I am going to speak about corruption, but I would like to juxtapose two different things. One is the large global economy, the large globalized economy, and the other one is the small, and very limited, capacity of our traditional governments and their international institutions to govern, to shape, this economy. Because there is this asymmetry, which creates, basically, failing governance. Failing governance in many areas: in the area of corruption and the area of destruction of the environment, in the area of exploitation of women and children, in the area of climate change, in all the areas in which we really need a capacity to reintroduce the primacy of politics into the economy, which is operating in a worldwide arena. And I think corruption, and the fight against corruption, and the impact of corruption, is probably one of the most interesting ways to illustrate what I mean with this failure of governance.
Govoriću o korupciji, ali bih voleo da, u isto vreme, govorim od dve različite stvari. Jedna je globalna ekonomija, ogromna globalizovana ekonomija, a druga je mali, veoma ograničeni kapacitet naših tradicionalnih vlada i internacionalnih institucija da vode, oblikuju, pomenutu ekonomiju. Zbog postojanja ove asimetrije, dolazi do, u suštini, neuspeha vlade. Neuspeh vlade ogleda se u mnogim oblastima: u oblasti korupcije, uništavanja životne sredine u oblasti eksploatacije žena i dece, u oblasti klimatskih promena, u svim onim oblastima u kojima nam zaista treba kapacitet za ponovnim uvođenjem primarnosti politike u ekonomiju koja pokreće svet. Mislim da je korupcija i borba protiv korupcije, kao i uticaj korupcije, jedan od najinteresantnijih načina da ilustrujem ono na šta mislim kada kažem neuspeh vlade.
Let me talk about my own experience. I used to work as the director of the World Bank office in Nairobi for East Africa. At that time, I noticed that corruption, that grand corruption, that systematic corruption, was undermining everything we were trying to do. And therefore, I began to not only try to protect the work of the World Bank, our own projects, our own programs against corruption, but in general, I thought, "We need a system to protect the people in this part of the world from the ravages of corruption." And as soon as I started this work, I received a memorandum from the World Bank, from the legal department first, in which they said, "You are not allowed to do this. You are meddling in the internal affairs of our partner countries. This is forbidden by the charter of the World Bank, so I want you to stop your doings."
Dozvolite mi da govorim o sopstvenom iskustvu. Radio sam kao direktor kancelarije Svetske banke u Najrobiju za istočnu Afriku. U to vreme, sam primetio da korupcija, ona velika korupcija, sistematska korupcija potkopava sve naše napore. I stoga sam započeo ne samo zaštitu rada Svetske banke naših projekata i sopstvenih programa protiv korupcije, nego sam pomislio: "Treba nam sistem koji bi zaštitio ljude u ovom delu sveta od pustošenja korupcije". Čim sam započeo ovaj posao stigao mi je memorandum Svetske banke, prvo iz kadrovske službe, u kom su mi rekli: "Nemaš dozvolu da to radiš. Mešaš se u unutrašnje poslove zemalja partnera. To zabranjuje povelja Svetske banke, tako da prestani sa tim radnjama".
In the meantime, I was chairing donor meetings, for instance, in which the various donors, and many of them like to be in Nairobi -- it is true, it is one of the unsafest cities of the world, but they like to be there because the other cities are even less comfortable. And in these donor meetings, I noticed that many of the worst projects -- which were put forward by our clients, by the governments, by promoters, many of them representing suppliers from the North -- that the worst projects were realized first. Let me give you an example: a huge power project, 300 million dollars, to be built smack into one of the most vulnerable, and one of the most beautiful, areas of western Kenya. And we all noticed immediately that this project had no economic benefits: It had no clients, nobody would buy the electricity there, nobody was interested in irrigation projects. To the contrary, we knew that this project would destroy the environment: It would destroy riparian forests, which were the basis for the survival of nomadic groups, the Samburu and the Turkana in this area. So everybody knew this is a, not a useless project, this is an absolute damaging, a terrible project -- not to speak about the future indebtedness of the country for these hundreds of millions of dollars, and the siphoning off of the scarce resources of the economy from much more important activities like schools, like hospitals and so on. And yet, we all rejected this project, none of the donors was willing to have their name connected with it, and it was the first project to be implemented.
