Inside Transparency International: Strategies to Tackle Global Corruption

In this episode of Integrity Insights, our host Filip Brokes sits down with Daniel Eriksson, the former CEO of Transparency International, for an in-depth discussion on the global fight against corruption. Daniel shares his career journey, his transition from a technology and security background to leading one of the most recognized anti-corruption organizations in the world, and the core mission of Transparency International (TI).

Key Topics Covered:

• Daniel’s Career Path to CEO of Transparency International
  • From IT and cybersecurity to humanitarian work and global governance.
  • Experiences working across 12 different countries.
• Transparency International’s Global Mission
  • Beyond the widely known Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
  • The SHE strategy: Making it harder to Steal, Hide, and Enjoy illicit wealth.
  • TI’s seven key strategic pillars:
    1. Protecting public resources (e.g., public procurement and environmental protections).
    2. Combating illicit financial flows and money laundering.
    3. Strengthening political integrity and fighting election corruption.
    4. Ensuring business integrity and responsible corporate governance.
    5. Ending impunity by holding corrupt actors accountable.
    6. Defending civic space and supporting whistleblowers.
    7. Engaging youth and women as key drivers of change.
• Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)
  • How it’s measured: 13 data sources normalized into a composite index.
  • Why it’s a perception-based ranking and its global influence.
  • Limitations of the CPI and misconceptions about its interpretation.
  • Pushback from governments unhappy with their rankings.
• Global Trends in Corruption
  • Ukraine’s rapid progress in fighting corruption post-2014.
  • The erosion of democracy in regions like Georgia.
  • The role of Western nations in enabling corruption through financial systems.
  • Sweden and other Nordic countries: High CPI rankings but significant private-sector corruption.
• Challenges and Future of Anti-Corruption Efforts
  • How democratic erosion fuels corruption.
  • TI’s work with investigative journalists, law enforcement, and corporate entities.
  • The importance of youth engagement and grassroots movements.
• Final Reflections as Daniel’s Mandate Comes to an End
  • Reflections on leading Transparency International through the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical crises, and increasing global corruption challenges.
  • The urgent need for renewed energy and passion in the fight against corruption.
  • Encouragement for listeners, especially young people, to engage in anti-corruption efforts and advocacy.

Resources & Links:

• Transparency International Website: www.transparency.org
• Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) Data: CPI Report
• More on anti-corruption strategies: TI Research

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Closing Thought from Daniel:
“All is not lost, but we need much stronger determination and energy in the fight against corruption. I encourage everyone, particularly youth, to educate themselves on this topic and take action where they can. It is central to b

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Transcript

Daniel, thanks for coming into podcast. Thanks for having me, Philip. It's a pleasure. Uh, so let's, let's start by, uh, kind of explaining to our listeners how does one become the, the COO of Transparency International. Uh, what, what has your career journey been like? Oh, it's, it's a very complicated carrier journey, is probably a subject of a separate, uh, podcast.

But, uh, I've been with, uh, TI for six years now. The first year I was, uh, head of technology working on, uh, the regular IT infrastructure, but also on, uh, topics like, uh, blockchain, cryptocurrency, uh, AI and so forth. And, uh. I was with the organization for one year and, and, and, uh, the, my, uh, preceding CEO left and um, I got an opportunity to step up.

So I did. And before you joined Transparent International, I, as far as I could see, you were mostly like in like technical roles and with like international organizations, right. Yeah, I would, I would say that I've been working in, in the intersect of, uh, technology security and, uh, innovation, you, you could call it, or humanitarian operations.

Uh, most recently I was with a pharma company, an oncological research company in, in, uh, Sweden, uh, for three years. But now in Germany, Germany is my 12th country of residents, and I've been working with the Swedish government, uh, the un, the eu, the US government. Uh, in, in a number of countries around the world.

Within those, that combination of those three topics that I mentioned, uh, in, in various shapes and forms. And you, when you started with Transparent Transparency International, you moved to, you, you moved to Berlin for the, for the role, correct? Correct. So we moved, uh, we worked, or I lived three years in, in Sweden.

Uh, and then we moved to, uh, Berlin, Berlin for this, uh, opportunity. And Berlin is also where, as far as I understand, the sort of like the global headquarters of Transparency International is, is, is based, that's correct. Transparency International was founded here, or technically it was, uh, it was founded elsewhere, but it was quickly set up here.

