Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt

Peter Eigen was the Head of The World Bank in Nairobi. Mr Eigen believes that there exists two main factors for of global corruption. One is the global economy and the other is governments inability to govern the global economy.

This asymmetry is what causes failing and corrupt governments, and the exploitation of children. It is also the reason we can not make any progress on global warming and all areas witch we need to have change.

When he worked for World bank Mr. Eigen wanted to introduce policies to protect it and the people in that part of the world from corruption. As soon as he began his work the legal department told him he could not do this. He was meddling in the the affairs of the partner countries, and it is forbidden by the charter of the World Bank.

Then he Realized that in donor meetings the projects that were getting chosen to carry out were the worst ones. These projects were representative of large suppliers from the north as he says it. Projects were implemented such as a power plant that had no benefit for the people. Nobody was interested in irrigation projects. He believes that this is a symptom of corruption of the power elites and the suppliers from the north.

More than one billion people live under the poverty line. More then one billion people are with out water. More than two billion people have no sanitation. The consequences of this are rampant illness and ten million children die each year before the age of five. These are all symptoms of global corruption.

The reason the World Bank would not allow his work is because many countries consider bribery to be a legitimate business practice. and other governments are afraid that if they do not practice bribery they will loose contracts to countries that will use bribes. It is a classic example of the prisoners dilemma.

In Peter Eigen's home country of Germany bribery was allowed. It was even tax deductible. When he brought his NGO Transparency International to Berlin he was told he could not stop German exporters from bribing because they would loose their contracts to other countries.

Transparency International mission is to find a way out of this prisoners dilemma. They use collective action bringing competitors to the table and explain to them how it is in there best interest to simultaneously stop bribing. In 1997 Transparency International convinced Germany and the other OECD countries to sign a convention that says the participants will make bribery illegal in their country.