U međuvremenu, predsedavao sam donatorskim skupovima, na primer, na kojima su različiti donatori, a mnogi od njih su voleli da budu u Najrobiju - istina je, to je jedan od najnebezbednijih gradova na svetu, ali su voleli da budu tu, jer su drugi gradovi bili još neugodniji. I na ovim donatorskim sastancima, primetio sam da mnogo loših projekata - koji su gurani u prvi plan od strane naših klijenata, vlada, promotera, od kojih su mnogi bili dobavljači sa severa - dakle najgori projekti bili su prvi realizovani. Dozvolite da vam dam primer ogroman projekat elektrane, 300 miliona dolara, ugraditi pravo u jednu od najranjivijih i jednu od najlepših, oblasti zapadne Kenije. I svi smo odmah zapazili da ovaj projekat nema nikakvu ekonomsku dobit: nije bilo klijenata, niko ne bi kupovao struju tu, nikoga nisu zanimali irigacioni projekti. Naprotiv, znali smo da će ovaj projekat uništiti životnu sredinu: uništiće obalske šume, koje su osnov za preživljavanje nomadskih grupa, u ovoj oblasti, grupa Samburu i Turkana. Svi smo znali da je ovo, ne beskoristan projekat, već totalno uništavajući i užasan projekat - da ne govorim o budućoj prezaduženosti zemlje za ove stotine miliona dolara, i krađi oskudnih izvora ekonomije namenjene mnogo bitnijim aktivnostima kao što su škole, bolnice i slično. Dakle, svi smo odbili projekat, ni jedan od donatora nije bio voljan da mu se ime poveže sa tim projektom, a to je, ujedno, bio i prvi projekat koji je implementiran.
The good projects, which we as a donor community would take under our wings, they took years, you know, you had too many studies, and very often they didn't succeed. But these bad projects, which were absolutely damaging -- for the economy for many generations, for the environment, for thousands of families who had to be resettled -- they were suddenly put together by consortia of banks, of supplier agencies, of insurance agencies -- like in Germany, Hermes, and so on -- and they came back very, very quickly, driven by an unholy alliance between the powerful elites in the countries there and the suppliers from the North. Now, these suppliers were our big companies. They were the actors of this global market, which I mentioned in the beginning. They were the Siemenses of this world, coming from France, from the UK, from Japan, from Canada, from Germany, and they were systematically driven by systematic, large-scale corruption. We are not talking about 50,000 dollars here, or 100,000 dollars there, or one million dollars there. No, we are talking about 10 million, 20 million dollars on the Swiss bank accounts, on the bank accounts of Liechtenstein, of the president's ministers, the high officials in the para-statal sectors.
Dobri projekti, koje bismo mi kao zajednica donatora, uzeli pod naše okrilje, tim projektima su bile potrebne godine, znate, bilo je previše izveštaja, i vrlo često nisu uspevali. Ali ovi loši projekti, koji su bili apsolutno upropašćavajući - za ekonomiju za mnoge generacije, za životnu sredinu, za hiljade porodica koje je trebalo raseliti -- odjednom su složeni od strane konzorcijuma banaka, agencija dobavljača, osiguravajućih društava - kao u Nemačkoj, Hermes i slični - i ponovo su se pojavljivali, vrlo, vrlo brzo, na čelu sa mračnim savezom između jakih elita, u tim zemljama, i dobavljača sa severa. Dakle, ti dobavljači bili su naše velike kompanije. To su bili igrači globalnog tržišta, koje sam pomenuo na početku. To su bili Simensi ovog sveta koji su dolazili iz Francuske, Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva, Japana, iz Kanade, iz Nemačke, i sistematski su vođeni, sveobuhvatajućom korupcijom na svim nivoima. Ne govorimo o 50 000 dolara ovde, ili 100 000 dolara onde ili milion dolara tamo. Ne, govorimo o 10, 20 miliona dolara na bankovnim računima švajcarskih banaka, na bankovnim računima u Lihtenštajnu, na računima predsednikovih ministara, visokih zvaničnika u para-vladinim sektorima.
