Fighting Corruption

Earlier this week Transparency International issued its 2008 country rankings on corruption. Denmark came out as the most non-corrupt country in the World. The people behind the Jordanian citizens Journalism site www.7iber.com approached me in this regard and invited me to write an article on the successful Danish experience in avoiding corruption. Click here to read the article and comments.

UPDATE October: The article was picked up and reproduced by Global Voices and worldfocus.org. For easy reference I have posted the article below.

Fighting Corruption In Jordan: Learning From The Danish Experience
Sep 25, 2008 | Published under: Dailies, Opinion, Politics

Written By: HE Thomas Fouad Lund-Sørensen, Ambassador of Denmark

Transparency International (TI) publicized its anti-corruption index for 2008 this week. The eight most non-corrupt countries have something in common. They are small-sized economies with no natural resources. They are all heavily dependent on their ability to trade and engage with foreign countries. And they are all well established Rule-of-Law societies. Why do I say that? Because this is where Jordan should be and not further down the rankings.

Let’s have a look at my own country, Denmark that once again topped the ranking of non-corrupt countries. There are a number of reasons for that. First, and foremost, the Danish society has through the years developed a widespread culture against corruption. Starting in the 17th century, corruption was made a criminal offense and enforced rather strictly. The next major achievement came during the 1920’s where a code on public servants that guaranteed a reasonable salary, job security and pension in particular for the lower echelons was adopted, and corruption laws came under review. Today, it is morally and utterly unacceptable to provide or receive anything that could resemble corruption. An example – trying to bribe your way out of a speeding ticket or into a construction permit will certainly get you an extra criminal charge on your neck.

The same goes for nepotism and favoritism. We have very clear rules of “competence to act” in all public affairs and decisions. If you have a family, economic or private relationship with a “client” when dealing with a public decision you will have to declare yourself incompetent in that specific matter. And people do that because they don’t want to be blamed afterwards for having taken an unjustified decision that will be contested. And it actually works both ways. A “client” does not want to engage in a decision process that might taint an eventual favorable outcome.

Another example – at university I had to pass a test in a course where my beloved father was the professor. He declared himself incompetent in marking my paper so another professor was called in. I was happy about this for two reasons. First, had he given me high marks people would have thought “Ahhh” that’s because of his dad. Second, had he been the one to mark my work, my marks would definitely have been low in order for him to avoid being accused of nepotism. This self-restraint is in the backbone of every public employee.

Many of these phenomena evolve around the concept of a Rule-of-Law state. This means that ideally, every decision taken by any public authority is taken according to a set of well-established rules and regulations commonly known and publicly accessible. Every decision is taken on an equal basis meaning the same type of request equals the same type of decision – and most often; such a decision is appealable to a higher authority. Naturally, in such a setting, it is typically well known which public employee or authority was responsible for making the decision, to say nothing of the fact that a decision taken on the basis of corruption tends to stick out. So obviously, transparency plays an important part in fighting corruption.

While corruption doesn’t like transparency, the press does. Access to information has proven to be the tool to uproot the few cases of corruption we do see from time to time. Any citizen, including a journalist, has a law-given right to have access to documents on public affairs. This is a very efficient way of controlling the Government and the public administration.

Political corruption, which TI describes as one of the most damaging forms of corruption, such as vote-buying or influence-selling, is almost unheard of in my country. These are just a few examples of why corruption has a hard time surviving in Denmark.

Where does this leave Jordan? The Kingdom ranked 47 in the TI ranking, which is actually not that bad, and a 10% improvement compared to last year’s ranking. I have not firsthand witnessed any kind of corruption in Jordan, but I have, like everyone in the country, heard of possible incidents either directly or from press and reports. And I don’t think Jordan has a choice. Like the other small resource-deprived countries on top of the list there is only one way to become a wealthy Rule-of-Law country and that is to beat corruption, whether in the form of political vote-buying or in its domestic form of wasta.

In the end, it boils down to a change in culture towards rewarding merits instead of socioeconomic ties, and creating more transparency in public affairs. Some serious steps have been taken already, a number of them with Danish support. The establishment of the anti-corruption commission, training of law enforcement and the ombudsman bureau are examples but the real long term hurdle will be changing the culture of favoritism.

