Strategy 2020 Draft 3 June
Transparency International

People and Values — Laws and Institutions —
Knowledge and Network

I Foreword 3
II About this Strategy 6
III Context of our Work 7
IV Our Approach 8
V Priorities 9
People and Values
Laws and Institutions
Knowledge and Network
VI Monitoring Impact
VII Making it Happen

I Foreword

Corruption is pervasive. It affects almost all dimensions of people’s daily lives, from the roads built or blocked due to corruption, access to healthcare and medicine, to the availability of water. Corruption erodes people’s sense of equity, their belief in justice and their trust in their government, business and society. Whether as consumers or citizens, virtually everyone around the world is affected by corruption.
Transparency International has come a long way since our founding in 1993. As a movement, now working on the ground in more than 100 countries around the world, we have been instrumental to the struggle against corruption over the past 20 years. We have raised awareness of the devastating effects that corruption has on human rights, economic development, social justice and political freedom. We have influenced national and global agendas with our demands for change to the corruption status quo. We have done innovative research and created a raft of anti-corruption benchmarks and standards. We have monitored progress, sat at the table repeatedly with both friend and foe, and identified a wide range of partners to our cause.
However, we have also realised that, while imperative, corruption prevention on its own is not enough. There need to be consequences to corruption. Punishment, we have learned, is an essential deterrent to corrupt behaviour. We seek a world where there is a shrinking space for corrupt behaviour, and where the perpetrators of corruption are increasingly caught and punished. In this world, the corrupt will no longer be able to get away with their crimes.
Today, grand corruption presents a growing challenge to our cause, undermining security and safety and generating huge economic damage. We need to better adapt to the changing ways in which corrupt networks operate in globalised systems. We also need to get to a point where corruption is no longer accepted socially anywhere in the world. The corrupt need to know that Transparency International will raise its voice and unmask them, wherever they are.

As civil society, our role is also to support people the world over in channelling their legitimate demand for better governance and finding solutions for their corruption-related problems. Citizen movements for accountability, young transparency activists and bribery victims alike need to feel we are on their side.

This is a huge task, yet we do not fear its size. We will speak with a bolder global voice than ever before and ensure that we are heard in places where it matters most.

How will we achieve these ambitious goals? Through this Strategy, we will focus our collective ambitions while continuing to harness the strength of our diversity by adapting it to local, national and regional contexts. We will invest in our capacity to confront corruption and share knowledge, tools and tactics with each other on what works, thus continuing to learn from our combined experiences. We will involve people in our efforts, creating the evidence that efforts to stop corruption have an impact and that acting to stop corruption can save lives and create more sustainable societies. We will enable citizens to participate in making their world a cleaner one, where trust in society and its institutions is enhanced and corrupt practices duly rooted out and punished.
We will stand in solidarity with each other and our allies to protect the space for civil society and the freedom of anti-corruption activists. Transparency International’s successes will be the result of collective action. Only together do we have a chance to get closer to our vision: a world free of corruption.

José Ugaz
Chair, Transparency International

Elena Panfilova
Vice-Chair, Transparency International

II About this Strategy

Closing in on the Corrupt/Strategy Name provides the strategic framework for action for Transparency International for the years 2016–2020. As our fourth movement strategy, it marks a major step forward for Transparency International, from awareness-raising and advocating for systemic change to encouraging the engagement of people in our cause and closing the space available to the corrupt. Strategy Name builds on the rich diversity of our movement, with its unique governance structure that includes independent national chapters, individual members and an international Secretariat, yet offers a common ambition for the coming years.
The development of the Strategy Name began in 2014. At our Annual Membership Meeting in October 2014, the Transparency International movement agreed that the previous strategy had set us in the right direction and the next one should build on it. Strategy name should take our ambition further, to address the environment we were now operating in. It should provide greater clarity and precision, particularly about how we would engage people to demand accountability as a key means of ending corruption. Our movement was keen to be bolder yet also more focused.
Over a period of about ten months spanning 2014 and 2015, TI engaged in a wide consultation process toward the Strategy Name. We employed a range of tools to evaluate our context, our organisation and our achievements, and to take on board the views of our movement as well as external stakeholders about our future priorities and approaches. We conducted surveys, ran consultation exercises, held interviews and solicited written inputs. All told, we had more than 1000 contributions from within Transparency International around the world, and 500 from outside TI, drawing on the world of government, international organisations, business, and civil society. We distilled and summarised this feedback to develop Strategy Name, which was debated and endorsed by the TI movement and Board of Directors at our Annual Membership meeting in Malaysia in September 2015.