Uh, and, and we have our secretariat. As a movement that is our headquarters. Uh, although we are a movement, so the, the secretariat does not have powers over the members, but, uh, we are based here servicing the movement out of, uh, Berlin. Mm-hmm. And I think to, to, to, to start with, uh, we, we, we discussed this a little earlier.

You mentioned that, uh, um, obviously I think certainly most of our listeners, or probably all of our listeners are familiar, at least with the. Uh, corruption per Perception Index of Transparency International. Uh, as far as I remember, you mentioned that you get 80% of your kind of website traffic, your website traffic from, uh, from, from that.

But obviously the organization does way more, way more than that. So maybe it'll be a good idea to start with kind of you, uh, outlining the. The, the, the bigger picture of what the organization does globally. Yeah, you're you're absolutely right, Philip, that, uh, what we are known for is the CPI and, and we do get the vast amount of attention that we generate in a year is the month after we release the CPI, which is less than two weeks into the future.

From today. Uh, so I can recommend people having an eye on that, but you're also correct, uh, in that, uh, we do so much more than the CPI. The CPI is actually of. Very small operation. We have one member of staff working part-time on the CPI throughout the course of the year, whereas just here in Berlin, we have over 150 staff members and, and globally, if we include volunteers and, and uh, staff, there's well over 2000 close to 3000 individuals in the movement to, to try to make a, a, a, a sort of concise summary.

Of what we do. We have a global strategy leading up to 2030 that have seven pillars in it, and that. Strategy was informed by our desire to, to fight corruption. The CPI is about measuring perceived corruption in the public sector, which is a very niche thing to do. What we want to do as an organization is to eradicate corruption worldwide, and, uh, there's many aspects of doing that.

One first has to realize that we do not believe in going after corrupt people and getting them in jail. That's, that's part of it, but a minor part of it because if you. Take one corrupt person, put 'em in jail and put somebody else in their role. They too are going to get corrupt. The, the, the, uh, the trick is to change the systems and, uh, we, we have this acronym that we go by, which we call, she, we want to make it harder for the corrupt to steal the money in the first place.

And we want to make it harder for them to hide the money after that. And we want to make it harder for them to enjoy the money as a third and, and that. Small acronym has informed our strategy in the seven pillars underneath it. Um, would, would you want me to, uh, go through quickly the strategy or Sure, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. So the seven pillars, the first one, uh, is about protecting the, uh, the public's property that is about public procurement. It's about the environment, climate change, uh, and everything that that goes into that. Public procurement is the most frequent source of corruption. The, the s and this she, uh, acronym.

And, uh, a lot of our traditional focus, uh, goes into that uh, area. Uh, the second pillar is about illicit financial flows, money laundering, uh, all those aspects of hiding the money that is required for the corrupt to actually be able to convert those stolen pre proceeds into something that they can use somewhere.

Uh, over the last three to five years, the bulk of our work has been in that area and, and successes as well globally in, in introducing, lobbying and advocating for new LE legislation and getting that. Introduced all over the world. Uh, the third one is political integrity because we see that this dirty money quite frequently gets itself, uh, into the, the political sector, into elections.

The buying influence from public officials that we are seeing in Europe, in, in, in European Parliament, but all over the world that this is a growing trend. Uh, of bribery. The fourth pillar is business integrity on and at ESG, uh, environment, society and Governance, where we are trying to get big corporations around the world responsible, aware and responsible about corruption in their supply chains and in their operations.

Uh, this has really taken off over the last three years and, and we have great deal of interest. From corporations where in the past we had to go around and knock doors. Now we actually get big corporations contacting our chapters in countries or ourselves, uh, to, to, to help them, uh, in their endeavor. Uh, the, uh, fifth pillar is about ending impunity, um, that is about working with law enforcement to help them hold them accountable to, to what they're doing, but also to help them in, in ensuring that they are, they have the laws and the, uh, resources required.

Uh, to, to go after the corrupt, but but also about asset recovery. So in the cases where one actually gets to a corrupt actor to try to work to ensure that the assets that they stole gets recovered and goes back to the country that it was stolen from. Now the last two pillars are, are new for this strategy and, and new for ti and, and, and something that we, uh.

Somewhat struggled with, but we're getting good at unfortunately. And the first, the sixth one is civic space. That we are working to ensure that there is space for us as an organization to advocate that we can deal with our operations in countries where we are being shut down or where civic society organizations like ourselves are not wanted.