Looking at that list of rankings it seems that small, is beautiful and Jordan is small so why can’t it be beautiful too? Like everyone else, I would like to see Jordan at the top of the list, and it is doable.

For instruments to fight corruption the Danish Foreign Ministry has, together with other countries, developed a toolbox for doing business without corruption that I recommend you have a look at. It had 500.000 hits last month so corruption is high on the agenda everywhere.

Terror hits Islamabad (and Denmark) again

Once more Pakistan’s capital Islamabad was the scene of an awful and despicable terrorist attack - this time against The Marriott Hotel. And once again the large majority of casualties were local, hard working most probably Muslim Pakistanis. We at the Embassy mourn their loss. But also a number of foreigners were hit by the terrible blast and subsequent fire. A fellow colleague the Czech ambassador to Pakistan lost his life together with a Vietnamese and two Americans according to media reports.

Three Danish diplomats were living at the hotel. One was unhurt, one suffered injuries that were treated at the hospital and one diplomat is missing. We hope for the best and fear the worst for him.

The new Pakistani president Zardari has declared that he will liberate Pakistan for the cancer that terrorism constitutes in his country.

Somehow terrorism must lose whatever little popular support it have in order to remove that cancer. As seen by the attack on The Marriott Hotel the victims are mostly local civilians and hardly the main target for the terrorists. In this respect a recent survey - published yesterday in Jordan Times - is promising but also shows that there is still a long road to travel.

As stated in JT:

“Jordanian Muslims’ support for Osama Ben Laden has dropped dramatically this year, with only 19 per cent expressing confidence in Al Qaeda leader, compared to 61 per cent three years ago…”.

Also according to the survey around 25% of Jordanians (this is not the good news) supports suicide attacks – the positive side to it is that it is 18 %-points less than five years ago.

As political analyst Mohammad Abu Rumman states, there are many reasons behind the decline in Al Qaeda’s popularity.

“The movement’s standing greatly decreased after the Amman bombings. There is more awareness as well in the Arab world of Al Qaeda’s actions and many reject its operations that target civilians. Other Sunni resistance factions have initiated media and political campaigns against Al Qaeda, and that affects them”.

The last sentence about active campaigns is very important.

So in the middle of our grief there is hope that support to terrorists and of terrorism is on the decline – albeit not nearly fast enough.

A Question of Society?

A remarkable story has been the centre of a heated and intense discussion on Jordanian blogs the last week or so. Halfway through Ramadan one of the more popular cafes and restaurants “Books@Cafe” was closed down. It is not totally clear whether the reason for the closure was food safety the fact that the restaurant was selling alcohol during Ramadan. Some bloggers suggest that this is more a political than a religious matter and that “values” tends to play a still more important role in Jordanian society. Others, that it is a mere question of corruption. It seems that the Books@Cafe incident was not an isolated incident, according to both bloggers and Café-owners.

This story has led a much bigger than normal number of Jordanian bloggers and readers to participate – some rather emotionally – in the debate, so it has somehow struck a chord within the community. But with all due respect it has also been a rather elitist debate. Until today – strangely enough – written press has not picked on the subject. But that seems to change. Today Jordan Times made the story hit the Front page and on the op-ed page Nermeen Murad wrote a very articulate opinion on the issue. It will be interesting to see if the articles in JT make the Arabic speaking press pick up on this, so the debate can be broadened out to all groups in the society.

As you will see from the articles and the blogs this case is not a simple one and it deserves to be debated outside the blogosphere. It is also for the time being mostly a one sided discussion where we only know the arguments from those that have been hit by restrictions. That makes it hard to judge on what really took place and for what reason.

So for the time being my take will be a little bit simplistic and bearing in mind the different cultures and norms that is distinctive to each and every country. First of all, Jordan is considered a rule-of-law society which implies transparency, accountability, justice and equality in front of the Law. There is a very distinctive difference between a rule-of-law society and a society ruled with law. Second, if the situation is as described by the bloggers why are the measures introduced (or enforced) this year and not last year or the year before? What has changed?

