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In theory, asset declarations have great potential as an anti-corruption tool. While a significant number of countries have asset declaration legislation in place, experience shows that there is no standardization across jurisdictions in the forms public officials have to fill in and that existing data on assets of public officials are error prone, unstructured, and isolated. In addition, the data is also captured in closed formats such as pdf files.
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This means that it is often difficult or impossible to cross-check the information captured in asset declarations against other crucial datasets e.g. on company ownership, tax returns, public procurement, real estate ownership etc. Many stakeholders who could be making effective use of asset declaration data, from oversight institutions and law enforcement agencies to media, NGOs and citizens often face an insurmountable challenge when trying to analyse and verify this information, a challenge that becomes even larger in cases of cross-border investigations of corruption. For example, where data is dispersed it becomes very difficult to identify patterns and red flags such as irregular ownership structures. In practice, asset declarations are not delivering on their potential to prevent and detect corrupt networks who are abusing state resources for their own gain.
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Through Open Assets we propose to a) develop a global data standard for asset declarations. This data standard will be conceptualized not only as part of a standard form that public officials should fill in, but also as part of a broader anti-corruption system which allows for extensive cross-referencing with other data sources, as well as the building of infomediary platforms such as online websites and apps that facilitate direct engagement with and analysis of asset declaration data; and b) to identify 1 or 2 jurisdictions interested in piloting the standard, and agreeing on a timeline and scope for the pilot with authorities in those jurisdictions. The goal would be to support authorities in the implementation of the standard, and extracting lessons learned for scaling up to additional countries.