Strategy Name is a powerful statement that we want to achieve more as a movement. In addition to identifying our global priorities and indicating how we will approach them, Strategy Name introduces a new feature, a movement-wide monitoring framework that focuses on our global impact. Moreover, this strategic framework will also have a multiplier effect: not only will the constituents of the TI movement formulate their own commitments and plans towards its implementation, many national chapters will align their own strategies with it in the years to come.

III Context for our Work

Writing in 2015, tackling corruption is a very high priority on the world’s agenda. The opportunity for action is rife. People’s movements for political change in many parts of the world, from the Middle East and Turkey to Brazil and Guatemala have highlighted the centrality of corruption as a rallying ground for citizen action. In pro-democracy movements, demands for accountability and for ending the thickening nexus of money and politics repeat time and again. There is widespread recognition of the global, cross-border nature of corruption, particularly due to illicit financial flows.
In addition, the global financial crisis, with its dramatic knock on effect on jobs and economic growth around the world, put renewed attention on the need for greater transparency in both the public and private sector. In turn, this call for transparency yielded the ‘open agenda’, whose potential to open up government and business draws on the ever-wider reach of the internet, the digitalisation of data, and the use of technology by social change movements.

Yet the shadow of corruption is long. In many places anti-corruption efforts have come to nought. Political will is lacking. There is a growing sense of impunity for corruption, with companies that are considered too big to fail, and business and political leaders that are considered too big to jail dominating the headlines. The wealthy and powerful routinely ‘get away with it’. In many of the world’s grand corruption cases, leaders who have looted society continue to be exonerated by the courts, or, worst of all, allowed to stay in office and perpetuate their crimes.
In short, expectations have not been met in turning awareness of corruption into real and lasting change. The implementation gap — the gap between good anti-corruption rules and practice — continues to be wide. Under pressure to grow jobs and increase trade in a global economic slowdown some governments and business turn a blind eye to corruption. But failing to address it will inhibit sustainable, long-term growth, and undermine human development.

Space for civil society action is under threat in a range of countries by repressive governments or organised crime. In too many countries, we have seen the consequences for anti-corruption activists, in restrictions on funding, limits on freedom of speech and association, and even in personal attacks. In this climate, it has become dangerous to speak out against corruption, which limits our movement’s ability to operate in countless ways.

IV Our Approach

Corruption remains prevalent around the world because the risk of being caught and punished is limited. In the next five years, Transparency International will contribute to a world in which it is much, much more difficult to be corrupt. We want laws enforced, loopholes closed, whistleblowers protected, and justice against the corrupt to be swift and decisive. We want the corrupt to pay for their actions, and we will advocate at all levels for a system that closes in on the corrupt.
At the same time, corruption remains a collective action problem. Unless significant numbers of people publicly resist and reject corruption, those confronted with demands for a bribe will continue to believe that this is all they can expect. We want to break this chain. Based on a better understanding of how to mobilise people against corruption, we will enable communities to speak up and sanction the corrupt. We will encourage leaders to stand up with integrity and we will recognise companies who are clean. We will also work in coalitions and build partnerships to multiply the power of people against corruption.
Transparency International defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This broad definition has marked our work and our ambitions since our establishment, as well as our approach: holistic, systemic, evidence-based, collaborative and collective. Yet we need to hone new skills and approaches, given the challenges of the current context for corruption in a changing world.
Over the next five years, Transparency International believes some of the most important changes ahead lie in inspiring, motivating, and collaborating with people who can take up the anti-corruption cause. This approach builds on our previous strategic framework, but acknowledges that our success in raising awareness to the damage done by corruption is but one important way to influence people. We want to inform people about the powerful role they can and must play in stopping corruption and helping to build societies based on trust and fair play, societies that foster accountability and social justice for all.
Based on our research and experience, we know that people everywhere reject corruption, but some resort to it anyway. We need to create alternatives, foster greater hope, and build a strong case in broad-based campaigns that change is possible. We must demonstrate how business, basic services and indeed human lives can be improved by broader public engagement to stop corruption. We need to appeal to the best values in people to join us in the many ways now available to carry on our work.
We also believe that laws and institutions need to recognise corruption for what it is — an impediment to human rights, to economic and social justice and to political freedom. Our ambition is to make the crime of corruption a greater risk and more subject to punishment, which we believe will create disincentives to corrupt behaviour. For this to happen, justice systems around the world must not only have the independence and accountability to prosecute corruption crimes, but the capacity to cooperate and drive justice across borders. Heightening attention to grand corruption, particularly cross-border corruption crimes, and monitoring the performance of national judiciaries can help improve justice and end impunity for corruption.
At the same time, we believe that the highest possible standards of transparency, accountability, integrity and openness can move myriad institutions in both the public and private sector forward. Not only will higher standards help prevent corruption, they can provide a framework for redressing corruption swiftly and appropriately when it does occur. As a civil society organisation, our role is to help set and monitor best practice anti-corruption standards and then advocate for their full implementation. Given our presence in more than 100 countries, we recognise that the main challenge of realising global standards in national and local anti-corruption reform is the way rules are first established and then implemented in practice. Real change can only come with the enforcement of laws, codes, and regulations. TI, bolstered by people willing to speak up, will hold government to account through independent, evidence-based advocacy and citizen pressure, thereby increasing the risk for the corrupt.
Finally, part of our ambition is to make sure we are ready for the challenges ahead. We need to improve our knowledge base of anti-corruption initiatives, by government, business and civil society alike. We must scrutinise and learn from these efforts and try to adapt, replicate and scale-up those that work. We must make knowledge on corruption and its remedies more accessible, to make it work better for those who need it, when they need it. If corruption appears and reappears in new forms, then anti-corruption must match its innovative capacity. We must also help translate research into policies and actions that can remedy corrupt practices. And we must put more energy into learning about anti-corruption — how it can be practiced, adapted, and effective.
We believe that a stronger Transparency International is itself critical to the change we seek in the next five years. We must be present and offer solutions in those places that are decisive to achieving change, locally and beyond. To do so, we have to invest in our own skills and leaders. We must achieve the human and financial resources to realise our ambitions. And we must protect the space for anti-corruption work to take place, by shielding our activists from harm and advocating for the freedom of association, speech and action that enables them to act.

