Open for Service

Open for Service began as a simple question: "What is the single most important obstacle to achieving the promises of the Millennium Development Goals?"  The answer was immediate. "Corruption."  That was in Africa.  But the same question provoked the same answer in Asia, the Caribbean, Italy and in Switzerland.  And this conversation with people at the grassroots was going on while politicians in Britain were struggling with ministerial expense scandals.

This paper is therefore a reflection primed by grassroots concerns. It does not accuse poor economies and exonerate rich ones. For the demon of greed needs to be expelled from corrupt governments as much as it needs to be dealt with in multilateral transactions. The United Nations Convention on Anti-Corruption is everybody's business. 

Open for Service is therefore an appeal for transparency in government, business and indeed the Christian church.

We believe it will be an important contribution to an urgent debate and lead to urgent action which will serve our world and bring hope to the poor.

We introduced this document at a service in New York on 20 September during the MDG Review Summit and we are really keen to have your insights and engagement as we develop the conversation across a wide range of friends and colleagues. Our aim is to bring this conversation to a formal evaluation in May 2011 in order that it will guide our focus on the MDGs over the next 5 years.

Joel Edwards, International Director, Micah Challenge

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Click here for a French version (unformatted) En francais

Click here for a Spanish version (unformatted) En español