This was the reality which I saw, and not only one project like that: I saw, I would say, over the years I worked in Africa, I saw hundreds of projects like this. And so, I became convinced that it is this systematic corruption which is perverting economic policy-making in these countries, which is the main reason for the misery, for the poverty, for the conflicts, for the violence, for the desperation in many of these countries. That we have today more than a billion people below the absolute poverty line, that we have more than a billion people without proper drinking water in the world, twice that number, more than two billion people without sanitation and so on, and the consequent illnesses of mothers and children, still, child mortality of more than 10 million people every year, children dying before they are five years old: The cause of this is, to a large extent, grand corruption.
Ovo je bila realnost koju sam video, i ne samo jedan takav projekat: video sam, rekao bih, za sve one godine koliko sam radio u Africi, video sam na stotine takvih projekata. I tako, postao sam ubeđen da je ovakva sistemska korupcija koja onemogućava stvaranje ekonomske politike u ovim zemljama, glavni razlog bede, siromaštva, konflikata, nasilja, očaja u mnogima od ovih zemalja. Danas imamo više od milijardu ljudi ispod granice apsolutnog siromaštva, više od milijardu ljudi bez ispravne pijaće vode na svetu, duplo veći broj, više od dve milijarde ljudi bez sanitetskog čvora i sličnog, i bolestima koje su posledice svega bolesti majki i dece smrtnost dece je veća od 10 miliona ljudi svake godine deca koja umiru pre navršene pete godine: uzrok ovome, u ogromnoj meri, jeste sistemska korupcija.
Now, why did the World Bank not let me do this work? I found out afterwards, after I left, under a big fight, the World Bank. The reason was that the members of the World Bank thought that foreign bribery was okay, including Germany. In Germany, foreign bribery was allowed. It was even tax-deductible. No wonder that most of the most important international operators in Germany, but also in France and the UK and Scandinavia, everywhere, systematically bribed. Not all of them, but most of them. And this is the phenomenon which I call failing governance, because when I then came to Germany and started this little NGO here in Berlin, at the Villa Borsig, we were told, "You cannot stop our German exporters from bribing, because we will lose our contracts. We will lose to the French, we will lose to the Swedes, we'll lose to the Japanese." And therefore, there was a indeed a prisoner's dilemma, which made it very difficult for an individual company, an individual exporting country to say, "We are not going to continue this deadly, disastrous habit of large companies to bribe."
Dakle, zašto mi Svetska banka nije dozvolila da radim ovaj posao? Saznao sam kasnije kada sam napustio Svetsku banku, usled velikog sukoba. Razlog je što su članice Svetske banke smatrale da je inostrani mito OK, uključujući i Nemačku. U Nemačkoj, inostrano mito je dozvoljeno. Čak se odbijalo i od poreza. Nije ni čudo da je većina od najvažnijih međunarodnih poduhvata u Nemačkoj, ali i u Francuskoj i Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu i Skandinaviji, svuda, bilo sistematski korumpirano. Ne sve, ali većina. I ovo je fenomen koji ja nazivam neuspehom vlade, jer kada sam, onda, otišao u Nemačku i započeo malu NVO ovde u Berlinu, u vili Borsing, rečeno mi je: "Ne možeš zaustaviti naše nemačke izvoznike u davanju mita, jer ćemo izgubiti naše ugovore. Dobiće ih Francuzi, dobiće ih Šveđani, Japanci". I stoga, zaista je postojala zatvorenička dilema, što je veoma otežalo pojedinačnim kompanijama i pojedinačnim zemljama izvoznicama da kažu: "Mi nećemo nastaviti ovu smrtonosnu, katastrofalnu naviku velikih kompanija, da podmićuju".