V Priorities

Based on the change we want to achieve in the world, we will focus our collective ambitions on three priority areas: 1) People and values; 2) Laws and institutions; 3) Knowledge and network

1. People and values
Over the past two decades, Transparency International has played a crucial role in raising collective awareness of the damage wrought by corruption among a range of audiences, with a special focus on policymakers, business leaders, and the news media. While we will continue reaching out to these audiences, our emphasis will now be on empowering individuals and groups of people to act to demand accountability. We will focus on those audiences who are strategically positioned to lead work in anti-corruption; those who want to be part of the anti-corruption movement, and those who are directly affected by corrupt practises and behaviour.
By empowering individuals and groups of people to change their behaviour and become active in the struggle against corruption, we will contribute to the creation of an environment where the risks of engaging in corruption are high and the corrupt have little space to manoeuver. This approach to people engagement reflects a strategic shift from awareness to action.

A. CREATING DEMAND FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND EMPOWERING ACTION
The change: People around the world denounce corruption and take increased action to confront it, by demanding accountability.
TI Action: We will empower a wide range of audiences — with a focus on young people, women and those active in social movements — to act to confront corruption, demand accountability and contribute to anti-corruption approaches that are systemic and sustainable.
Millions of citizens around the world are demanding more open and accountable governments and business, and we need to capitalise on this collective energy. We will reach out to a number of audiences to inform them of the most effective anti-corruption tools available. Together, and through demanding accountability, we will promote open societies, a free media and freedom of expression, association as well as peaceful assembly, legal empowerment and the rule of law.
We will also step up our support to those who experience corruption first hand by enabling them to denounce or blow the whistle on corruption and to find redress. We will ensure that these individual experiences of corruption are strategically used to contribute to systemic anti-corruption approaches that are effective and sustainable in that they lead to changes in policy and behaviour. We will do this by integrating these experiences into our broader evidence base, by being bolder in our advocacy, and by following up on cases to exert pressure for justice.

B. INSPIRING LEADERS AND ENGAGING PARTNERS
The change: A growing number of key leaders and institutions embrace anti-corruption as a critical aspect of addressing policy challenges.
TI action: We will identify and promote anti-corruption leaders and leadership, and foster strong partnerships in a broad range of anti-corruption related policy fields and fora.
Transparency International has a long tradition of working in partnerships: both with individuals and organisations. To achieve our ambitions by 2020, we need to identify and encourage those leaders whose efforts drive change in the corruption field. We also want to pursue partnerships that enable us to reflect anti-corruption in key policy fora. We will provide both leaders and partners the tools, approaches and opportunities to contribute to the anti-corruption agenda. We will also focus on identifying new leaders and partners who are well-positioned to exert influence in key areas of our upcoming work, such as stemming the tide of corrupt money flows, tackling the undue influence of money in politics, promoting corporate transparency. Anti-corruption champions, especially women and youth, will help grow people’s trust and root out corruption in politics, business and our societies more generally.