For the broader discussion visit the citizens journalism site.

For other bloggers take at the story visit The Arab Observer, The Black Iris, Ali’s blog or Global Voices online. UPDATE: For statements from the  Jordan Restaurant Association read this.

Living a Green Dream on Danish Island

As you all know we at the Embassy work hard on helping green energy take off in Jordan. For economic and security reasons green energy is a particular good idea for Jordan. There is a great but yet unexploited local potential for this - and this we gotta change.

So to my great pleasure I discovered a long story in Jordan Times today about some of the lessons we have learned in Denmark about renewable energy. The article is not on JT’s website, but for your information I have reproduced it below with the help of this site.

Basically, a small Danish Island with 4000 inhabitants have decided to go carbon neutral with the help of wind, sun, and bio-fuel. And at the same time created new jobs…of course this can and must be reproduced elsewhere on the Globe. They have gone far beyond official Danish and EU targets for cutting emissions and their success have become quite a story in the international press – hence the article in JT. The New Yorker did a serious if not rather scary piece on it as well.

It shows that with a bit of private initiative and ingenuity you can achieve amazing results. And for those seeking further information the small island community have made their own elaborate homepage called the Samso Energy Academy. Have a look at it.

One worrying thing though – the demand for wind turbines is so high and still rising that one have to plan quickly and move fast in order to secure delivery within a reasonable time span. 

Here goes the article:

Living the Green Dream
Martin Burlund of Reuters visits the Danish community that has become self sufficient in renewable power.

Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on the windswept Danish island of Samso the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self sufficiency in renewable power.

It’s a challenge their government set the island in 1997 and which has been largely funded through local taxes and individual investments, in one of Europe’s wealthier countries – Denmark’s GDP per capita was more than $35,000 in 2006.

“The windswept Danish island of Samso has achieved a decade-long target of self sufficiency in renewable power.”Now the islanders have shown that where there’s a wind, there’s a way – and in the process mounted a global showcase for one of the prize export industries in Denmark, which is home to the world’s largest wind-turbine maker, Vestas.

“I often use Samso as an ambitious example of how to cope with the big challenges that our own country faces in the race to become independent of fossil fuels,” said Randy Udall, a US energy sustainability activist.

Based in Colorado, Udall imports ideas from all over the world on how to make communities self-sufficient in energy.

Sustainable Samso

On Samso, which is home to just 4,000 people, wind turbines tower over green fields and rise from the choppy waters of the North Sea; rye, wheat and straw are used to heat the one-storey buildings and solar panels have sprouted on roof tiles.

“I think Samso has set an agenda for the climate issue and, alongside other projects, it has shown that this is possible,” said Soren Hermansen, director of the Samso Energy Academy and one of the project’s main drivers.

Without any construction subsidies, the islanders have invested kr400m ($84.35m) – an average of more than $20,000 a citizen.

“We invested $84m – a big number for 4,000 people – but in reality it’s not a whole lot,” said islander Jorgen Tranberg, who describes himself as a milk producer who ‘owns a couple of turbines’.

In Denmark’s geographical centre, Samso used to be best known for its early-season potatoes. Now 11 onshore wind turbines cover all local electricity demands and 70% of the island’s homes are heated using biofuels or solar power.

While some homes have opted to stay with oil furnaces for heating and cars are still common, the island has become carbon neutral by erecting ten offshore wind turbines, in addition to the 11 on land, to offset the automobiles’ carbon emissions and those from the 30% of homes still heated by oil.

“We even produce far more electricity than we need,” said Hermansen. The surplus is sold to the mainland.

To promote wind power, the Danish government subsidises wind energy production to the tune of about 20% to 50% of the final cost of power to consumers.

Beating the EU

The islanders’ efforts dovetail with European Union policy but have gone much further than official targets.

“Wind turbines tower over green fields and rise from the choppy waters of the North Sea.”The European Union has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth by 2020 from 1990 levels, and to get one fifth of all energy demand from renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass.

