Georgetown School of Foreign Service
Santiago Canton, director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, and Benjamin Gedan, the deputy director of the Latin America Program at the Wilson Center, offered recommendations for how to increase transparency and combat corruption in Latin America in an article for the Georgetown Journal for International Affairs. According to the authors, this year’s Summit of the Americas, to be held in Los Angeles in June, offers a chance to reverse worrying trends in Latin America by increasing government transparency throughout the hemisphere and giving civil society watchdogs the tools to hold corrupt officials accountable.
Latin America has seen an explosion in corruption during the pandemic, as presidential power expanded and governments sidestepped standard procedures to speed public spending on health and economic emergencies. This year’s Summit of the Americas offers a chance to increase government transparency throughout the hemisphere by giving civil society watchdogs the tools to hold corrupt officials accountable.
Latin America is losing its fight against corruption. The region, never a model of transparency, has seen an explosion in corruption during the pandemic, as presidential power expanded and governments sidestepped standard procedures to speed public spending on health and economic emergencies. Three international anti-corruption offices in Central America were recently disbanded, and the Biden administration has found few partners in the region to revive the U.S. anti-corruption strategy.
This year’s Summit of the Americas, to be held in Los Angeles in June, offers a chance to reverse these worrying trends by increasing government transparency throughout the hemisphere and giving civil society watchdogs the tools to hold corrupt officials accountable.
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The solution is to adopt common, high standards for access to public records, incorporating global best practices such as recommendations from the Open Government Partnership and in model legislation from the OAS. This year’s Summit of the Americas, a triennial heads-of-state gathering that the United States will host in California, is an ideal forum for approving an OAS charter on transparency.
Much of the preparatory work is already complete. The last Summit of the Americas, in Peru in 2018, produced broad commitments to fight corruption, including by improving access to public information. In the summit communiqué, leaders identified the fight against corruption as “fundamental to strengthening democracy and the rule of law.” Their joint statement recognized a need to promote “public awareness and citizen participation” in the fight against corruption, and highlighted tools such as transparency in budgeting, procurement, and contracting. Governments pledged to establish strong institutions to guarantee access to public records.
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It was just over a year ago that leaders of 34 nations of the hemisphere gathered in Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. How much progress has been made in the past year on the goals expressed at the summit?
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