INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS FIGHT CORRUPTION.
Agence France-Presse reports that the World Bank on Wednesday released a list of 48 countries where it is working with local authorities to combat corruption. "It is important to note that this is not a list of countries that the World Bank has singled out to investigate corruption in," a Bank statement said.
In a separate story, AFP reports seven Latin American countries have agreed to work with the World Bank in a program to fight corruption, the Bank said Wednesday including Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Paraguay will join 47 other countries in the program. "The presence or absence of a country on this list is in no way indicative of the presence or absence of corruption in the country," a Bank statement said.
Instead, it added, the countries on the list are those that have invited World Bank help in mounting a systematic assault on corruption. Wednesday's announcement made good a pledge in September by World Bank president James Wolfensohn to make available the names of Bank members that have sought its anti-corruption help. He said the Bank had conducted seminars and helped train judges and investigative journalists in several countries.
Meanwhile, reporting on corruption watchdog Transparency International's annual report, Le Monde (France, p.1) says the international organizations, which have identified corruption as one of the main causes of poverty and under-development, have been trying to fight the scourge. The World Bank has notably launched a program to root out corrupt practices in seven countries in Africa, says the story, noting that the program should be expanded to Latin America in 2000.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn noted at an anti-corruption conference in Durban this month that corruption is at the heart of the problem of poverty and that signs of this are increasing throughout the world, Le Monde (p.20) notes in a separate report.