President Lula’s speech directly preceded the awarding of the 2013 Africare Leadership Award to Dr. Mo Ibrahim, ONE board member and friend. Dr. Ibrahim made his fortune in telecommunications, as founder of Celtel International, one of Africa’s most successful businesses.
The fight against corruption is messy, unpredictable and often dangerous. In developing countries it has historically been most acute in countries with large deposits of oil, gas and minerals, and involves the diversion of huge sums of money that could otherwise be spent on poverty eradication. That’s why last night’s agreement in Brussels for all 27 European Union member states to require extractive companies to publish the payments they make to governments is potentially such a game-changer. Transparency of this kind releases information that will make it harder for natural resource wealth to be lost to corruption or captured solely by elites.
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FEATURED AUTHOR: Joseph Kraus
“Cut defense!” “Cut Medicare!” “Cut farm subsidies!” If you’ve tuned into CSPAN or cable news lately, you recognize those refrains from the ongoing Congressional debate about avoiding the “sequestration” cuts set to go into effect March 1. You may have grown tired of this seemingly endless debate, which Congress heartlessly prolonged back in December when
Lauren Pfeifer, ONE’s Transparency and Accountability Research Assistant, discusses how 4.6 billion people around the world do not have access to budget information. Last week, the Budget Transparency, Accountability and Participation launched their budget transparency campaign – Make Budgets Public Now! The campaign will focus on ensuring that governments publish the essential documents that enable citizens and civil society to participate in the budget processes in their country, and ensure that their priorities are being addressed in those budgets.
This week, the presidents of the world’s leading emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (known collectively as the BRICS) – are meeting in Durban for the annual BRICS summit. The “Africanized Agenda” for this year’s summit, where the BRICS’ cooperation with Africa is under the spotlight, means that investment in extractive industries is a high priority on the agenda. And extraction of Africa’s oil, minerals and gas is where the national interests of each of the BRICS nations and those of African governments converge.
Edith Jibunoh, ONE’s director for multilateral institutions, is reporting from the UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in Bali, Indonesia, where she joined a team of ONE members in delivering your post-MDG petition signatures to world leaders. Almost 15 years ago, as a young(er) diasporan African, I started working on my first developing country
In light of the UN High Level Panel’s meeting in Bali, Indonesia this week, Don Steinberg’s talk at Georgetown University, “The Path to Ending Extreme Poverty: the new rules of the road for development cooperation”, is more timely than ever. Photo caption: Don Steinberg. Photo credit: Human Rights Commission, Flickr This week’s UN High Level Panel
Phantom Firms are anonymous shell companies that are set up to hide the identity of the people who control them. In addition to facilitating the financing of terrorism, they enable drug-runners, human traffickers, money-launderers, arms traffickers, corrupt politicians and dodgy businessmen to enjoy the fruits of their crimes without being found out.
“A cat has a lot in common with a politician. When it’s hungry it’ll come and rub up against you, and then the rest of the day it just sits there”. – Michael Soi When it comes to Michael Soi’s bold paintings, don’t let the bright colors and cartoon-like characters fool you. Each one of the
Lauren Pfeifer, ONE’s Transparency and Accountability Research Assistant, shares Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s call for transparency and accountability mechanisms in the oil industry of Ghana. Renowned Nigerian economist and member of ONE’s Board of Directors Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala advised Ghana on the importance of building transparency and accountability mechanisms into the DNA of its fledgling oil industry. Speaking
Kudos for maintaining peace and calm through out the electioneering and election period against all odds and predictions. Now more than ever, as the world continues to watch, Kenya needs to uphold the virtues espoused in their national anthem: Peace. Love. Unity.
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