And, and, uh, that is a really, really hot topic in the last three, four years. We've had to close down more chapters and evacuate more staff than we've had to do in our 30 years of existence. And this is a trend that is rapidly increasing around the world, around the whole world. And then the last, uh, pillar.

Is that when we do see that the civic space is disappearing, um, we cannot use our traditional means of operating, which is to, to advocate towards lawmakers and po uh, policy makers in government on why it's beneficial for them to fight corruption. Because corruption often becomes a central part of government, per se, in in many countries where we have democratic erosion and the rise of authoritarianism.

In those cases, we've seen that it's much better to work with youth and with women to inform them, um, what they can do because frankly speaking, they don't take shit. They, they, they want to change and challenge the systems. Uh, they have nothing to benefit from, from corruption themselves. And, and they can be that engine for change when we see that the decision makers and the politicians no longer are.

So those are the seven areas where we work. Through our more than 100, uh, 115 offices around the world, uh, day on, day in, day in and day out, trying to make, uh, a difference. Wow. That's, uh, that's really, uh, fascinating. So way, way bigger than, uh, just the CPI and, uh, what I, what I found interesting. I would like to follow up with, you said that.

Over the, over the course of the last three or four years, more chapters have been closed and over the, the entire history of the organization. Is that, has it been limited to, uh, some specific regions of the world, or where have you been seeing this and, and, and why? Oh. Uh, so far in, in, in Europe it's only been Russia, if you count Russia to Europe.

Uh, but we've, we've seen strong trends, uh, in, in Asia for instance, or there's obvious ones like, uh, Myanmar and uh, and uh, Afghanistan where we're struggling, but there's others as well. Where, where the governments simply do not want us in, in place where we pushed out. Like, like China is another example.

And you mentioned that you partner with law enforcements, for example, or now increasingly with, uh, like private companies to also, uh, partner with some other organizations. I think I, I saw somewhere on your website, like, or like organization, like journalist, uh, organizations such as O-C-C-R-P. Uh. Is that?

Yep, that is, uh, I, I forgot to mention that under our fifth pillar, we work with investigative journalists, um, and where they work to uncover stories and uncover cases of corruption. Our interest there is to look at what they uncover and look at how can we take that information and translate that into effective advocacy.

Uh, when they uncover a case of corruption, we can look at, okay. And, and we contribute where we can in, in their efforts to do so. We can look at that case and, and see, okay, how did they achieve the, the she, how did they steal their money? How did they hide it, and how did they enjoy it? And then we can translate that into, uh, proactive efforts that we think that governments or, or multilateral multilateral institutions should take in order to counteract.

Uh, that, those cases so that we, uh, continuously push, uh, governments to be at the cutting edge of the fight against corruption. And this advocacy then takes place on, on a national level so that each chapter then advocates in, in, in its home country or how, how does it work? It's national. Through the chapters it's regional.

Either through chapters or ourselves, and it's global through our ourselves as a secretariat. So we try to do it in a coordinated fashions of all levels of society. And, um, when we, I mean we mentioned the, the CPI, um. Which, as we said, it's not all you do, but it's, uh, it's a, it's, it's an, it's an important part of your work and it's, it's always very interesting for, also for organizations like ours, we are always really interesting, interested in, in the results and like see how the countries rank.

Uh, can we maybe just explain briefly how this works? Because, um, I mean, it's already in the name that it's, it's not. Corruption index. I mean, I, I don't know if there is even a way to measure corruption. You can obviously measure, I guess, on the perception, which is what you do and how do you exactly go about measuring, measuring it?

Yeah. The, the full explanation of how it's done, including the data and, and much of the raw data is available online for anyone who wants to see it. Obviously, we want to be transparent on how we, how we do this. As you mentioned, the, the concept of corruption is inherently difficult to measure because.

Most of it happens out of the limelight and, and, uh, it's hard to define and it's, uh, hard to assess. So that's why our approach, and it has been that approach for as long as the index has been, uh, around which is the longest surviving index on, um, corruption in the world, eh. Uses, uh, sources. We have 13 sources.

So we, we get information from 13 other indices, uh, and we take those, we normalize them. And, and for each country we build a composite, uh, index. Based on that, those sources are chosen to focus in on public sector corruption, meaning, uh, in, in government, um, and it is. Intending to be an index of, of perceived corruption through those sources.

