Last week Transparency International (TI) put out its new opacity in real estate ownership index. And, yet it doesn’t seem to be something that is either news or important.

Last week Austria had a good news/bad news week on corruption. There were two articles that provided some insights. On the good news side the former Finance Minister, Karl-Heinz Grasser, was sentenced to four years in prison for corruption crimes.

This article describes, and visually shows, the present ongoing protests throughout Europe against Putin allies. In Slovakia, Georgia, Serbia, and Turkey the protests are tied to corruption as well as general dissatisfaction with governments.

Last week the UK, France and Switzerland announced   that they would work together, using their “wide-reaching anti-bribery legislation with jurisdiction to prosecute criminal conduct that occurs overseas, if there is a link to the prosecuting country.”   

On 14-15 April 2025 UNODC will be hosting and leading expert meetings on beneficial ownership issues in Vienna. As the UN noted, “Transparency of beneficial ownership information is a critical policy tool in combating corruption and illicit financial flows. Individuals and entities often employ schemes that obscure beneficial ownership to conceal the proceeds of corruption, frequently spanning multiple jurisdictions.” 

Last week Turkey erupted in a way that was surprising. To start with, Turkey’s President Erdogan had Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, his strongest presidential opponent to date disqualified.  Mr. Imamoglu’s was stripped of his university degree, implying corruption in his education and then he was arrested for corruption.

On Saturday, 15 March, a horrific fire occurred in a North Macedonian night club, which has been documented in the international press, that lead to 59 dying and over 200 injured, some being sent abroad for treatment. Having spent nine months in Skopje working on a USAID anti-corruption program, I felt significant sadness when I read that corruption was considered to play a part in this tragedy.

On Thursday, 13 March, the Belgian authorities sealed two offices in the EU Parliament as part of a broader bribery probe into Chinese technology giant Huawei’s lobbying activities in Europe. Politico EU reminded us that the EU Parliament had promised to do better after the Parliament was embroiled in a corruption scandal, in 2022.

On March 4, I wrote  about the Serbian students’ protests and how this is inspirational during these turbulent times.  At that time, it was inspirational but over the weekend, on Saturday, March 15, the protests took on an even greater urgency. Over 100,000, possibly up to 300,000, Serbians took to the street, and this included students, veterans and farmers on March 15.

Corruption in the maritime context is significant but since 2011 the maritime anti-corruption network (MACN) has been addressing this for its members, which include over 90 institutions. As noted in a recent article, “corruption manifests in many forms— from facilitation payments made by shipping companies to expedite cargo clearance, to large-scale bid rigging in shipping contracts that unfairly favours certain operators, undermining healthy competition and economic growth.”  

The kickoff for the new anti-corruption strategy for Ukraine occurred last week, coming at a very important time for the Government of Ukraine. Like many anti-corruption strategies worldwide, the previous strategy began with great enthusiasm, and then four or five years later some of the program is implemented, blaming and shaming occurs and then everyone moves on and a promise of a better strategy in the future. (See my post Anti-corruption strategies - the good, the bad and the ugly)

So how do we avoid this in Ukraine? To start with, the right people need to participate and there has to be buy-in by government. The timing for this is ideal if the Ukrainian government is serious.

Earlier this week US House of Representative Ro Khanna, from California, made a positive statement as he “is introducing the Drain The Swamp Act, which would permanently prohibit White House officials from accepting gifts from lobbyists -- reinstating a Biden-era mandate that established ethics and lobbying rules for appointees in the administration.”

During many years of addressing anti-corruption worldwide every anti-corruption implementer has seen and worked on a country’s anti-corruption strategy. I have had the opportunity to work with at least four different strategies and have seen at least ten, as well as working on other types of governmental strategies such as ones focusing on disaster risk.

To be clear, most strategies are not implemented as desired and in some cases, they even fail, and most donors do not like to admit this. Governments collectively shrug and hope for the best and take the old one and with the help of a range of actors, pull together a new one, hoping for the best.

Uzbekistan has never been a country where an anti-corruption agenda was important. But it seems that today, it has moved front and center.

Australia doesn’t often come up when corrupt governments are described. This is not an oversight, but a reflection of the importance of anti-corruption. This article describes the state of play in Australia today, focusing on electoral influences, versus day in and day out bribery issues.

Whistleblowers are the unsung heroes of anti-corruption. South Africa’s proposal that they will provide protection for them in South Africa, is a good signal by their government. Whistleblowers in many parts of the world are viewed as snitches, unreliable, and having an axe to grind. I’ve heard it all.

Over the weekend, as well as over the past weeks, and now, Serbian students have protested government corruption in Serbia.

Ukraine, even amidst being attacked on the world stage, continues to fight against corruption. It is amazing that during a war, where the city is being barraged, these senior officials feel that they should shake down the government and their citizens.

This week the Serbian government decided that it was given carte blanche by the US government to go after Serbian CSOs, which were funded by USAID.

As an anti-corruption practitioner, over the past ten years I have searched for techniques that work. This article gives a quick thumbnail sketch touching on four Asian countries is a good overview.