Transparency International USA, or TI-USA, aims to live up to its name by promoting much-needed accountability in governments and businesses, both at home and abroad.

The task of successfully eliminating global poverty is often precluded by entrenched corruption practices in governments and businesses in both the developing and developed world. TI-USA was founded in 1993 as a chapter of the greater Transparency International movement in an attempt to address this corruption and to “promote transparency and integrity in government, business, and development assistance.”

TI-USA reports that each year, bribery, fraud, collusion, and other various forms of corruption taint over $1.5 trillion in public purchasing. Billions of dollars in illicit assets currently flow out of developing countries that need the money to survive.

TI-USA not only views this behavior as unacceptable and immoral but sees the consequential economic, social and health effects that such corruption may spur. In corrupted governments, most of a country’s assets remain in the top levels of society, placing a greater financial burden on the country’s poor who are often deprived of education, nutrition, clean water and health care.

As a branch of an already well-established nonprofit organization, TI-USA’s chief goal is to make the United States a forefront actor in establishing anti-corruption laws across the globe turning first to addressing transparency issues within the U.S. government itself. By doing this, the U.S. can show its commitment to the anti-corruption goal by reforming its own shortcomings as a model for developing countries to follow.

TI-USA shows that in order to become a leader in global activism a country must live up to the standards it promotes abroad within its own national boundaries.

– Alexandra Bruschi

Sources: Transparency International USA, Business Wire
Photo: Flickr