So this is what I mean with a failing governance structure, because even the powerful government, which we have in Germany, comparatively, was not able to say, "We will not allow our companies to bribe abroad." They needed help, and the large companies themselves have this dilemma. Many of them didn't want to bribe. Many of the German companies, for instance, believe that they are really producing a high-quality product at a good price, so they are very competitive. They are not as good at bribing as many of their international competitors are, but they were not allowed to show their strengths, because the world was eaten up by grand corruption.
Dakle, evo kako ja to vidim sa strukturom vlade koja je podbacila, jer i najsnažnija vlada koju imamo u Nemačkoj, relativno, nije u mogućnosti da kaže: "Nećemo dozvoliti našim kompanijama da daju mito u inostranstvu". Bila im je potrebna pomoć, i same velike kompanije imaju ovu dilemu. Mnoge od njih nisu želele da nude mito. Mnoge od nemačkih kompanija, na primer, veruju da zaista proizvode visokokvalitetni proizvod po dobroj ceni, tako da su vrlo kompetitivne. One nisu toliko dobre u podmićivanju kao što su suparničke međunarodne kompanije ali nije im dozvoljeno da pokažu svoje snage zato što je svet izjeden sistemskom korupcijom.
And this is why I'm telling you this: Civil society rose to the occasion. We had this small NGO, Transparency International. They began to think of an escape route from this prisoner's dilemma, and we developed concepts of collective action, basically trying to bring various competitors together around the table, explaining to all of them how much it would be in their interests if they simultaneously would stop bribing, and to make a long story short, we managed to eventually get Germany to sign together with the other OECD countries and a few other exporters.
I zato vam sve ovo pričam: Građansko društvo je podiglo svoj glas. Imali smo ovu malu NVO Transparency International. A oni su počeli da razmišljaju o razrešavanju zatvoreničke dileme, i mi smo razvili koncepte grupne akcije, u suštini privlačeći različite nadmetače na jedno mesto, i objašnjavajući im koliko je zaista u njihovom interesu da u isto vreme prestanu sa podmićivanjem, i da skratim priču, uspesli smo da napokon pridobijemo Nemačku da potpiše, zajedno sa ostalim OECD zemljama i par drugih izvoznika,
In 1997, a convention, under the auspices of the OECD, which obliged everybody to change their laws and criminalize foreign bribery. (Applause) Well, thank you. I mean, it's interesting, in doing this, we had to sit together with the companies. We had here in Berlin, at the Aspen Institute on the Wannsee, we had sessions with about 20 captains of industry, and we discussed with them what to do about international bribery. In the first session -- we had three sessions over the course of two years. And President von Weizsäcker, by the way, chaired one of the sessions, the first one, to take the fear away from the entrepreneurs, who were not used to deal with non-governmental organizations. And in the first session, they all said, "This is not bribery, what we are doing." This is customary there. This is what these other cultures demand. They even applaud it. In fact, [unclear] still says this today. And so there are still a lot of people who are not convinced that you have to stop bribing. But in the second session, they admitted already that they would never do this, what they are doing in these other countries, here in Germany, or in the U.K., and so on. Cabinet ministers would admit this. And in the final session, at the Aspen Institute, we had them all sign an open letter to the Kohl government, at the time, requesting that they participate in the OECD convention.
