Transparency International - USA Program

TI-USA
1023 15th St. NW,

Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20005
Tel: 202-589-1616
Fax: 202-589-1512

Fighting Global Corruption

The Challenge

Over $1 trillion in bribes are paid annually, with $1.5 trillion in public purchasing tainted by bribery, fraud, collusion and other forms of corruption.  Every year, $40 billion in corrupt money – equivalent to almost half of all development assistance funds – flows out of countries desperately in need.  

Corruption impedes investment, undermines economic growth, diverts humanitarian assistance and reduces market opportunities for legitimate business.  When government is for sale, it destroys public trust in democratic institutions and denies citizens, businesses, taxpayers, and consumers the benefit of open markets and fair competition.  Corruption disproportionately burdens the poor, diverting scarce resources that could otherwise help lift millions out of poverty.  It raises the costs of education, nutrition, clean water, and health care, often denying citizens of these essential public services.  Corruption can destabilize societies and suborn protective measures with serious implications for security worldwide.

Our Mission

TI-USA, the US chapter of Transparency International, strives to eliminate bribery, extortion and other corrupt acts, and to increase transparency, integrity and accountability in both government and the private sector at home and abroad.

Our Strategy

Coalition building:  TI-USA mobilizes action working in cooperation with the US Government, private sector, professional associations, international organizations, media and other non-profit organizations. 

Global connections: TI-USA cooperates with the TI Secretariat in Berlin on the international agenda and with TI national chapters in over 100 countries with in-depth knowledge and local approaches to reform.

US Leadership:  Through its Board of Directors, Advisory Council and an extensive network of corporate supporters, NGO colleagues and volunteer professionals, TI-USA:

• Encourages the US Government to continue its leadership role in battling global corruption, through high-level policy engagement, technical assistance, and the financial resources needed to achieve practical results;
• Strives for benchmark performance in the US and consistent standards globally; and
• Provides substantive expertise and practical guidance to the US Government, international institutions and the private sector, directly and through publications, conferences, and the media.

Program Priorities & Accomplishments

TI-USA priorities are:

• Increasing government integrity and accountability through legal and regulatory transparency, enforcement of trans-national bribery and anti-corruption laws, and enhanced access to information and opportunities for civil society participation and oversight;
• Enhancing private sector adherence to anti-corruption programs that prohibit bribery and strengthen transparency and internal controls; and,
• Mobilizing multilateral development bank and bilateral and private donor assistance to promote good governance, due diligence and transparency in operations, projects and countries where they operate.

I.  Securing Change through Enforcement of Laws & Regulation

OECD Convention on Bribery of Foreign Public Officials 

• Adoption and ratification.  TI played a key role in the adoption and ratification of the landmark OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.  Virtually all OECD members now criminalize foreign bribery and have also ended tax deductibility for bribes.

• Enforcement.  TI chapters are actively promoting implementation, through participation in OECD on-site country reviews, recommendations to the OECD Working Group, and chapter advocacy for enforcement.  TI’s annual progress report benchmarks government enforcement efforts.  TI organized a survey by leading international accounting firms of signatory country accounting practices and recommended improvements.

Related Initiatives 

• Other conventions.  TI has been instrumental in the adoption and ratification of numerous regional anti-corruption initiatives and, recently, the UN Convention Against Corruption.  Working with business and professional organizations, TI-USA secured US ratification of the UN Convention. TI is in the forefront of efforts to create an effective monitoring process to promote implementation.

• Trade agreements.  TI-USA successfully advocated inclusion of legal and regulatory transparency requirements, particularly for procurement, in US trade arrangements, such as CAFTA & APEC, and is working for similar progress at the WTO and through the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue.

• Export credit.  TI recommended to the OECD Working Party on Export Credit and Credit Guarantees enhanced due diligence and no-bribery certifications. TI-USA is working with Ex-Im to implement the December 2006 OECD Council Recommendation on Bribery & Officially Supported Export Credits.

II.  Encouraging Private Sector Action

• Practical tools.  TI-USA contributes to the development of tools and practical guidance for companies.  It works with business associations, such as the World Economic Forum, facilitating the adoption by CEOs of leading firms of a zero tolerance for bribery policy and a commitment to implementation.

• Sector initiatives.  TI-USA cooperates with TI chapters to encourage global action within industry sectors, including private banks, defense companies, and engineering and construction firms.

• Best practices.  TI-USA hosts a forum for corporate counsel to share best practices and is developing a web-based compliance “toolkit” for small and medium-size enterprises.

• Ratings.  TI-USA is engaging with private capital, investment and rating organizations to make bribery and corruption a more explicit factor.

III.  Mobilizing Development Assistance to Fight Corruption

• World Bank & Regional Development Banks.  TI-USA contributed to the World Bank’s 2007 Strategy on Governance and Anticorruption and consulted to the Volcker Panel assessment of the Bank’s approach to corruption.  In meetings with Bank presidents and Senate testimony, TI-USA has advocated reforms of operations, policies and lending, including risk management, oversight, private sector anti-bribery compliance, and fiscal transparency and broader public engagement in borrower countries.

