100Voices: Clay Westcott

Alice Brennan
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100Voices: Clay Westcott

Clay Wescott is Dean of the Asia-Pacific Governance Institute. He has advised countless countries and their institutions on regional cooperation, governance assessment, public finance, decentralization and combatting corruption. His main focus has been in Asia and the Pacific, where he was the Principal Regional Cooperation Specialist for the Asian Development Bank, and led the project team for the Cambodia Commune Council Development Project.

Prior to that he was Deputy Director for the Management Development and Governance Division of United Nations Development Program,, and he helped countries carry out reform programs. Dr Wescott has an intimate knowledge of the theoretical, as well as practical issues facing countries attempting to combat entrenched corruption.

100Voices: Andrew Feinstein

Alice Brennan
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100Voices: Andrew Feinstein

Andrew Feinstien is an expert on international arms trafficking and author of the highly acclaimed recent book, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade. The book is a thoroughly-documented, behind-the-scenes look at weapons sales, both official government-to-government transactions, and it spillover into the illicit world of weapons smuggling.

Feinstein, a former member of parliament in South Africa, was once seen as a promising up and comer in the African National Congress. He resigned his seat in protest in 2001, over the ANC’s refusal to investigate allegations of corruption in connection with arms sales to South Africa.

Feinstein spoke to 100Reporters’ Alice Brennan in Zucotti Park, where he visited the Occupy Wall Street protest.

100 Voices: Michael Hershman

Alice Brennan
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100 Voices: Michael Hershman

Michael Hershman is a co-founder of Transparency International, the Berlin-based organization that promotes responsible and transparent government, and releases an annual Corruption Perception Index. The index is used as shorthand for the depth of corruption or transparency in 178 nations, with Singapore and the Nordic countries typically ranking as the most transparent, and Somalia and Afghanistan as the most corrupt.

It also releases an international Bribe Payers Index, ranking countries by the likelihood of their business sector to pay bribes.

Hershman, now CEO of the Fairfax Group, a private consulting firm, believes that corruption represents a violation of human rights, as it robs citizens of their dignity and their due. “Yet,” he notes, “we’ve never seen a human rights trial based on corruption.”

100Voices: Omoyele Sowore

Alice Brennan
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100Voices: Omoyele Sowore

Sahara Reporters has been called the WikiLeaks of Africa.

Omoyele Sowore, a 40-year-old political dissident from Nigeria produces the website from New York.

Sowore is dedicated to exposing corruption and greed in his home country. One of the ways he does this is by tracing foreign property deeds and the assets of Nigeria’s political leaders.