1997. godine, konvenciju pod nadzorom Organizacije za ekonomsku saradnju i razvoj, koja obavezuje sve da promene svoje zakone i kriminaliziju inostrano podmićivanje. (Aplauz) Hvala vam, vidite interesantno je, da smo radili ovo zajedno sa kompanijama. Imali smo ovde u Berlinu, na Institutu Aspen u Vanzeju, sastanke sa oko 20 glavešina u industriji, i sa njima smo diskutovali šta raditi po pitanju međunarodnog podmićivanja. Na prvom sastanku - a imali smo ih tri u periodu od dve godine. Predsednik fon Vajczeker je, uzgred, predsedavao prvim sastankom, da bi otklonio strah preduzetnicima, koji nisu navikli da se hvataju u koštac sa nevladinim organizacijama. I na prvom sastanku su svi oni rekli, "Ovo nije mito, ovo što mi radimo". To je tamošnji običaj. To je ono što kulture zemalja domaćina zahtevaju. Oni to čak i podstiču. Zapravo i danas se to govori. Dakle, i dalje je mnogo ljudi koji nisu ubeđeni da je neophodno zaustaviti podmićivanje. Ali na drugom sastanku, priznali su da se time više neće baviti, tim nezakonitim poslovima u drugim zemljama, niti u Nemačkoj, Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu, ni drugde. Kabinetski ministri su ovo izjavili. A na poslednjem sastanku u Institutu Aspen, svi su potpisali otvoreno pismo vladi premijera Kola, premijera u tom periodu, zahtevajući da učestvuju u OECD konvenciji.
And this is, in my opinion, an example of soft power, because we were able to convince them that they had to go with us. We had a longer-term time perspective. We had a broader, geographically much wider, constituency we were trying to defend. And that's why the law has changed. That's why Siemens is now in the trouble they are in and that's why MIN is in the trouble they are in. In some other countries, the OECD convention is not yet properly enforced. And, again, civil societies breathing down the neck of the establishment.
I ovo je, po mom mišljenju, primer "meke" snage, jer smo uspeli da ih ubedimo da moraju da se slože sa nama, U vidu smo imali dugoročnu perspektivu. Imali smo širi, geografski mnogo širi, ustavni poredak koji smo pokuašavli da odbranimo. I zato je zakon promenjen. Zbog toga je Simens danas u problemu u kom jeste i zbog toga je i MIN u problemu. U nekom drugim zemljama, OECD konvencija još uvek nije u potpunosti primenjena. I opet, građansko društvo stoji za vratom vladama.
In London, for instance, where the BAE got away with a huge corruption case, which the Serious Fraud Office tried to prosecute, 100 million British pounds, every year for ten years, to one particular official of one particular friendly country, who then bought for 44 billion pounds of military equipment. This case, they are not prosecuting in the UK. Why? Because they consider this as contrary to the security interest of the people of Great Britain. Civil society is pushing, civil society is trying to get a solution to this problem, also in the U.K., and also in Japan, which is not properly enforcing, and so on.
U Londonu, na primer, BAE je uspela da se izvuče iz ogromnog korupcijskog slučaja, koji je gonila Kancelarija protiv ozbiljnih prevara, 100 miliona funti, svake godine, proteklih deset godina, davano je jednom određenom funkcioneru jedne određene prijateljske zemlje koji je od tog novca kupio 44 milijarde funti vrednu vojnu opremu. Ovaj slučaj se ne tereti u Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu. Zašto? Zato što ovo smatraju suprotno bezbednosnim interesima naroda Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva. Građansko društvo je uporno, građansko društvo pokušava da nađe rešenje ovog problema, kako u Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu, tako i u Japanu, a to nije dovoljno dobro podržano, i tako dalje.
In Germany, we are pushing the ratification of the UN convention, which is a subsequent convention. We are, Germany, is not ratifying. Why? Because it would make it necessary to criminalize the corruption of deputies. In Germany, we have a system where you are not allowed to bribe a civil servant, but you are allowed to bribe a deputy. This is, under German law, allowed, and the members of our parliament don't want to change this, and this is why they can't sign the U.N. convention against foreign bribery -- one of they very, very few countries which is preaching honesty and good governance everywhere in the world, but not able to ratify the convention, which we managed to get on the books with about 160 countries all over the world.
U Nemačkoj, trudimo se da ratifikujemo konvenciju UN, a to je konvencija koja je usledila. Mi, u Nemačkoj, je nismo ratifikovali. Zašto? Zato što bi nas to obavezalo da kriminalizujemo korupciju poslanika. U Nemačkoj, imamo sistem koji ne dozvoljava da podmitiš državnog službenika, ali smeš da podmitiš poslanika. Ovo je dozvoljeno u nemačkom zakonodavstvu, i članovi našeg Parlamenta ne žele da to menjaju, i to je razlog zašto ne potpisuju konvenciju UN protiv inostranog podmićivanja - jedna smo od vrlo retkih zemalja koje zagovaraju poštene i dobre vlade širom sveta, ali ne ratifikuju konvenciju, koju smo uspeli da uvedemo u zakonodavstvo preko 160 zemalja širom sveta.
