Anti-Corruption • Ethics & Integrity
Frank has been engaged with global economics, banking, governance and anti-corruption for more than 40 years, as a journalist, as a World Bank senior official, as an anti-corruption civil society leader, and as a top level advisor to financial institutions. Frank is President of Vogl Communications, Inc., which has provided advice to leaders of international finance for more than two decades.
Infant mortality in oil rich Nigeria is three times as great as in one of the world’s very poorest countries, Bangladesh.
Indeed, social indicators in many of the sub-Sahara African countries endowed with oil, gas and mining wealth are appalling.
Read MoreThe American political system is damaged goods. Public confidence in the U.S. Congress is at an all-time low of just 10 percent, according to a recent Gallup Poll. Then, according to a brand new poll, 85 percent of U.S. business leaders see major problems with the U.S. campaign finance system, indeed 42 percent say the system is completely broken.
Read MoreThe article highlights theimportant new African Progress Report 2013, produced by the African Progress Panel of distinguished persons chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The report, due its detailed research and compelling logic of argument, should have a major influence on public debate about reducing poverty in Africa. Frank Vogl provides some answers and insights in this blog.
Read MoreChina’s President Xi Jinping has announced a full-scale attack on corruption, stressing that he will crack down on both "tigers" and "flies"–powerful leaders and lowly bureaucrats in the government. He is the first leader of China to so publicly condemn corruption and to acknowledge that it is a rising threat to governmental cohesion and economic prosperity.
Read MoreRaging debates about whether or not the CEO and Chairman roles at J.P. Morgan Chase should be divided have centered on the skills and personality of Jamie Dimon who currently holds both positions. Shareholders of J.P. Morgan Chase will vote on this issue at their annual meeting on May 21, 2013. They should not focus on the particular skills of Dimon, but rather on core issues of good governance.
Read More....the breakdown of the rule of law in a country where corruption is widespread has led to the deaths of hundreds of people: civil society needs to lead actions to force changes by government and business alike...
Read MoreShining a bright light on the global operations of major multinational corporations, including details of the cash they pay to foreign governments, will not end corruption. But, it is a very good start on a long and vital journey.
Read MoreHistorians will look back to chaotic financial events in late March/early April 2013 on the tiny island of Cyprus as the start of a new and more dangerous phase in Europe’s crisis. Now, after years of mounting debt and economic problems from Portugal and Spain to Greece and Italy, Europe is entering what may be an era of rising challenges to its democratic institutions.
Read MoreA Matter That Goes to the Top," that the chairmen and CEOs of major financial services firms need to recognize the power of the 24/7 global news cycle, the widespread public suspicion of banks and bankers, the cultural changes that are being demanded by the public and regulators alike.
Read MoreNo U.S. secretary of state devoted as much energy, time and determination to encourage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in many difficult and dangerous parts of the world to speak truth to power. Her actions in support of human rights, the building of democracy, the strengthening of the rule of law, and opposition to government-driven corruption, were remarkable.
Read MoreDramatic changes lie ahead for Afghanistan — none of them encouraging. President Obama has confirmed that U.S. military presence in the country will wind down over the next 18 months. Responsibility for the country's governance, security and economy will rest on Afghan shoulders. The tragedy is that the government of Hamid Karzai is a cesspool of corruption, and much of the looting has been of the tens of billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.
Read MoreIt was late 1992 and Peter Eigen was putting the finishing touches to plans that would see the launch of Transparency International in 1993. For several years Eigen, then a veteran World Bank senior official, had been waging a campaign inside the Bank and across the development aid community to build understanding of how corruption – the abuse of power for personal gain – was wrecking anti-poverty projects in many of the world’s poorest countries.
Read MoreThe punishment needs to fit the crime, but are some giant multinational corporations now so large that they no longer can be punished effectively?
Our free enterprise system depends upon all competitors playing by the rules and when one seeks special advantage by paying bribes, then the system is subverted. When that one is a giant company, for example, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, then the victims are manifold, starting with its direct business competitors.
Read MoreThe 2012 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), published this week, finds Afghanistan at absolute rock bottom, sharing this dismal place with North Korea and Somalia. Despite the flow to Afghanistan over the last decade of hundreds of billions of dollars of Western – mostly American – economic and military aid, this country is a rotten cesspool of corruption.
Read MoreMany of my friends leading human rights and anti-corruption organizations from Bahrain to Zimbabwe face rising threats from national governments and their security forces. The vice is tightening in one country after another on activists for human rights, political reform, freedom of speech, and anti-corruption.
Read MoreThe Greek government, under international pressure to attack rampant domestic corruption, acted on Monday by hauling an investigative journalist into court. Costas Vaxevanis faces trial for having published the names of 2,059 Greeks who have accounts at the HSBC bank in Switzerland.
Read MoreThe blasts at bankers as being corrupt are not about to subside. Recent high-profile allegations against some of the largest banks, from charges of interest rate manipulation, to breaking U.S. sanctions on Iran, to vast money-laundering schemes, are just a taste of what is to come. Never before have there been so many investigations by such a multitude of official agencies in the U.S. and abroad of the possible malfeasance of bankers.
Read MoreHas the brilliance of the Arab Spring been quashed by the horrors of an Arab Winter, as evidenced by the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, the coming to power of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, the rising prominence in Tunisia and beyond of the radical Salafis, and the brutality of the Syrian regime?
Read MoreWASHINGTON — In 2000, I had the privilege to present Lasantha Wickramatunga, from Sri Lanka, with the Transparency International annual Integrity Award. Wickramatunga was a prominent and tenacious newspaperman with the courage to ask tough questions, call for government accountability and expose corruption. On Jan. 8, 2009, he was driving to work when eight unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot him in the head, the BBC reported. He died soon afterward. He was 52.
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