Transparency International elects new board

Annual meeting calls for greater freedoms of speech and association in Arab world

The Annual Membership Meeting of Transparency International, the anti-corruption organisation, has re-elected TI Chair, Huguette Labelle (Canada), and Vice-Chair, Akere Muna (Cameroon) to another three-year term as TI’s global leadership.

Incumbent board members, Delia Ferreira Rubio (Argentina) and Rueben Lifuka (Zambia) were also re-elected. The TI movement elected four new board members, Jermyn Brooks (UK), Elena Panfilova (Russia), José Ugaz (Peru) and Elisabeth Ungar Bleier (Colombia).

Transparency International’s board is elected by its movement of 87 National Chapters worldwide and 27 individual members.

Transparency International calls for protection of civil society in Middle East & North Africa

In a resolution approved by delegates from its national chapters and individual members, Transparency International expressed concern that despite the Arab Spring, repressive laws continue to clamp down on civil society and limit freedom of the press in many parts of the Arab world. The resolution also congratulated Tawakkul Karman, a female political activist and member of Transparency International’s contact group, Yemeni Transparency & Integrity Team, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2011.

The world’s leading anti-corruption organisation also called the next climate change summit, meeting in Durban from 28 November, to ensure that the Green Climate Fund, expected to provide for unprecedented spending on climate projects, operates transparently, with independent oversight and space for consultation.

In another resolution, the Transparency International movement outlined seven priority areas for action by the leaders of the G20 including action on financial transparency, foreign bribery and restitution of stolen assets, stressing that this last issue applies beyond the G20.

Further resolutions laid out positions on the upcoming Conference of States Parties of the UN Convention against Corruption, and Aid Effectiveness.

The full resolutions are available online here.

Brief biographies of newly elected TI board members:

Jermyn P. Brooks (UK/Germany) joined Price Waterhouse London in 1962, and worked for the company in senior roles around the globe until 2000. He was a founding Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption initiative, and since 2009 he has chaired the 10th Principle Working Group of the United Nations Global Compact. He is also a member of the Wolfsberg Group, which developed the Wolfsberg Anti-Money Laundering Principles, and serves as Independent Chair of the Global Network Initiative. Brooks currently chairs TI’s Business Advisory Board and is a member of the Finance Committee.

Elena A. Panfilova (Russia) has worked as an academic researcher and project manager for the Institute of Independent Social Studies, the Institute for Economy in Transition and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, amongst others. She is a member of the Russian Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights, where she co-chairs a working group on anti-corruption. Panfilova is currently the Director of TI’s Russian chapter, which she also founded in 1999. She has lectured in anti-corruption at in the Moscow State University – Higher School of Economics since 2007, where she also she established the Laboratory for Anti-corruption Policy in 2009.

Jose Carlos Ugaz (Peru) is a lawyer by training, and served as the Ad-Hoc State Attorney of Peru in several top level corruption cases. He was also a member of the United Nations Election Observers Mission for El Salvador. In 2002, Ugaz assumed the presidency of PROETICA, TI’s national chapter in Peru. He has been an individual member of TI since 2008.

Elisabeth Ungar Bleier (Colombia) was a professor and researcher in the Department of Political Science at Universidad de los Andes from 1975 until 2009. From 1995 - 1996 she served as the Director of the Department, and from 2005 – 2007 she was a member of the University’s Board. Author, columnist and political analyst, Ungar has been the Executive Director of Transparencia por Colombia since 2009.

For more information on TI’s Board of Directors, please click here.

For any press enquiries please contact

Natalie Baharav, Assistant Programme Coordinator
Transparency International
T: +49 30 34 38 20 666
E: [email protected]