I see my time is ticking. Let me just try to draw some conclusions from what has happened. I believe that what we managed to achieve in fighting corruption, one can also achieve in other areas of failing governance. By now, the United Nations is totally on our side. The World Bank has turned from Saulus to Paulus; under Wolfensohn, they became, I would say, the strongest anti-corruption agency in the world. Most of the large companies are now totally convinced that they have to put in place very strong policies against bribery and so on. And this is possible because civil society joined the companies and joined the government in the analysis of the problem, in the development of remedies, in the implementation of reforms, and then later, in the monitoring of reforms.
Vidim da mi vreme ističe. Dozvolite da samo pokušam da izvedem neke zaključke iz ovoga što se zbilo. Verujem da smo uspeli da postignemo u borbi protiv korupcije, ono što se može postići u drugim oblastima neuspelih vlada. Do sada, Ujedinjene nacije u potpunosti su na našoj strani. Svetska banka se pretvorila iz Savla u Pavla, pod Volfensonom, postali su, rekao bih, najjača anti-korupcijska agencija na svetu. Većina velikih kompanija sada su potpuno ubeđene da moraju primeniti veoma jaka pravila protiv podmićivanja i sličnog. A ovo je moguće, jer građansko društvo zajedno sa kompanijama i zajedno sa vladama analizira problem i pronalazi rešenja, implementira reforme i kasnije, prati delovanje reformi.
Of course, if civil society organizations want to play that role, they have to grow into this responsibility. Not all civil society organizations are good. The Ku Klux Klan is an NGO. So, we must be aware that civil society has to shape up itself. They have to have a much more transparent financial governance. They have to have a much more participatory governance in many civil society organizations. We also need much more competence of civil society leaders. This is why we have set up the governance school and the Center for Civil Society here in Berlin, because we believe most of our educational and research institutions in Germany and continental Europe in general, do not focus enough, yet, on empowering civil society and training the leadership of civil society.
Naravno, ukoliko organizacije građanskog društva žele da imaju ovu ulogu, moraju dorasti ovakvoj odgovornosti. Nisu sve organizacije civilnog društva dobre. Kju kluks klan je nevladina organizacija. Dakle, moramo biti obazrivi da građansko društvo mora samo sebe oblikovati. Moraju imati mnogo transparentnije finansijsko poslovanje. Moraju imati participatorno upravljanje u mnogim organizacijama civilnog društva. Lideri građanskih inicijativa moraju imati dosta kompetencija. Zato smo napravili školu upravljanja i Centar za građansko društvo, ovde u Berlinu, zato što verujemo da većina naših obrazovnih i istraživačkih institucija u Nemačkoj i kontinentalnoj oblasti Evrope, još uvek ne obraćaju dovoljno pažnje na osnaživanje građanskog društva i edukovanje lidera građanskog društva.
But what I'm saying from my very practical experience: If civil society does it right and joins the other actors -- in particular, governments, governments and their international institutions, but also large international actors, in particular those which have committed themselves to corporate social responsibility -- then in this magical triangle between civil society, government and private sector, there is a tremendous chance for all of us to create a better world.
Ali ono što vam govorim iz ličnog i veoma praktičnog, iskustva: ukoliko građansko društvo dobro obavi svoj posao i uključi druge aktere - posebno vlade, vlade i njihove međunarodne institucije, ali i velike međunarodne igrače, posebno one koji su se već posvetili korporativnoj socijalnoj odgovornosti - onda u ovom magičnom trouglu između građanskog društva, vlade i privatnog sektora, ogromna je šansa za sve nas, da kreiramo bolji svet.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)