53. Patrick Alley on co-founding Global Witness, working on anti-corruption and environmentalism

KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

We are excited to welcome Patrick Alley, the co-founder of Global Witness for an interview on his work that combines anti-corruption and pro-environmentalism. Patrick takes us back to the beginnings of Global Witness and outlines how, while working as an environmentalist in Cambodia, corruption became a major obstacle to achieve the primary environmental goals. He uses the famous BSGR scandal (see more info in the links) to describe how Global Witness works, how they collaborate with local partner organizations as well as with international powerhouses. Matthew and Patrick discuss the important role of banks in facilitating global corruption, such as in the Obiang case (see previous episode with Robert Manzanares). Patrick describes how the coalition of Publish What you Pay and the The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative came about, why having partners from the private sector is instrumental to achieving anti-corruption goals and how his work aligns with that of our previous guest, Gary Kalman. Links and References BSGR scandal: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/25/beny-steinmetz-settles-dispute-guinea-iron-ore-simandou Obiang case: https://soundcloud.com/kickback-gap/32-robert-manzanares-on-leading-the-obiang-investigation-asset-recovery-a-michael-jackson-glove Publish What You Pay: https://www.pwyp.org/ The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative: https://eiti.org/ Previous episodes with Gary Kalman: https://soundcloud.com/kickback-gap/48gary-kalman-on-the-corporate-transparency-act-the-corruption-perception-index-score-in-the-usa https://soundcloud.com/kickback-gap/24-gary-kalman-on-beneficial-ownership-his-vision-for-transparency-international-usa