Fighting Corruption
The founding of Transparency International (TI) in Berlin in 1993 was one of the most significant private sector initiatives in fighting universal corruption. I had the privilege of meeting Dr Peter Eigen, the first Chairman TI (who remains a good friend) very soon afterwards in 1994 during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Summit in Davos. A lawyer by training, Dr Eigen managed World Bank programs in Africa and Latin America for 25 years. Disgusted at seeing scarce funds being misappropriated by public officials and politicians in third world countries, aided and abetted by senior executives of multinationals of the first world, he alongwith his colleagues decided to do something tangible about it, thus was born the TI initiative. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was first launched in 1995. This survey of many countries by independent institutions was meant not to measure corruption itself, but to quantify what was perceived to be corruption by ascertaining the views of the general public, interested observers and independent institutions.
