The result of their consultation is Transparency International’s G8 Progress Report , which looks at commitments made at past G8 summits and what specific actions have been taken so far to follow-up on these commitments.

The Group of Eight (G8) is an international forum for eight of the world’s most influential industrialised-countries where global economic and political policies are discussed and coordinated. G8 member states represent approximately 65 percent of the global economy.

The G8 summits are an opportunity for world leaders to come together and discuss issues that require a coordinated international response, such as global security, environmental degradation and debt relief. These yearly meetings also help to set the agenda for the international community as whole by setting priorities, defining present and future issues, and providing direction for international organisations.

Each year, a different member country assumes the presidency and hosts the annual leaders’ summit. In 2007, Germany holds this rotating presidency. The summit is preceded by months of meetings between ministers and other government representatives from the G8 countries.

Corruption is a primary challenge to a strong and stable global economy. Reducing it is essential to increasing the material well-being of and boosting human development for the world’s most disadvantaged communities, as well as in fostering democracy, protecting biodiversity, and strengthening the global investment climate.

At the 2002 Kananaskis Summit (Canada), G8 leaders recognised that they could not achieve goals, such as national and energy security, greater benefit from trade and investment, economic development and growth in Africa, or environmental protection unless they confronted corruption.

Each year since the 2002 Summit, G8 countries have made specific commitments to fight corruption and increase good governance globally. These can be grouped into five categories:

• Strengthening enforcement of anti-bribery laws enacted under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.
  The OECD Convention, adopted in 1997, addresses the supply side of bribery by focussing on a group of countries accounting for the majority of global exports and foreign investment. The OECD Convention provides a framework for developed countries to criminalise the bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions.
• Strengthening requirements for export credit support to promote compliance with anti-bribery laws. Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) provide government-backed loans, guarantees and insurance to companies that do business abroad, often in financially and politically risky environments. Today, ECAs are among the largest sources of public financial support for domestic companies operating in a fiercely competitive export market, underwriting between US $50 to $70 billion dollars in transactions.
  G8 countries, with the exception of Russia, have taken steps to amend their rules and policies to reduce bribery in projects supported by ECAs following the 2006 adoption of an OECD Council Recommendation on Bribery and Officially Supported Export Credits.
• Ratifying and implementing the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC)
  The UNCAC is unique in it that it is the first convention to provide a global legal framework with international standards on fighting corruption. The UNCAC also establishes mechanisms for the recovery and return of stolen assets and rules to deny entry and safe havens to officials and individuals guilty of public corruption and their assets Adopted in 2003, it now has been signed by 140 countries and ratified by 93. To see the list of signatories, please see the UNODC website.
• Ensuring greater fiscal transparency, particularly through support of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
  The EITI is a multi-stakeholder initiative designed to increase revenue transparency in the extractive industries. A response to the fact that the citizens of many countries rich in natural resources do not see the benefits of this wealth, the EITI pushes for governments to publish the gas, oil and mining revenue they receive and for companies to publish what they pay. This is a first step towards providing investigative reporters and civil society with the necessary information to hold governments to account.
• Increasing transparency of capital flows, markets and institutions:
  Financial institutions must establish procedures for enhanced due diligence on Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), meaning that they must make a greater effort to “know their customers”. Transparency and supervisory standards in financial markets need to be enhanced, particularly for non-compliant off-shore centres and financial centres, which must adopt the same high standards of transparency.
  To read the specific commitments made on each of these five points, and to find out at which summit they were made, please read TI’s G8 Progress Report.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, presiding over this year’s G8 summit, has made the themes of “growth and responsibility” the central focus of the agenda.

In terms of economic policy, the G8 will look at solutions to reduce global imbalances, to develop the sustainable use of resources, and to improve the transparency of financial and capital markets. The G8 also will be looking at the role of emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India in tackling these problems.

African development and climate change also will be hot topics of discussion.

• Enforce foreign anti-bribery laws: To show that they are serious about good governance, G8 countries must do a better job of enforcing transnational anti-bribery laws that exist under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention. This is especially urgent in Canada, Italy, Japan and the UK, where enforcement remains negligible. Russia, not yet a party to the OECD Convention, should become one promptly, and in the interim, look to the UN Convention against Corruption for guidance on anti-bribery prohibitions.
  Not only must these laws be enforced, but they must be vigorously monitored as well, and G8 countries should ensure that they dedicate sufficient funding. Governments should also increase their outreach to the transnational companies based in their countries to encourage implementation and enforcement of effective anti-bribery programmes.
• Leverage export credit financing to reduce corruption: All G8 Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) should go beyond encouraging their customers to comply with anti-bribery laws, to require full disclosure of information relating to agents and implementation of effective anti-bribery compliance programmes.
• Ratify and implement the UNCAC: The United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) provides a global legal framework to fight corruption. G8 countries that have yet to ratify the UNCAC – Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan – should do so immediately. The G8 should provide technical assistance to developing countries to help implement the Convention. The G8 should assist in creating and funding a robust monitoring mechanism to ensure that implementation moves forward and cooperate in the recovery of stolen assets.
• Promote revenue transparency though the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative: G8 countries should increase their financial support to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and implement safeguards for civil society organisations engaged in monitoring and advocating implementation and progress of revenue transparency. Those G8 countries with substantial energy resources – Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – should set an example for others by implementing EITI in their own countries.
• Increase transparency of financial markets and institutions: The G8 should close loopholes in their national legislation allowing the anonymous transfers of funds to offshore centres; coordinate regulations and information resources for the global tracking of the proceeds of corruption; and strengthen mutual legal assistance and cooperation to ensure that financial centres assist in the responsible repatriation of illicitly acquired assets.

