Photo: CAC
Corruption has been a major roadblock to a meaningful and sustaining democracy in Thailand. According to CIPE Asia Regional Director John Morrell, “corruption was the stated justification for the military’s ousting of an elected government in 2006 and the Supreme Court’s sacking of another elected government in 2008.” In Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perception Index, Thailand was ranked 85th out of 175 countries.
To address this corruption issue in Thailand within the local context, CIPE partnered with Thai Institute of Directors (IOD) and launched a Collective Action Against Corruption initiative in 2010. This project is unique in that CIPE and IOD aim to combating the supply side corruption in the private sector through a coalition of member companies, established in this initiative, which vowed to adhere to the highest standards of corporate governance, compliance, and anti-bribery protocols.
To date, the coalition has 520 members, 292 of which are listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET)—representing more than 42 percent of all listed companies and over 50 percent of the stock market’s total market capitalization.
In the latest phase of this initiative, a major part of IOD’s outreach strategy—the annual Collective Action Against Corruption Conference was held in October 2015 in Bangkok. The theme of this year’s conference was “Anti-Corruption in Thailand: Sustaining the Momentum.” There were approximately 270 participants, which included executives of companies that are in IOD’s coalition, government officials, representatives of various international donors, and numerous media outlets.
This full-day event incorporated a number of panel discussions and keynote presentations led by various subject-matter experts. CIPE Asia Regional Director John Morrell spoke about the anti-corruption trends in Asia and private sector approaches to addressing the issue in a panel discussion on “Overcoming Anti-Corruption Challenges: International Experiences.”
Combating corruption is CIPE’s long-term strategic aim in Thailand because mature democracy cannot coexist with widespread corruption. With a growing number of companies committed to proactively reducing corruption-related risks, this CIPE-IOD initiative is changing deep-rooted norms and business practices in Thailand.
Michelle Chen is Assistant Program Officer for Asia at CIPE.