Because once again, hypothetically, how would you objectively measure corruption otherwise? So it it, it's a. It is as close as one ever and as robust as one ever would get to, uh, a corruption index. We have research ongoing and we, we continue to together with allies to try to find other ways of measuring it.

Because the index was developed, uh, almost 30 years ago now for a world that looked very different than it is today. And, and we have intentions to. To refine it as we go forward, but we, at the same time, we want to keep the index as close as possible to the current methodology because it's working and because we know that many institutions like yourself are using this, so we want to have it backwards compatible.

Do you actually, that's, was was another question. Do you actually have an understanding of, uh, the type of organizations or institutions that, that, that use the, this rating and how exactly they use it? I mean, our, our sense is that it's used all over the world by, by everything from the corporate sector to governments, to, to national, uh, institutions.

And I mean, as much as we are really proud that, that the index is so heavily used and, and, uh, seen as a, uh, a pivotal assessment of proceed corruption in a government. One also has to be aware of what it does and how it's calculated and, and its strengths and weaknesses. Uh, for instance, I know in some countries the CPI is used as a key performance indicator for institutions in the country.

Uh, and, and I'm really concerned about that because. Uh, the data that we have, some of that data is, is lagging two years or even more than two years, meaning that for an institution that might have, uh, individual selected on a, on a three or four year mandate, uh, whatever actions they take on day one might actually not show up, uh, as a consequence in the index until two years later.

This is just one example, uh, but there's other examples as well that. Uh, I said that we have 13 indicators. Those 13 indicators are not available for all countries. Some countries only have four, uh, of those indicators. And, uh, those indicators might not be the same from year to year. One might be added and one might be removed, and that, uh, creates instability in, in the indicator that makes it better to look at trends over years rather than locking oneself in to seeing.

Uh, the, the, the index of one year as an absolute fact, but that's something that we communicate with about when, when we release the index for every year. Mm-hmm. I also wonder, do, do you ever like, receive some pushbacks from, you know, certain countries that are not. Happy about the, the, the place where they're ranked.

Does that happen? Definitely, definitely. Every year there, there's quite a lot of that, as a matter of fact. But we, we know that this is not a, a, a subjective assessment for now. We have, this is, as I said, it's, it's a composite index of 13 other in indices. And, uh, it is very robust, as robust as you're ever going to get on, on such a difficult topic.

And that means that we. We, we tend to be quite confident in it, but once again, there can be also governments that are misinterpreting things. There could be a change in the score for a country of one or two points up or down, which usually is statistically insignificant, meaning that. It cannot be static, statistically proven that that, uh, little change is actually a real change.

Uh, but for them, if they use this index to tie to political performance or, or institutional performance, those one or two points up or down is everything and the index get pulled out of its, uh, context. So yeah, it's, uh, it is a challenge, but it's also the best tool that we have. And do, do you have maybe like some examples of, uh, you know, over the, the, the last, the, the years that you've spent at Transparency International?

Some examples of countries that have done the most, uh, traveling, so to speak, in terms of going up or down in the, in the rating? Yeah. I mean the, uh, the, the, the top example in that class is Ukraine. And, uh, uh, from having been on, on virtually, almost at the bottom, uh, of the list in, in Europe to have made huge progress, unheard of progress in, in the little time that we're talking about.

When it comes to the, uh, the topic of fighting corruption and having done so, as I said earlier on by, um, um, really changing systems rather than looking at, um, changing individuals or something like that. This is truly building not only good systems, but innovative systems, systems that are better than we see in most other.

Countries leapfrogging ahead of many other governments in, in the kind of approaches that they have in order to proactively fight corruption. And it's, it, it's a bit, it's obviously very encouraging to see such a positive journey, but it's also, uh, frustrating that many governments in, in the global north don't take and citizens for that sake as well, corruption as seriously as they should do.

And, and that it requires a country like Ukraine having a, a, a knife against their juggler in order for them to realize we need to fight corruption or we will die. Uh, and to realize that fighting corruption is also defending democracy and that sense of urgency, particularly in the day and the geopolitical uncertainties that we live in today, really needs to, to, uh, come to the fore in, um.

In other countries as well, in rich countries in particular. And can we, can we be a, a bit specific, uh, you said that they were, uh, uh, all the way on, pretty much on, on, on bottom. I don't know. When was that? Was that, did you mean like before the, the, the invasion or 2014? Yeah, 2014 Euro. Euro maan. You go back to Euro.

