Episode Description

Last year, Poland held extraordinarily consequential parliamentary elections where the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) lost its majority for the first time since 2015. Against this backdrop, CIPE supported a new project, “The Rule of Law – Our Future” through the Institute for Private Enterprise and Democracy (IPED) based in Warsaw between July 2023 to January 2024. As part of the Free Enterprise and Democracy Network Small Grants initiative, the project educated voters about the importance of the rule of law and encouraged youth participation in the election.  

In this podcast, Program Officer Tamari Dzotsenidze from CIPE Policy and Program Learning is joined by FEDN Steering Committee member and president of IPED Mieczyslaw Bak and Director of Program Strategy Anna Szczesniak in a discussion on lessons learned over the course of the project and perspectives on engaging with youth.

Episode Description

The Ruggie Framework is a three-pronged approach that includes the obligations of corporations to uphold human rights, the responsibility of the state to protect those rights, and the provision of effective remedies for any infringements. 

In this CIPE Anti-Corruption and Governance Center (ACGC) podcast, Luis Fernando de Angulo, Senior Advisor to the Center for Responsible Business and a member of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, joins Michele Crymes and Angela Maria Velez of CIPE as they analyze the experience of Colombia’s private sector in upholding the Ruggie Framework. They discuss the private sector’s successes, challenges, and potential areas to improve the support of human rights going forward. Crymes is ACGC Deputy Director and Velez is the Program Director for CIPE Colombia. 

More Information

In 2008, the United Nations Special Representative, John Ruggie, introduced a framework to the United Nations Human Rights Council to address the relationship between human rights and business activities. This framework, known as the Ruggie Principles, was a three-pronged approach that included the obligations of corporations to uphold human rights, the responsibility of states to protect these rights, and the provision of effective remedies for any infringements. In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously approved and endorsed the Ruggie Framework, otherwise known as the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 

Our special guest, Luis Fernando de Angulo, joins this podcast to analyze the Colombian private sector’s experiences of upholding the Ruggie Framework. Specifically, we will discuss the private sector’s successes, challenges, and areas to improve the supporting of human rights in the future. 

Anticorruption Taskforce Sudan, ACT-Sudan, is a newly established coalition of local Sudanese civil society organizations dedicated to identifying and combating corruption in Sudan to achieve the ultimate goal of ending the war and bringing justice to the people of Sudan. The task force aims to address corruption through advocacy campaigns, investigative research, and public mobilization. Omayma Gutabi, Executive Director of the Sudan Democracy First Group and founding member of ACT-Sudan, joins Staci Samuels, Program Officer for CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center, in discussion on why tackling corruption issues is key to ending the war and restoring peace to Sudan. This podcast is brought to you by CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center.

One year after devasting earthquakes in Türkiye, Erhan Arslan of TÜRKONFED joins Babak Yektafar, CIPE Program Director, and Stephen Rosenlund, Deputy Director of CIPE's Middle East and North Africa Team. TÜRKONFED, a CIPE partner, is an independent business confederation representing 30 federations and 300 associations with more than 60,000 company members across Türkiye. Arslan, TÜRKONFED’s Deputy Secretary General – Project Development and Coordination, discusses his organization’s mobilization of business associations to assist with recovery, the collective action of the private sector in rebuilding communities, and their new report that highlights supply chain resilience for economic recovery.

Fostering Growth & Collaboration in Central Asia with B5+1

The B5+1 is a business dialogue platform for the five central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, along with the United States. The Center for International Private Enterprise had a leading role in bringing these voices of the private sector together, including convening a two-day conference in Kazakhstan in March 2024. CIPE's Executive Director, Andrew Wilson, is joined by Eric Hontz, Director of CIPE's Center for Accountable Investment (CAI) and Sobir Kurbanov, Senior Program Manager for CIPE's Europe and Eurasia team to discuss the background of the B5+1, how this conference will address of the issues of different investment models in Central Asia, and what outcomes the conference hopes to achieve long term.

