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Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International, tells how globalization has raised new issues concerning businesses that operate globally but that are not subjected to global regulation. Without the structures and rules necessary to offset the competitive drive for profit, little incentive exists for global companies to reduce corruption, environmental damage, or human rights abuses linked to corruption. Eigen suggests new responsibilities for civil society organizations working in partnership with business and academic organizations.
Eigen's vision includes a stronger role for universities and academic partners, and an openness on the part of civil society organizations to change through cooperation with government organizations. He gives specific examples of how civil society organizations can maintain independence and avoid public relations pitfalls while working with global businesses.
Touching on the present trends in social activism, Eigen reports on the progress in Europe compared to movements in the United States. Because of the risks of backlash associated with that progress, he points out how non-governmental organizations need to be accountable to their own members as well as to the outside world. Eigen proposes forming workshops to gather academics and social activists together to take on specific problems in an effort to create a more just world.
Prof. Dr. Peter Eigen is a lawyer by training. He has worked in economic development for 25 years, mainly as a World Bank manager of programs in Africa and Latin America. Under Ford Foundation sponsorship, he provided legal and technical assistance to the governments of Botswana and Namibia, and taught Law at the Universities of Frankfurt and Georgetown. From 1988 to 1991 he was the Director of the Regional Mission for Eastern Africa of the World Bank. He is the founder and Chair of the Advisory Council of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization promoting transparency and accountability in international development. Headquartered in Berlin, it supports National Chapters in more than 90 countries.
From 1999 to 2001 Peter Eigen was a faculty member of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In September 2001, he joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as Visiting Scholar while teaching at Johns Hopkins University. He also joined the Board of The Centre for International Environmental Law. Since 2002, he teaches as Honorary Professor of Political Science of the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2000, he received the award of Honorary Doctor of the Open University, UK. In 2004, Peter Eigen received the Readers Digest Award ‘European of the Year 2004’. From 2005 he chaired the International Advisory Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). In 2006 he became Chair of EITI and joined the African Progress Panel.
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This program is from our Ashoka series.
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