national anti-corruption directorate, with a view to creating a new national office of governmental ethics. The OAS experience of civil society inclusion in anti-corruption work highlights the importance of listening to non-governmental voices that are able to penetrate official rhetoric in assessing the
state of corruption. The UNDP has also taken some steps in engaging civil society organisations in the effort to promote public integrity and transparency, though its Foro Panama 2020, a forum for the government, political parties and civil society to debate public policies until 2020. Angélica Maytín Justiniani (TI Panama)
Further reading Marianela Armijo, ‘Investigación diagnóstica de la administración pública panameña y lineamientos de acción’ (Diagnostic investigation of Panama’s public administration and lines of action) (Procuraduría de la administración del Ministerio Público de Panamá, 2004), www.procuraduria-admon.gob.pa/ Linette Landau, ‘Revisión de legislación anticorrupción, Panamá’ (Review of Panama’s anti-corruption legislation) www.respondanet.com/spanish/anti_corrupcion/legislacion/ revision_legislacion_el_panama.pdf Rafael Pérez Jaramillo, Índice de impunidad (Impunity Index) (Panama: Editorial Libertad Ciudadana, 2003) La Prensa (Panama), Las caras de la corrupción (The faces of corruption) special reports 14, 2004, www.prensa.com/especial/2004/corrupcion/corrupcion.htm TI Panama: www.libertadciudadana.org Note 1. Each legislator has two substitutes.
Peru Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 score: 3.5 (67th out of 146 countries) Conventions: OAS Inter-American Convention against Corruption (ratified June 1997) UN Convention against Corruption (signed December 2003; not yet ratified) UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (ratified January 2002) Legal and institutional changes • A framework law for a participatory budget, adopted in August 2003, is aimed at increasing transparency and citizens’ participation in budgetary decision-making in the municipalities and the newly created regions. Civil society groups had pushed for the law which, while a positive step, is stated in very general terms and lacks clarity about how civil society organisations are to be identified and encouraged to participate.
Country reports PERU
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