The Philippine Transparency Forum
Best Practices in Good Governance, Accountability and Participation.
To this day, corruption and cronyism remain widespread in both the private and public sectors of the Philippines. Just last year, the Philippines ranked 129th out of the 183 corrupt countries surveyed by Transparency International. And this was already considered an improvement from the 134 that we got in 2010. But is that five point decrease enough? We still scored a 2.6 out of 10 in the Corruption Perception Index despite several attempts to tackle graft and corruption (Source: www.transparency.org). The fact that a number of these attempts have been hampered by both economic setbacks and logistical problems reinforces the need for increased dialogue and cooperation between state and non-state actors. Corruption remains a highly contentious issue today not only because it weakens our ability to attract foreign investment; it also, more importantly, reflects a lack of trust within our country that has far-reaching implications on the quality of our democracy.
In an effort to help eliminate this problem, Asia Society Philippines, in cooperation with the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov), the National Competitiveness Council of the Philippines, the AIM Center for Development Management and the AIM Policy Center is organized “The Philippine Transparency Forum: Best Practices in Good Governance, Accountability and Participation”. This comprises of a Public Forum on September 17, 2012 and a Closed Door Workshop for Government Officials on September 19, 2012 at the AIM Conference Center in Makati City.
Representatives from the Philippine Government’s Good Governance and Anti-Corruption Cabinet Cluster, the University of Oxford’s Project Southeast Asia, Mettle Consulting, The World Bank and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Indonesia shared their insights on the following topics:
• Overview of Regional Perspectives in Anti-Corruption
• Financial Sector Transparency and Improving Foreign Direct Investment
• Citizen Participation and Open Governance
• Revenue Transparency and Indonesia’s Experience as an EITI Candidate Country
Around one hundred fifty representatives from the business, government, academe and civil society sectors registered to learn about how they can apply the different transparency initiatives and practices to their respective fields.
With the objective of producing a practical and holistic framework for governance, the organizers look forward to making this event an annual learning opportunity to facilitate the ongoing and planned reforms of leaders and institutions in the public, private, and civic sectors.
This event is part of the launched Integrity and Transparency Week. Other activities include the 2nd Integrity Summit, the APEC Code of Conduct Workshop, and the Presentation of the 2012 Survey of Enterprises on Corruption organized by the Integrity Initiative.
To learn more about The Philippine Transparency Forum, e-mail [email protected].