Eric Hontz - Center for International Private Enterprise

Eric Hontz leads CIPE’s Center for Accountable Investment which uses the lens of Corrosive and Constructive Capital to examine the impact of investment on democratic and market institutions.  The CAI's work sits at the confluence of corporate governance, the rule of law, and the business and investment climate, with...

www.cipe.org

Andrew Wilson - Center for International Private Enterprise

Andrew Wilson is the Executive Director of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in Washington, D.C. Wilson has extensive experience working with the private sector on development issues in conflict and post-conflict settings, crafting successful business strategies to reduce corruption, encouraging en...

www.cipe.org

Two authors of the groundbreaking U.S. Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) join the podcast to discuss one of the most sweeping and consequential anti-corruption laws of the last four decades. Tom Firestone, a partner at Squire Patton Boggs, and Scott Greytak, Director of Advocacy at the U.S. chapter of Transparency International (TI), discuss the importance of FEPA. The law makes it a crime for a foreign official to demand or accept a bribe from a company with a U.S. nexus, including those listed on a U.S. stock exchange. The guests join Frank Brown, Director of CIPE’s Anti-Corruption & Governance Center, to discuss who the law covers, the steps needed to enforce it, and what it means for other countries seeking to adopt similar legislation. This podcast is brought to you by CIPE’s Anti-Corruption & Governance Center.   

Elizabeth David-Barrett, Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, is one of the co-editors of the “Dictionary of Corruption.” She joins Katya Lysova, who leads CIPE’s Business Integrity and Anti-Corruption and Governance Programs in Europe and Eurasia, and Sofiia Sapihura, Senior Humanitarian Aid and Anti-Corruption Expert for CIPE’s Europe and Eurasia team, to discuss the purpose of the dictionary, the methodology employed to create it, the ever-evolving forms of corruption and related terminologies, and how this first-ever dictionary of corruption can be applied. This podcast is brought to you by CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center.

Hernando De Soto is the Founder and President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) in Peru – CIPE’s first developing-country partner. ILD and De Soto shaped Peru’s economic modernization by influencing some 400 state initiatives, regulations and laws; CIPE replicated this success by forming thousands of partnerships with business associations, think tanks and civil society groups worldwide. For this podcast, De Soto joins CIPE Executive Director Andrew Wilson to discuss the importance of the informal economy, the central role of property rights, and the early successes of the ILD-CIPE partnership. 

Sabrina Segal, a risk and compliance professional with almost 20 years in the international development humanitarian sector, says there’s a link between democracy and third-sector anti-corruption efforts, also commonly referred to as charities and nonprofit organizations. In this podcast, she joins Michele Crymes, Deputy Director for CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center, to discuss the importance of risk considerations in operations and knowledge sharing between third-sector organizations and small- and medium-sized enterprises. Segal and Crymes also debate how the private sector can serve as a better partner to the third sector. This podcast is brought to you by CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center.

Dr. Patrick Mardini, CEO of the Lebanese Institute for Market Studies (LIMS), is a leading advocate for market-based solutions to Lebanon’s economic challenges. One year since their first conversation on the podcast, Dr. Mardini updates Marie A. Principe, Program Director for CIPE's Middle East and North Africa team, on the ongoing financial crisis, prospects for reform in key sectors, and how LIMS is engaging local leaders for change. 

Amy Miller-Taylor, Executive Director, and Elsa Peraldi, Associate Director, are executives at Global Integrity, a Washington-based anti-corruption NGO that is closing at the end of 2023. In its 18 years of existence, Global Integrity helped nurture what is today a global anti-corruption movement of unprecedented scope and impact. The organization was established on the belief that transformative change requires deep local expertise, something it helped build into CIPE's operations. Miller-Taylor and Peraldi speak with Frank Brown, director of CIPE's Anti-Corruption & Governance Center, to discuss why Global Integrity is closing, what might have been done to prevent it, and how Global Integrity's legacy will be preserved for the scores of anti-corruption organizations that had depended on the organization. This podcast is brought to you by CIPE's Anti-Corruption & Governance Center.