Euro maan, yeah. And so since then, uh, where, where are they kind of ranked? Uh, at the moment? Uh, I don't o obviously, I'm, uh, the, uh, the figures for this year are not open yet. Right. They, so I, I can't refer to them. Uh, uh and I don't have in the back of my mind where they are now. Mm-hmm. But I do know that they, they are one of the biggest risers.

Mm-hmm. If not the biggest riser. Yeah. I can also probably, I can think of, I mean that has probably changed in the, now with the, the last couple of years. But, uh, thinking of the, I dunno, maybe 10 years back, Georgia, I can imagine has done probably a lot of progress as well. Yeah. Georgia South, South Korea is another one.

But if you take Georgia just a minute, because there's an interesting example there. Um. It has been stagnant over the last three, four years. Nothing happening up or down, really. Mm-hmm. And we see a, a constant democratic erosion there with our chapters being attacked. As a matter of fact, last week we had one of our chapter members being beaten up by thugs linked to, to the government, uh, party, uh, in country, uh, with, with our colleagues in country repeatedly being targeted in social media and.

Public media, uh, and, and civic space being really shrinking to the extent that it hardly exists anymore, still on the CPI, they're stagnant. They're staying at the same figure. And that to me is, is a proof that, uh, the CPI, yes, it measures perceived corruption in, in the public, uh, sector. But it doesn't measure really important factors such as civic space, such as the strength of democratic institutions.

Things that we know for certain are prerequisites if you want to fight corruption in the mid to long term. And so I wouldn't say that Georgia is doing well, not at all. On the contrary, uh, Georgia is, is at the current rate doomed to, uh, to go down, uh, because corruption. With the, the, uh, shrinking civic space and the weakening of democratic institutions and the judicial sector is, is corruption is going to increase.

Mm-hmm. And if you go, if you go kind of all the way to. Top, which obviously as you said, we still haven't seen the, the, the, the, the results for this year. But, uh, I can imagine, uh, I can imagine that the countries that we'll probably see all the way on on top will be the, probably the Scandinavian countries, uh, which, uh, um, is usually the case in any sort of.

Rate, similar rankings or even like quality, quality of life rankings. And, uh, uh, so there is this impression, this general impression that those are the, the role model perfect societies. Uh, is that, is that, is that the case or is there something, uh, that uh, that we are maybe not seeing? That should be mentioned there.

There's a lot to be mentioned on that. Uh, once again, the CPI is measuring perceived corruption in the public sector. So, and I'm Swedish, myself, I'm a Swedish national. So, uh, have I ever had to pay a bribe to a policeman or to a teacher, or to a doctor in order to, uh, receive services? Never ever. I never heard of anyone.

Uh, of all my friends that have ever had to do that, it, it doesn't exist. But at the same time, we have, uh, scandals like Danske Bank, like, uh, SE Bank, like, uh, several other banks that have been caught red handed laundering money for corrupt causes. Uh, we have companies like Ericsson. Which I have no relationship, uh, with.

It's just the same as my last name. Uh, that time and time again, get caught in corrupt dealings abroad. Uh, and I mean, if you just look at. Uh, Swedish corporations in general. I haven't done this calculation, but I would very curious to see if you take FCPA, the Foreign Corrupt Prac Practices Act, which is a US legislation, uh, used, uh, to, uh, to, uh, target corruption abroad, which anyone who does any deal involving either a US entity or on US soil, or with US currency.

Anyone can be convicted under that. Uh, corporations get fined when they get convicted, and I'm convinced if, if you would, rather than, uh, looking at the CPI, if you would make a list of the whole world and look at. F-C-P-A-F-C-P-A fines per capita, Sweden would probably top it. So with that definition of which are, which country in the world has the most corrupt private sector, Sweden would likely lead.

Yeah. But that, of course, that's a controversial definition. But let's assume that we would use that definition. And so it's saying that, uh, Sweden and Denmark and Norway or Finland. Are free from corruption, that, that's ludicrous. They're free from corruption in the public sector. Mm-hmm. But the corruption exists more than in many other countries, in other sectors.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's, that's, that's really fascinating. And just, uh, maybe just one, one last question. You mentioned, you mentioned the United States. I don't know if I have the most UpToDate information, but I think I saw that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the US chapter was, uh, closed in 2016 or mm-hmm. 17. Is that, is that correct?