• Millennium Challenge.  The Millennium Challenge Account rewards countries that demonstrate a commitment to fight corruption.  TI-USA cooperates with the US Government and TI chapters to ensure appropriate application of criteria, transparent procurement and accountability for MCA funds.

• G8 Action.  TI-USA cooperates with TI chapters promoting G8 commitments to anti-corruption and governance reform efforts and benchmarks progress in TI’s annual G8 Progress Report.

TI-USA ADVISORY COUNCIL

C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics
The Hon. Charles Bowsher, former Comptroller General of the United States
The Hon. John Brademas, President Emeritus, NYU;

                                        former Chair National Endowment for Democracy
The Hon. Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States
The Hon. Stuart Eizenstat, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
Prof. Philip Heymann, Director, Center for Criminal Justice, Harvard Law School;

                                  former Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Ira Millstein, Partner, Weil Gotshal & Manges
Moises Naim, Editor, Foreign Policy, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Judge John Noonan, US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit; author, Bribes
Prof. Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown University Law Center

James D. Wolfensohn, Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company LLC;

                                   former President,World Bank Group

TI-USA BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The Hon. Alan P. Larson, Chairman, TI-USA;
                                       Covington & Burling
David Lane, Vice-Chairman, TI-USA;

                   Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Peter Clark, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft

Peter Bell, Harvard University
W. Bowman Cutter, Warburg Pincus
David de Ferranti, The Brookings Institution
Kevin Ford, Goldman Sachs & Co
Harvey Goldschmid, Columbia University Law School
Thomas Gottschalk, General Motors
Katherine Gurun, Bechtel Corporation (ret.)
Fritz Heimann, General Electric (ret.)
Ben W. Heineman, Jr., General Electric (ret.)
Michael Hershman, The Fairfax Group
J. Anthony Imler, Merck & Co.
Oakley Johnson, AIG

Charlie Kolb, Committee for Economic Development
Professor Michael Johnston, Colgate University
Douglas Lankler, Pfizer, Inc.

Charles Levy, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr
Lucinda Low, Steptoe & Johnson
Ira Millstein, Weil Gotshal & Manges

Frank Piantidosi, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP

Professor Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale University School of Law
Ko-Yung Tung, Morrison & Foerster
Nancy Zucker Boswell, President, TI-USA

FINANCIAL SUPPORT in the US has been provided by USAID, foundations, individuals and the following corporations and professional firms: 

Quotes About Transparency International & The Fight Against Corruption

“…One of the biggest threats to development in many countries…is corruption.  It weakens fundamental systems, it distorts markets, and it encourages people to apply their skills and energies in nonproductive ways.  In the end, governments and citizens will pay a price, a price in lower incomes, in lower investment, and in more volatile economic fluctuations.” 

Paul Wolfowitz, President, World Bank Group

“Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately-by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign investment and aid.”

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations

“The single biggest obstacle to business and the renewal of the economies in the south is corruption and the single biggest obstacle to getting start-up money for those businesses, if you want to look at aid as investment, is corruption.”

Bono, Rock Star & Activist

“If no international organization today can ignore the issue of corruption any longer, it is largely due to the work of Transparency International...TI has managed to break the taboo that for a long time surrounded the issue of corruption, and to put the fight against it firmly on the international agenda. But TI, contrary to many of its sister NGOs, is far more than just an agenda-setter: by joining forces with governments and business, Peter and his troops have managed to shape a range of international instruments to curb corruption, ranging from the OECD to the Council of Europe and the UN. "

Pascal Lamy, Director-General, World Trade Organization 

" …11 of the world's biggest banks have joined with Transparency International, the innovative anti-corruption group, to issue a set of  'know your client' guidelines for the institutions' private banking units that cater to the wealthy…it was no small feat for Transparency to get two major Swiss banks, JP Morgan, Citigroup and others to agree to common procedures."

New York Times

'Transparency International has been instrumental in putting corruption on the world's agenda.' 

Time Magazine

“…I think Transparency International is a terrific organization…it has managed to contribute to finally making this a subject that can be focused on..."

Robert Rubin, Former Secretary, US Treasury

"…What I think we have done in conjunction with people like Transparency International …is to facilitate the debate (on corruption) inside countries." "TI, …I am happy to say, found its origins at the bank…So let me congratulate them on the work they've done and assure them that we are trying to catch up."

James Wolfensohn, Former President, World Bank Group

"Transparency International…can play [an] important role in encouraging…demand-side reform, in providing “local” policy advice to governments and helping to build business community and other grass roots support for change…Transparency International has provided crucial support throughout the negotiation and ratification of the (OECD) Convention."

Stuart E. Eizenstat, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury