tackling corruption in their countries:

Demonstrate visible commitment to anti-corruption from political leaders, notably in Burundi, Congo and Mozambique.
Protect human rights defenders, political analysts, anti-corruption activists and investigative journalists and enable them to speak out on corruption issues.
Improve the health of democratic institutions. This includes supporting participation, transparency and trust, along with necessary checks and balances.

This article was originally published on the Transparency International website

Corruption Perceptions Index 2018 shows anti-corruption efforts stalled in most countries

Feb 5, 2019Feb 5, 2019 Vanessa Malila

The 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released in January 2018 by Transparency International reveals that the continued failure of most countries to significantly control corruption is contributing to a crisis of democracy around the world. “With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe – often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies – we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” said Patricia Moreira, Managing Director of Transparency International.

“Corruption chips away at democracy to produce a vicious cycle, where corruption undermines democratic institutions and, in turn, weak institutions are less able to control corruption.”

The 2018 CPI draws on 13 surveys and expert assessments to measure public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, giving each a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). To view the results, visit: www.transparency.org/cpi2018

CPI highlights

More than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of only 43. Since 2012, only 20 countries have significantly improved their scores, including Estonia and Côte D’Ivoire, and 16 have significantly declined, including, Australia, Chile and Malta.
Denmark and New Zealand top the Index with 88 and 87 points, respectively. Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria are at the bottom of the index, with 10, 13 and 13 points, respectively. The highest scoring region is Western Europe and the European Union, with an average score of 66, while the lowest scoring regions are Sub-Saharan Africa (average score 32) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (average score 35).

Corruption and the crisis of democracy

Cross analysis with global democracy data reveals a link between corruption and the health of democracies. Full democracies score an average of 75 on the CPI; flawed democracies score an average of 49; hybrid regimes – which show elements of autocratic tendencies – score 35; autocratic regimes perform worst, with an average score of just 30 on the CPI. Exemplifying this trend, the CPI scores for Hungary and Turkey decreased by eight and nine points respectively over the last five years. At the same time, Turkey was downgraded from ‘partly free’ to
‘not free’, while Hungary registered its lowest score for political rights since the fall of communism in 1989. These ratings reflect the deterioration of rule of law and democratic institutions, as well as a rapidly shrinking space for civil society and independent media, in those countries.

More generally, countries with high levels of corruption can be dangerous places for political opponents. Practically all of the countries where political killings are ordered or condoned by the government are rated as highly corrupt on the CPI.

Countries to watch

With a score of 71, the United States lost four points since last year, dropping out of the top 20 countries on the CPI for the first time since 2011. The low score comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. Brazil dropped two points since last year to 35, also earning its lowest CPI score in seven years.
Alongside promises to end corruption, the country’s new president has made it clear that he will rule with a strong hand, threatening many of the democratic milestones achieved by the country. “Our research makes a clear link between having a healthy democracy and successfully fighting public sector corruption,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International. “Corruption is much more likely to flourish where democratic foundations are weak and, as we have seen in many countries, where undemocratic and populist politicians can use it to their advantage.”

To make real progress against corruption and strengthen democracy around the world, Transparency International calls on all governments to:
• strengthen the institutions responsible for maintaining checks and balances over political power, and ensure their ability to operate without intimidation;
• close the implementation gap between anti-corruption legislation, practice and enforcement;
• support civil society organisations which enhance political engagement and public oversight over government spending, particularly at the local level;
• support a free and independent media, and ensure the safety of journalists and their ability to work without intimidation or harassment.