2. Laws and institutions

In the past two decades Transparency International has been successful in advocating for accountability and anti-corruption laws to be adopted in many countries around the world, with the United Nations Convention against Corruption now serving as the global anti-corruption norm. However, more needs to be done. Where laws and standards are still weak, they need to be strengthened. Loopholes need to be closed. Also, we see too many laws not being implemented in practice, with the result that the corrupt continue to get away with corrupt practices. Given the persistence of impunity for corruption, we need institutions that enforce the highest possible anti-corruption standards and strong justice systems. The judiciary must be capable of prosecuting and punishing corruption, especially grand corruption, to the full extent of the law.

A. PROMOTING ANTI-CORRUPTION STANDARDS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT

The change: Public and private institutions adopt and implement the highest transparency, accountability, integrity and openness standards to prevent and address corruption

TI action: We will develop, monitor and advocate for standards regarding key aspects of governance, with a special focus on their translation into practice at national level

A robust anti-corruption infrastructure in all public and private institutions — and at all levels — is vital for preventing corruption. When the highest possible standards of transparency, accountability and integrity are put into law, corrupt individuals should no longer find loopholes to exploit the system. However, standards and laws on the books are not enough. They need to be properly implemented and enforced.

In the political sphere, public institutions and politicians need to work for the public good and be accountable to their citizens. To prevent political corruption, we will focus our efforts on pushing for the highest possible standards in political finance, procurement, conflict of interest, lobbying, and access to information.

The business sector, and especially business leaders, need to recognise the benefits of a clean business environment. We will monitor and promote corporate transparency as a critical aspect of private sector accountability. Given the legacy of the financial crisis and the scale of illicit financial flows, we will focus on the institutions shaping the international financial system, from banks to investors, and the urgent need to close existing loopholes to elevate the integrity of financial institutions. We will push for progress on standards relating to beneficial ownership, country by country reporting, recovery of stolen assets, the luxury goods sector, secrecy jurisdictions and money laundering.

To achieve this, we will proactively engage with institutions and experts to identify and develop good-practice standards and laws. We will also continue to draw on global and regional conventions, such as the UNCAC and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, and focus our advocacy on their relevance at country level. To promote their full implementation, we will independently monitor and report on the quality of practices. In cases of non-compliance, we will mobilise the public through targeted campaigns, advocate to create peer pressure, and push for sanctions.

B. ACHIEVING JUSTICE: ENDING IMPUNITY FOR CORRUPTION

The change: The corrupt are increasingly being held to account.

TI action: We will apply increased pressure on justice systems to perform better with regard to punishing crimes of corruption, especially grand corruption, and will engage in public action when justice is not served.

When prevention fails, justice must not: the corrupt must not be allowed to get away with it any longer. Corrupt individuals must learn the hard way that corruption does not pay, as the risks of being caught and penalised for criminal behaviour are considerable. Those perpetrating grand corruption, with its devastating effects on entire societies, must no longer be able to enjoy lavish lifestyles built on stolen money.

For this to happen on the national level, effective justice systems that afford equal treatment to everyone are crucial. The judiciary must be independent, not subject to undue influence by politics, and have the adequate resources and capacity to prosecute corruption cases. A strong justice system is also important to guard against state and policy capture as well as the infiltration of organised crime into state security institutions. At country level, Transparency International will monitor the judiciary and its ability to deliver justice for corruption. When justice fails, we will empower people with tools, such as social sanctions, to act against the corrupt and demand that justice is served.

Internationally, the corrupt have become increasingly adept at using the opportunities of a globalised economy to create cross-border networks of organised crime as well as mechanisms to hide their stolen assets. This is especially prevalent in cases of grand corruption, where the theft of public goods is on a massive scale and causes both the violation of human rights and huge damage to entire societies. To effectively stop this, improved international cooperation in bringing the corrupt to justice is needed.

Transparency International will identify and denounce these corrupt global networks. We will publicly unmask the corrupt, as well as investigate and support litigation of grand corruption cases, both on our own and in coalition with others. We will collaborate with and support the investigative journalists and whistleblowers who bring grand corruption to light, and we will lead campaigns against grand corruption particularly in contexts where the national judicial systems are inactive.

