transparencia por colombia english

About us

General Framework

Corruption: more sophisticated and complex forms

What have we achieved?

Ten challenges of Transparencia por Colombia

How to fight corruption?

Transparencia por Colombia concentrates its efforts on seven priorities

Programs and Projects

Our sponsors

Social media

Contact information

Non-profit organization founded in 1998;

Colombian Chapter of Transparency International, the world’s non-governmental organization leading the fight against corruption, with offices in more than ninety countries;

Our mission is:

To lead, from within civil society, systematic efforts against corruption targeted towards transforming our public and private institutions, in order to have:

effective and reliable organizations in Colombia, upright citizens and businesses, and honest public servants who put the collective interest first, and who are accountable for their actions.

About us

“Corrupt practices hinder the achievement of sustainable development goals desired by the State and society,

reduce and place in the hands of a few the resources that are available for collective purposes,

distort in favour of special interests the decision-making process, corrupt the environment in which the private sector operates,

increase management costs of private and public goods and services, undermine the respect for authority,

and among other harmful effects, impair the legitimacy of the institutions and the public trust.”

General FrameworkGeneral Framework

TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2008

Colombia has scored 3.8 (in a scale from 1 to 10, where ten indicates the absence of corruption and zero indicates high levels of corruption) Much lower than the score of countries in the region such as Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Cuba and El Salvador. Score has been maintained in similar levels for the last five years.

Global Corruption Report (GCB) 2009

Colombia has one of the highest levels of distrust in the political parties and the legislative branch of the Continent, since they are perceived systematically as being the institutions that have been permeated the most by corruption.

General Framework

In the business environment:

According to the survey designed in 2008 by Transparencia por Colombia and the Universidad Externado de Colombia:

91% of the employers surveyed consider that there are employers who offer bribes in their businesses.

11% claim to have comprehensive and continuous programs, and to invest resources against bribery.

General Framework

National Transparency Index 2007- 2008

Corruption risks were evaluated in 158 national institutions (which included agencies of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers, control agencies and industrial and commercial State companies).

The average score obtained was 69.5 /100, which is equivalent to an intermediate score in terms of corruption risks.

Only four out of 138 institutions evaluated were placed in the low corruption risk.

General Framework

69.5 /100,Corruption

risks

Corruption has evolved into more

sophisticated and complex forms

“What was known traditionally until recent years as corruption - bribery, the improper award of contracts, clientelism and the misuse of public resources - has changed to the point that, at present, corruption can only be analyzed and understood in a

broader context than its traditional one, in view of the decisive role that mafia processes and actors have played.”

Luis Jorge Garay, “La Captura y Reconfiguración Cooptada del Estado en Colombia” (The Capture and Co-opted

Reconfiguration of the State in Colombia), published by Transparencia por Colombia and Fundación Avina.

Transparencia por Colombia has contributed effectively to strengthen integrity conditions in the country at different levels and in different scenarios of the national regional reality;

to improve legislation and strengthen public institutions, which are essential for proper State management; to engage the business sector in the construction of more ethical and careful rules of general interest; to increase the capacity and the involvement of civil society in regional scenarios to control public affairs.

The Corporation has consolidated its participation in different networks and its work strategy around alliances with regional stakeholders.

What have we achieved?

1. To position the fight against corruption as a priority on the public agenda; 2. To contribute towards overcoming the circle of violence, drug trafficking and organized crime as corruption scenarios;3. To understand and act decisively and with audacity to close the doors that lead to the capture and co-opting reconfiguration of the State; 4. To help eliminate the culture of “shrewdness” and illegality; 5. To appeal the enforcement of the existing anticorruption legislation and anticorruption international conventions;6. To encourage a dynamic civil society, motivated by the care of that which is public;7. To motivate entrepreneurs to assume a strong and clear leadership role in the fight against corruption; 8. To contribute towards the consolidation of a checks and balances system in which there is equilibrium and independence between the government branches, as a prerequisite for the proper functioning of a system of integrity and accountability;9. To help strengthening State institutions to enable the identification and elimination of corruption risks in government management of State, Departmental and Municipal agencies, reflected in instruments like the Transparency Indexes; 10. To contribute towards recovering legitimacy and trust in democratic institutionalism and politics.

Ten challenges of Transparencia por Colombia

How to fight corruption

Transparencia por Colombia concentrates

its efforts on seven priorities

Increasing transparency in politics;

Identifying and minimizing corruption in the Justice System;

Building, based on its cumulative experience, an intervention model for transparent management at the municipal level;

Strengthening civil control in the country;

Innovating in the prevention of corruption in public procurement;

Influencing public policies and opinion-making based on the knowledge obtained from the Transparency Index, and other products, in Public Agencies.

Promoting active participation of the private sector in the fight against corruption;


I. Transparency in Politics Contributing to increase transparency in Colombian politics.

Projects Promotion of information openness and the rendition of accounts in the Congress of the Republic; Promotion of the implementation of the nominal vote, the regulation of lobbying and the strengthening of the conflict of interest system in the Congress of the Republic and in municipal councils; Raise awareness among parties and political movements on information openness; Transparent Accounts in Elections: a tool designed for the rendition of accounts of political campaigns; VoteBien 2010: Monitoring the Presidential and Congress elections; Support the Citizens’ Oversight Network of Municipal Councils; Exploratory study on the financing of election campaigns and political corruption in Colombia.

