The Foreign Service Journal, June 2016

14 JUNE 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL B ribespot is a website and mobile app containing an interactive map updated in real time that allows users to anonymously document incidents of corruption, including where and why they were forced to pay a bribe to government officials or for services like health care or education. Bribespot was founded in 2007 by three web developers in Estonia, first as an app, then as a website. It is not affiliated with a country or organiza- tion, and continues to operate as a non-profit, with the goal of expanding into all countries in which corruption is an inescapable part of life for most people. It has been featured and promoted by the BBC and Voice of America. Users of the site can explore posts from all over the world. Clicking a pin on the map will bring you to a short description of the bribe, chiefly the address and amount, and sometimes a brief commentary by the person reporting. Documentation is not always formal or comprehensive, as it is self-reported, but in most instances the description quite clearly represents an instance of corruption. At any given time, bribes appear to be recorded on all six inhabited continents, with consistent docu- mentation in Ukraine, Thailand, India and Mexico. Bribespot can be accessed in multiple languages including English, Thai, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Bahasa Indonesian, Khmer and Romanian. It works best as a phone application, but can also be used on personal computers. In countries where there is no official corruption reporting mechanism, Bribespot gives citizens a voice to broadcast their experiences to the world. —Shannon Mizzi, Editorial Assistant SITE OF THE MONTH: Bribespot.com (http://bribespot.com/en/) Sopko emphasizes that what is needed is the political will to reform and the creation of some incorruptible entities to pursue the task of fighting corruption. Hopefully, he notes, Afghanistan Presi- dent Ashraf Ghani has requested SIGAR’s assistance in repatriating funds stolen from the Kabul Bank by way of fraudulent loans. He has also asked SIGAR to become part of a new task force he plans to cre- ate, and promised full access to relevant banking and financial records. SIGAR—a small agency with approxi- mately 200 employees, including more than two dozen in Afghanistan—was established by Congress in 2008 to watch over the now $113 billion U.S. tax dollars spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan and to prevent their waste, fraud or abuse.