3. Knowledge and Network
As the leading global anti-corruption organisation, Transparency International has gained its reputation with its ability to diagnose corruption and create tools to stop it. Our ambition is to become even better at what we do and how we do it, to support the changes we seek as a movement. We must be strong and knowledgeable to make a vital contribution to countering corruption. Above all, our staff, members, and volunteers around the world must know they are safe to pursue their efforts.

A. SHARING WHAT WORKS TO STOP CORRUPTION
The change: A greater knowledge base of the interventions made to stop corruption, including what has worked and who is expert across the anti-corruption issue spectrum.
TI action: We will facilitate needs-based knowledge sharing within and outside the TI movement.

Transparency International has made its mark in the research of corruption. Our efforts to explore the root causes of corruption and the state of transparency, accountability and integrity systems over the past two decades have translated into myriad tools and policy recommendations that aim to prevent corruption and stop it in its tracks when it appears. In recent years, our own research has been complemented by a huge increase in academic interest in corruption, expanding the boundaries of our work to a new generation of researchers and leaders. We now need to translate this growing academic research into knowledge we can use to promote change.

To drive our own understanding of corruption to new levels, we also need to embark on a new knowledge agenda, one that focuses on how, why and when people get engaged to stop corruption. Understanding this is crucial to our priority of making our work as inclusive as possible and engaging people in our collective ambition to stop corruption. The knowledge agenda must also extend to the evaluation of anti-corruption interventions, whether by government, the private sector or civil society.

As a movement that is active in more than 100 countries, we need to share knowledge to benefit from our combined experiences. We need to know what has been tried and what works, to make a clearer link between taking action and results. We need to harness knowledge that reflects how the anti-corruption movement has and can close the space for corruption to occur.

B. BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE TI MOVEMENT
The change: The professionalisation of TI and advancement of its leadership are recognised as a critical part of the TI movement’s success.
TI action: We will invest in our movement’s capacity building in a targeted way, to secure the achievement of best practice in both management and governance, with a special focus on promoting the skills and development of leaders within the TI movement.

Our movement must be ambitious about its own development in the years to come. Transparency International will need to nurture, train and professionalise our staff, our policies and our practices. Significant managerial and organisational governance expertise lies within our movement. We will capitalise on sharing this knowledge of how to be a highly successful movement, by facilitating exchanges and developing opportunities for capacity-related activities in conjunction with our programming events and governance meetings. We will also aim to learn from peers and develop the right training opportunities to improve the policies and practices that make us a leader among global NGOs. After all, advocating for transparency, accountability, integrity and openness require us first and foremost to demonstrate excellence in all these areas across our own movement.

To focus our capacity building, we will invest in our leadership. Around the world, our national chapters are led by outstanding individuals who first and foremost focus on corruption in their country. We need to tap into this knowledge and experience, to promote our best and brightest leaders to grow within Transparency International and extend their voice as thought leaders. This may mean they help other chapters, take a leadership role in national coalitions and partnerships, or contribute to anti-corruption advocacy at regional or global level. We need to foster a generation of leaders who are valued for their role in making our movement a vital and respected global civil society actor. We want a future where an outstanding generation of activists recognise our organisation as a place to develop their skills and to excel in their quest to stop corruption.

C. ENSURING THE RELEVANCE OF THE TI MOVEMENT
The change: Transparency International will serve as the point of reference on corruption issues in key countries, notably G20, BRICs and MINTs.
TI action: We will develop and implement new representational models to ensure our presence and in strategic locations around the world.

Over the past twenty years, our growth as an organisation has been dramatic. Above all, our movement’s reach into all corners of the globe, largely due to the establishment of our unique network of national chapters, distinguishes us from many other international non-governmental organisations, both in form and in culture. What we seek in the coming years is the strengthening of TI presence in places where it matters most — those countries where corruption harms great number of people and/or whose economic power, investment abroad, political leadership, and regional influence make them instrumental to the success of our work. In those places, namely G20, BRIC and MINT countries, we will ensure that TI is a reference point on corruption issues. From China to South Africa, TI will demonstrate its expertise and ability to engage on the leading corruption issues of the day.