II. Transparency in the Justice SystemIdentifying and minimizing corruption in the Justice System.

Project Visible Election: civic oversight of the nomination and selection of high court judges and officials for judiciary positions.


III. Regional Strategy Promoting greater transparency in public management processes of provinces and municipalities by means of designing and promoting practical tools for local and regional governments and the activation of civic control.

ProjectsPractical tools for transparent management:

Promotion of the software “Internet para la Rendición de Cuentas” among social organizations in municipalities with less than one hundred thousand inhabitants; Creation of scenarios for civic dialogue on transparency and the fight against corruption at the municipal level; The Social Control Fund – Citizens for the Care of the Public, for the promotion of civic control in Colombian municipalities; Ongoing support to the implementation of the Transparency Pact in Montelíbano Hospital, Province of Córdoba, and continuous accompaniment to the Pact’s Monitoring Committee.

•Software "Internet para la Rendición de Cuentas” (Internet for Accountability)– IPRC, http://www.iprc.org.co;•Guide for Municipal Contracting;•Practical Guidelines for the transparent management of human resources at the municipal level;•Practical Guidelines for the transparent management of the Citizens’ Assistance System.


IV. Transparency Index of Public Agencies

A tool that measures and analyzes the institutional conditions that favour or prevent the emergence of corruption risks in national, departmental and municipal public institutions. It aims at strengthening public sector institutions and promoting control measures against corruption risks. This tool helps the civil society monitor corruption risks and encourages the establishment of public policies to fight against the scourge of corruption.

The Indexes program encompasses the following projects:

•National Transparency Index (public institutions, and industrial and commercial State companies); •Departmental Transparency Index (regional governmental offices and departmental comptrollers’ offices);•Municipal Transparency Index (municipalities and municipal comptrollers’ offices);

-Analysis of the access to information and information openness in public institutions within all three government branches, and public politics recommendation documents for accessing information and for the promotion of transparency;-Good Practices Bank for information openness at a national level.


V. The Private Sector Increasing the co-responsibility of entrepreneurs in the prevention of corruption.

Projects

In 2010, the second implementation exercise of the Survey on Practices for Preventing Bribery;

Expansion of the program “Rumbo Pymes –Íntegras y Transparentes-” within Colombia and towards Latin America;

Ongoing support and consolidation of the Agreement on self-regulation of pipe manufacturers and of a model for its subsequent application in the electronic safety, human safety and pharmaceutical market sectors;

Extension and second implementation of the Transparency Index for companies that render public utility services in other sub-sectors, and publication of the booklet entitled “Políticas y Mecanismos de Transparencia en Empresas de Servicios Públicos” (Transparency Policies and Mechanisms in Public Utility Services Companies.)


VI. Transversal Projects

Technical document on the rendition of accounts for the general public by the Executive Branch in the three governmental branches: Consultancy and inputs to the National Planning Department for the elaboration of the CONPES document on National Policies on Accountability.

Platform of organizations involved in the demand of access to information: it seeks to debate publicly a Bill on transparency and access to information - its content, scope and relevance.

In-depth Study on the Co-opted Reconfiguration of the State: it shows how, during the past decades, various powerful, legal and illegal actors have tried to manipulate the decisions of the State at the local, regional and national levels.

¿Quiénes nos financian actualmente ?

British Embassy in BogotáCorporación Andina de Fomento - CAF (Andean Promotion Corporation)Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung - FESCOL Fundación AvinaFundación Corona Fundación MSI Cimientos – USAID German Technical Cooperation Agency – GTZ – Cercapaz Program Inter-American Development Bank - IDBInter-American Foundation – IAFMerck FoundationNational Democratic Institute - NDINational Endowment for Democracy – NEDRoyal Embassy of the Netherlands, Embassy of Holland in BogotáTransparency InternationalTransparency International – Latin America and the CaribbeanUK Department for International Development - DFID

Bavaria SABMillerBanco Davivienda S.A.CerrejónCerromatoso S.A.Ethics Resource Centre Fundación CoronaFundación Grupo Nacional de Chocolates Fundación SuramericanaHocol S.A.Indupalma LTDAMerck, Sharp & DohmeOrganización Corona S.A.Organización Terpel S.A.Productos Naturales de Cajicá S.A. La AlqueríaRed Multibanca Colpatria S.A.Refinería de Cartagena – Reficar Seguros Bolívar S.A.

International Cooperation Agencies

Members and Sponsors

Our sponsors

www.twitter.com/TransparenciaCo

http://picasaweb.google.com/comunicacionestxc/

http://www.youtube.com/user/transparenciacol

http://www.slideshare.net/TransparenciaporColombia

Social media

Corporación Transparencia por ColombiaAutopista Norte Nº 114 – 78, Oficina 101

[email protected]

Ph: (+57 - 1) 214 6870 FAX (+57 - 1) 637 3603

Bogotá, D.C. – Colombia

www.transparenciacolombia.org.co

Contact information

transparencia por colombia english

Documents

corruption risks

absence of corruption

private institutions

public goods

public trust

global corruption report

national institutions

andhonest public servants