And why, why, why did that happen? So, that was before my time. Okay. Uh, we have, uh, our chapters are legally and financially independent. So, uh, a, a, a chapter or an organization can be applied to be a member of our movement, and we then have an accreditation process that takes many years, uh, in which we look at whether this chapter can actually fit in with our values, with our approaches, with the way that we fundraise.

Are they sufficiently independent from, uh, from the corporate sector, from the government and all these things, and if they pass all of these hurdles, they can become a certified member of the movement. Then every two or so years, there's two to three years. There's a re-accreditation process when we go through the same process again to make sure, are they sufficiently independent?

Is there money? Coming from, uh, a wide enough range of sources for them not to be sort of, uh, reliant on any one single source. Uh, are they advocating for the things that we have said through our strategy and, and our values are aligned, or are they going against us? So what happened in the case of T-I-U-S-A back then was that they did not pass their AC accreditation.

And if I remember correctly, one of the issues there was the lack of funding diversity. Um, meaning that they, they become too reliant on, on the single sources of, of funding, uh, which, which is an issue for us, but. Since a number of years back, we, we have a new chapter in in USA and they're doing really, really well.

Much smaller than we used to have, but it's also growing. And this is something that happens often with other chapters, or was that really like one of a kind. Situation. No, it happens. It happens. You know, as I said, we have a hundred chapters and, uh, the odds of of, of one chapter failing their accreditation.

As much as we try really, really hard to help chapters through this, it does happen. We also have cases, uh, increasing number of cases where chapters get, uh, captured. By the host governments, meaning that the government plays without, without us knowing individuals that are pro-government in the chapter that rise in, in the management of the chapter and up to the boards of the chapter.

And all of a sudden the chapter is more or less, uh uh, yes, an extended arm of the government. And when we detect that. We have to dis discredit, uh, because obviously that's, that's not the idea. Um, and does it happen frequently, maybe once every year or every two years that we, uh, have to dis discredit the chapter?

Mm-hmm. Uh, um, I, I know that I, that I said the last question before, but I just realized that, uh, actually, I should ask you. This is last question since you are, uh, as far as I know, your mandate ends at the, at the end of January. This year, I was just wondering is maybe like the last words, what do you, how, how would you, how, how would you kind of, uh, when you, you know, when you, when you, I don't know, in a couple of years, look back at your time at Transparency International.

How will you, how will you remember that? I mean, I will remember it fondly to begin with. I've been, uh, I've been fortunate and blessed to work with an amazing set of people here in Berlin, but all over the world as well. Never before have I seen so much passion and determination. To, to work on a topic like this, it's, it's amazing.

Uh, I started in my role as CEO the day, no, the week before the, uh, the pandemic lockdown here in Germany. And, uh, uh, the, the, uh, the pandemic followed by the Russian invasion, full invasion of Ukraine. Uh, and, and everything that came out of that in terms of, uh, the conflict in the Middle East, uh, the changing political winds.

Has really set, uh, a central tone in all the work that I have done and, and that ti has has done. Uh, throughout all of that, I'm convinced that fighting corruption through increasing transparency and through better systems that are inherently stronger against the influence of corruption, is critical for the survival of democracy worldwide.

Uh, what I've said to my colleagues in the movement is that there's no doubt that we're winning battle after battle on national, regional, and global levels at the same time. If you look at the overall war on, in the defense of democracy, there's no doubt that we are losing. Uh, that is, that is clear and.

We need to find new ways of working in order to ensure that, uh, the, the, the core elements of, uh, democracy stays in place. The democratic institutions, uh, the integrity systems, the checks and balances of of countries are in place, that there is transparency towards government in order for there to be trust.

Trust that is required for, for true democracies to, to function and all of, on all of these areas. Right now, even though we do, we do win our, our battles and in getting new laws and, and new initiatives in place, the the, the trend is going in the wrong direction. Well, on that note, Daniel, thank you very much, uh, for your time.

I, I, I wish you all the best in your, in your next role. And, uh, yeah, thank you. Thank you for, uh, for, for finding time for this. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Philip. Thank you for, for taking the time to talk to me and I'd also like to, to end on a positive note saying that all is not lost. But we need to have much stronger determination and energy and passion in the fight against corruption.

And I encourage everyone who's listening, particularly youth, to uh, see what they can do in, in volunteering, uh, on this topic or just educating them on, uh, themselves on this topic. It is central for us to, uh, to create a more positive future. So do what you can. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you Daniel. Thank you.