In addition, the Transparency International movement will address the governance issues necessary to establish TI representation in places where freedom of action for NGOs is difficult or where advocacy opportunities for regional or global work complement our national presence, using models of operation that move beyond our current one country-one chapter model. We have already done so in a number of places, such as Belgium (with our TI-EU office in Brussels), Egypt and Brazil. A benefit of this approach is the establishment of enhanced regional advocacy presence for Transparency International, which could take the form of regional hubs as focal points for relevant themes and campaigns.

D. PROTECTING ANTI-CORRUPTION ACTIVISTS
The change: Greater freedom of action and voice for anti-corruption activists.
TI action: We will defend and support TI staff, members, and volunteers under threat, and we will contribute to global, regional and national efforts to push back against the legal and practical limitations made on anti-corruption activists’ room to manoeuvre.

Threats on civil society organisations working in the anti-corruption field have grown dramtically in many countries in recent years. TI activists are often at the forefront of those whose work results in retribution, from harassment and intimidation to loss of life. While we have shown solidarity as a movement through many such crises over the years, we want to take our preparedness and capacity to respond the next level over the period to 2020. We will substantially upgrade the preventive and responsive measures we employ to protect our staff, members and volunteers around the world. We will expand our risk assessment as well as security and safety efforts. We won’t allow the heightened risk of activism to thwart our spirit or our work.

At the same time, we will work together with other movements and organisations to turn back the tide of civil society repression. We will advocate for the legal and practical provisions to make our work against corruption possible, starting with the enactment of basic civil rights. We will also call for non-governmental organisations to be recognised legally, and allowed direct funding. We will demand the participation of civil society and anti-corruption activists in the decision-making fora that address accountability and affect the lives of so many in society.
VI Monitoring Impact
TI is committed to accountability and learning and will therefore carefully monitor and evaluate the impact of Strategy Name. By focusing on our impact, we will increase knowledge about what works and what does not in stopping corruption. This is not only valuable to us but also to all those interested in supporting or joining us: from donors, to governments, to business, to civil society, to the public.

In order to ensure that we monitor and learn, we will:

1. Collect information on the scope of our work using the strategy’s impact monitoring framework (page XX). All parts of the TI movement will contribute to this effort.
2. Conduct a number of small-scale learning reviews to better understand the challenges to and the achievements of our work on our strategic priorities — and to be able to act on these in order to improve effectiveness.
3. Commission a mid-term review of the Strategy to assess whether the strategic priorities are still current and whether we are on track to achieve impact.
4. Undertake research to test our main assumptions and have greater clarity regarding what works and what does not work in stopping corruption.

To organise our monitoring efforts and build a coherent narrative of our work, challenges and achievements, we will consolidate the information around two main change areas:

• Policy Change. The ultimate ambition in terms of impact in this area is that institutions, governments, political parties, and businesses have all the necessary mechanisms, policies or laws in place to prevent corruption, sanction corrupt behaviour and promote governance.
• Behaviour Change. The ultimate ambition in terms of impact in this area is that individuals, communities, civil society organisations and social movements systematically act to promote governance and prevent corruption.

Finally, TI has long recognised the critical need for better evidence in the effort to eradicate corruption. In particular, knowledge of what works and what does not work in our field has been developing at a slow pace. Therefore we renew our strong commitment to fully disclose all our monitoring and evaluation information to the public, making it available on our website and disseminating it as widely as possible, as a contribution to knowledge on what works to stop corruption.

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL GUIDING PRINCIPLES:
1. As coalition-builders, we will work cooperatively with all individuals and groups, with for-profit and not-for-profit corporations and organisations, and with governments and international bodies committed to the fight against corruption, subject only to the policies and priorities set by our governing bodies.
2. We undertake to be open, honest and accountable in our relationships with everyone we work with, and with each other.
3. We will be democratic, politically non-partisan and non-sectarian in our work.
4. We will condemn bribery and corruption vigorously wherever it has been reliably identified.
5. The positions we take will be based on sound, objective and professional analysis and high standards of research.
6. We will only accept funding that does not compromise our ability to address issues freely, thoroughly and objectively.
7. We will provide accurate and timely reports of our activities to our stakeholders.
8. We will respect and encourage respect for fundamental human rights and freedom.
9. We are committed to building, working with and working through Chapters worldwide.
10. We will strive for balanced and diverse representation on our governing bodies.
11. As one global movement, we stand in solidarity with each other and we will not act in ways that may adversely affect other Chapters or the TI movement as a whole.

Adopted by the TI Annual Membership Meeting (AMM) in Prague, 06 October 2001 updated by the TI AMM in Bali, 28 October 2007 and by the AMM in Berlin, 16 October 2011.