Some islanders say the renewable project has been helped by developing as a grassroots venture rather than having targets and regulations imposed by a bureaucracy. “First of all you need determination and can-do spirit, and then you need an economic foundation to make it possible,” Tranberg told Reuters in the cockpit of his wind turbine.

Many islanders own shares in the onshore wind turbines, an investment that they originally hoped would pay back after eight to ten years. A stronger-than-expected wind – blowing 10%-15% more force than expected into the blades – cut the payback time and now Samso Energy Academy says a share in a wind turbine generates about kr500 a year in income.

“We held a lot of meetings, but we managed to do it because we hired good experts and trusted our own instinct,” said Tranberg, who bought one early turbine himself and then a second offshore one with a partner.

“What is intriguing about Samso is their ability to make this project a sport for them, to show that this can be done,” said the US activist Udall.

There have been secondary benefits for islanders too: cement was needed to build the turbines’ foundations, solar panels had to be installed and homeowners began to demand better insulation. This gave blacksmiths and cement workers a reason to stay on the island at a time of economic slowdown: five families moved in to take on new ‘renewable energy’ jobs.

Overseas interest

The project has attracted great overseas interest: ambassadors representing foreign countries in Denmark, on a recent trip to see Samso’s small towns driven by solar panel farms and wind power, were impressed.

“Without any construction subsidies, the islanders have invested kr400m ($84.35m) – an average of more than $20,000 a citizen.”"What we’re trying to learn is how to do it, how to achieve that level of energy renewable self-sufficiency that Samso and the community here have achieved,” said Frederica Gregory, Canadian ambassador to Denmark.

It has also helped draw attention to Denmark’s wind-power prowess. Jutland-based Vestas last week reported a 67% rise in its order backlog to over €7bn, and estimated wind power will account for at least 10% of global power output in 2020, from a little over 1% today.

This translates into annual growth of between 20% and 25% over the next 12 years.

“Using resources [that are] locally available and producing it in a way that is self-sufficient for the island while exporting green energy is something many nations would love to see,” said Slovenian ambassador Rudolf Gabrovec.

The First Year

One year ago the first Danish embassy in Jordan opened up its doors. It has been a rather tumultuous 12 months. The first six months with a lot of practical works to do on the premises, an entirely new staff to integrate and not least a whole new country and a lot of new friends and contacts to get to know. That was followed by six months of rather intensive diplomatic work as you probably know.

We at the embassy have learned a lot about Jordan and the way the Jordanian society interacts with foreign and domestic issues – the latter very much determining the reaction to the former kind of issues. There is still a lot to learn and discover for us. The Jordanian society is not easy to understand, but with the help of good, open and sincere Jordanian friends and colleagues we feel that we have come a good part of the way.

It has also been a very instructive year for me personally. I continue to be impressed by the openness and warmth that I am met with by people in Jordan – notwithstanding whatever problematic issue I want to bring up with them. I move in many different circles but one of the most enlightening ones has been the Jordanian blogosphere – where you can listen to and participate in discussions that for different reasons have not yet reached a wider audience. I hope to see this phenomenon grow rapidly in Jordan – and I am convinced that the audience will grow as well. I know for a fact that it is already of a very high quality and I think that the impact of Jordanian blogs is higher than normally believed.

Looking into the year ahead for the embassy we will focus on issues where we as Danes and representatives of Denmark can try and do a difference. One obvious area of interest will be energy and environment where Jordan is faced with some of the challenges that we to a certain degree have overcome in the past. There has been a very healthy debate on (new) energy sources going on in Jordan during spring. I hope this debate will continue in spite of decreasing oil prices and that the push for more self reliance on local energy resources will not fade away. Who knows where the price of oil will be in 12 months time?

Another area that will be in our focus is the development of the Danish-Jordanian partnership program that I have referred to previously. I am happy to announce that the embassy now have a full-time dedicated program coordinator to help managing and not least develop this program. We have a variety of priority areas but if I should point to one that have my particular interest it would be media training and new media. But any ideas and suggestions on new projects within the overall framework of the partnership program are always welcome at the embassy.

Well, it is good to be back in Jordan – among friends and with nice weather – I apologise for not having being able to update my blog during my stay out of Jordan.

Ramadan Mubarak…..