PTF Completes Pilot Phase – Launches Multi-Year Global Anti-Corruption Program

First set of projects includes one in Nigeria. Pipeline of projects includes Tanzania. PTF hopes to undertake more work in Africa.

Johannesburg, May 5, 2003 – “The Board of Directors of the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF) has agreed to launch a multi-year global anti-corruption program based on the development by civil society of low cost projects that can have a major impact,” stated PTF Chairman Kumi Naidoo, the Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the global civil society non-governmental organization, which is headquartered in South Africa.

Mr. Naidoo added, “in a teleconference of PTF’s Board, with participants in numerous countries, we reviewed PTF’s achievements since its launch two years ago and determined that it is now meeting a unique global need and encountering a substantial level of demand. PTF’s pilot phase has been successful and we will now move ahead to secure support to implement a $1 million, three-year program of projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.”

PTF is an international non-governmental organization dedicated to helping civil society play an effective role in the design, implementation and monitoring of national anti-corruption programs. Kumi Naidoo stressed, “The basic premise for creating PTF is that civil society has an important role to play in the development of anti-corruption and good governance programs, and it can play this role more effectively if it is independent financially from government or direct bilateral or multilateral funding.”

PTF’s Chief Executive Officer, Pierre Landell-Mills, a former senior World Bank executive, stated that, “PTF has been generously supported by a private UK foundation (US$25,000) and by UNDP/BMZ-German (US$223,473) grant aid. It exclusively provides micro-grants – usually $25,000 or less – to fund time-bound initiatives that have a significant impact on increasing transparency and curbing corruption in the public sector. Since its establishment PTF has made grants of approximately $200,000 in support of 16 projects - two each in Brazil and Pakistan, and one each in Bulgaria, Cambodia, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Paraguay, and Poland.”

In addition to projects in several of the countries where PTF has already operated, the pipeline of possible future activities includes projects in Costa Rica, Philippines, Tanzania, and Macedonia. Mr. Landell-Mills added that, “PTF, which is entirely run by volunteers, recognises that civil society has a crucial role to play in the fight against corruption and in the promotion of transparent government. PTF’s direct grants to NGOs enable these organizations to be seen on key anti-corruption projects as financially independent of their governments and bilateral and multilateral aid agencies.”

PTF Press Release, May 5, 2003 Page 2

“Civil society is increasingly demonstrating its effectiveness in the anti-corruption area,” said Mr. Naidoo. He added, “This is highly visible by examining PTF’s early projects. The demand for many more projects of this kind is high and provides exceptional opportunities to make a constructive development difference.”

Today’s decision to expand PTF’s activities has been based on a review of the achievements of the first set of PTF-funded projects. For example, PTF grants have enabled the civil society beneficiary organisations to:

· provide a ‘citizen watch’ function that has greatly discouraged corruption in the privatisation of state-owned assets (in Paraguay, Columbia, Ecuador);

· provide a citizens’ ‘voice’ in the elaboration of legislation related to (i) the funding of political parties (in Latvia) and (ii) to the protection of whistle-blowers (in Nigeria);

· mount a media campaign against corruption (in Mongolia);

· initiate a program to support citizen charters in the Delhi State Government; and,

· participate in the formulation of an anti-corruption program in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

These projects included monitoring public auctions, privatization and the award of public contracts; assisting civil society involvement in the design of anti-corruption measures; protecting whistle blowers; and, supporting special anti-corruption media campaigns.

PTF Board of Directors

Chair, Kumi Naidoo, South Africa, Secretary General & CEO of CIVICUS.

Vice Chair, Daniel Ritchie, U.S., consultant, former World Bank operations director.

President and CEO, Pierre Landell-Mills, U.K., former World Bank Country Director.

Anabel Cruz, Uruguay, founder-chair of the Communication and Development Institute.

Peter Eigen, Germany, Chairman of Transparency International.

Barry Metzger, U.S., partner in Coudert Brothers, New York, and former General Counsel, Asian Development Bank.

Aurora Tolentino, Philippines, Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium, and Chair of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks or CODE-NGO.

Frank Vogl, U.S., Vogl Communications, Inc., former Vice Chair, Transparency International.

Ewa Westman, Sweden, former Senior Advisor on governance, Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).
www.partnershipfortransparency.org