Transparency International national chapters in G8 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – began a process of extensive consultation early this year to develop recommendations for the G8 on transparency, accountability and integrity. These recommendations were communicated through a series of letters to G8 sherpas and ministers in advance of G8 preparatory meetings.

The first round of recommendations were sent to the German G8 Sherpa, Bernd Pfaffenbach, and included: Stopping foreign bribery, strengthening global governance, harnessing resources for development, and a call for the G8 to report on progress made on past commitments.

More targeted messages went out to Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Peer Steinbrück, the German Federal Minister for Finance.

TI called on Minister Wieczorek-Zeul to use the G8 Development Ministers Meeting to reinforce anti-corruption measures such as mutual accountability, ratification and enforcement of the UNCAC, ensuring sufficient funding for the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and its peer review process, and urging G8 participation in the EITI.

Minister Steinbrück was urged to promote the integrity of financial markets and to stem the supply side of corruption, mainly through increased enforcement of the OECD Convention.

TI’s national chapters in G8 countries used these letters as templates for messages to their own governments and ministers.

Transparency International’s recommendations for the G8 and its assessment of performance on fighting corruption were explained in detail in its G8 Progress Report, published on 5 June 2007.

The report was the product of consultations among TI’s G8 national chapters, who each contributed an analysis of their country’s achievements.

The report cast a critical eye on the promises the Group of Eight had made since 2002 and assessed how much progress had been made while laying out recommendations for next steps. Its conclusion was that rhetoric far exceeded action, casting doubt on the political will of G8 countries to fight corruption and standing in stark contrast to the express commitment to fight global poverty. If the countries of the G8 are serious about a more equitable future for the world’s poor, then action must be stepped-up.

G8 summits have often been the setting of clashes between anti-globalisation protesters and the host country’s police. In 2001, the G8 summit in the Italian city of Genoa was overshadowed by violent demonstrations between the police and radical protesters resulting in one fatality.

Since Genoa, precautionary measures have been taken to prevent a repetition of such tragedy. From 2002 onwards, summits have generally been held in remote areas that can be easily secured, such as Kananaskis in Canada and Gleneagles in Scotland. Russia went one step further. After the 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia was accused by democracy activists of cracking down on independent and foreign media and civil society, and containing most protest activity.

Fearing a repetition of the violence in Genoa, demonstrations near the fence have been banned.

In the weekend preceding the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm, however, an estimated 25,000 protesters congregated in the nearby port city of Rostock. Despite persistent calls by protest organisers for peaceful action, more than 400 police officers and 520 demonstrators were injured, and 63 people were incarcerated.

Calm also prevailed at this year’s G8 anti-poverty march in London, which called for the G8 countries to honour past pledges.

At times criticised for its closed-door decision making, the G8 has, in recent years, initiated a dialogue with civil society to shore up its legitimacy and credibility. In the last two years, TI’s Chair, Huguette Labelle, has meet with both Russian president Putin (TI press release) in 2006 ahead of the St. Petersburg Summit, and in May 2007 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (TI press release) ahead of Heiligendamm.

Last July, Labelle and other civil society leaders met with Putin on the heels of the Moscow Civil G8 forum to make recommendations on what he and the Group of Eight industrialised nations can do to, inter alia, promote accountability and fight corruption. The group, which included the leaders of Oxfam, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, CIVICUS and Amnesty International, presented Putin with a communiqué on issues of governance, energy security and climate change, human security, poverty and development, and civil society freedom and accountability.

The Civil G8 was an initiative led by Ella Pamfilova, Chair of the Russian Human Rights Commission, to promote an exchange among civil society organisations and between civil society and the G8 during the Russian presidency in 2006.

In April of 2007, TI representatives attended a meeting of the G8-NGO platform in Bonn, where members of German and international civil society came together to debate a number of issues from fighting infectious diseases to extractive industries transparency. The findings of the civil society deliberations were presented to the sherpas of the G8 countries in the closing plenary session.

In May of 2007, Labelle attended a meeting of civil society leaders in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, where recommendations on the fight against corruption, climate change, human rights and the fight against poverty were presented.

• The official home page of the German G8 Presidency:
  www.g-8.de/Webs/G8/EN/Homepage/home.html
• Civil G8 platform, providing an overview of ‘alternative’ events around the summit:
  www.g8-germany.info/english/events.htm
• Canada’s University of Toronto G8 Research and Information Centre provides information on past summits and current issues:
  www.g8.utoronto.ca
• Wikipedia entry on the G8:
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8
• The BBC’s profile of the G8:
  news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/3777557.stm
• The Financial Time’s in depth coverage of the G8 summit 2007:
  www.ft.com/indepth/summit2007
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• Indymedia’s ‘alternative’ coverage of the G8 summit 2007:
  www.indymedia.org.uk