This report offers a brief overview of the EXPOSED - shining a light on corruption - campaign.  EXPOSED was a first of its kind - a truly global Christian response to corruption, supported by Christians from 176 countries, with a thousand public gatherings, close to 150,000 individual signatures, a powerful Open Letter from some of the world's most prominent Christian leaders, representing a billion believers, and a clear engagement with the G20.

The rationale

EXPOSED was a limited duration global Christian campaign that sought to address the problem of corruption, especially as a cause and consequence of poverty, on the global, national and local scale.

It stressed that corruption happens everywhere - in north and south, among rich and poor and in all institutions. Despite the extent of corruption, EXPOSED also wanted to bring a message of hope - that change is possible and that God's values offer a standard for all communities.

The EXPOSED campaign emerged from discussions with many southern and northern groups that expressed concern that good governance was crucial in delivering on poverty goals. It was formed by a coalition of Christian ministries and organisations and aimed to make a strong link between poverty and corrupt practices, which are a major barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's).

The campaign had Isaiah 51:4 as a key verse, "I bring my teaching to the nations; my laws will bring them light. The campaign aimed to bring the discourse around corruption and poverty into the mainstream of the global Church's preaching, theology and action.

Campaign goals

The campaign aimed to empower local action, as well as engage international policy via the G20.  It promoted practical steps for ethical behaviour in business, government and the Church and aimed to see Christians as advocates and practitioners of justice and transformation.

The campaign aimed to be accessible to those of other faiths or no faith[1].  This attitude is most evident in the partnerships with the United Nations Millennium Campaign and Transparency International, as well as the engagement with the G20 and C20.  However, because of the limited duration of the campaign, a decision was made to focus primarily on mobilizing and engaging Christians and Christian groupings as a constituency. EXPOSED was a campaign about corruption but some of the issues under discussion like tax evasion are not actually illegal so the campaign material made the point that some behaviour is legal but not ethical - that we wanted to establish God's standards of integrity. It's not clear that this nuancing was always understood, but most supporters could see that behaviour by some multinationals is just plain wrong...

From the very start of the campaign, there was a clear understanding that addressing corruption can contribute towards the eradication of extreme poverty. Two frequently used statistics during the campaign stressed this link:

1. $1 trillion goes missing each year due to corruption
2. tax evasion robs US$160 billion from Africa each year - 25% of the continent's GDP and more than the total Africa receives in development aid
3. it's estimated that 230 little children die each day in developing nations due to corruption

What EXPOSED looked like around the world

EXPOSED had two phases - during the week of 14-20 October 2013 the campaign aimed to involve 100 million people in 100 countries to participate in three campaign actions:

    sign the Global Call to end corruption addressed to the G20 leaders and to be presented in Brisbane Australia in November 2014.
    organise or join a Global Vigil against corruption.
    take personal or collective action against corruption (for which 'toolkits' were developed for churches and business).

The second phase concentrated on the journey to Brisbane for the G20.

A total of 176 countries were involved in the 2 phases and millions were reached by direct communications, media articles and updates from partners.  1,000 Vigils were held in over 50 nations - hundreds were registered on the EXPOSED campaign website and there were many more that were not formally registered.

Other highlights of the campaign included a 1000 strong march against corruption in Cape Town, a Lent Bible study series called '30 pieces of silver' that was produced by the Bible Society and used throughout the world, eighteen letters to ambassadors ahead of the G20 meetings in Australia[2], a meeting of 200 Christian leaders in the Republic of Benin to take a stand against corruption, the trillion dollar note and one-in-a-million actions, an open letter from campaigners in Malaysia to their Prime Minister, an act of public witness and engagement with the state in Nepal, prayer gatherings in Toronto, Canada, and a service of public witness at St Paul's Cathedral in London, as well as the world's largest 'Mock tax haven' in Brisbane just before the G20 meetings.

A total of 147,902 people signed the 'Global Call' to end corruption.

Impact

Throughout the 2 years of public campaigning, millions learnt the extent, complexities and injustice of the problem around the world.

Prayer was a key focus with prayer guides produced for October 2013 and November 2014, which were used by many thousands. It is difficult to assess the impact of prayer but two examples may be evidence of God's intervention - the money that flowed into the campaign just when it was desperately needed and the fact that Micah Challenge gained one of the rare media accreditation passes for the G20.

The campaign reported 32 stories of hope and transformation to be examples of what can be achieved. Some stories had a big impact across the world - Bishop Zac in Uganda, Goodwill Shana in Zimbabwe, the face of corruption in Switzerland, the elections in Malaysia, whistle-blower Michelle Harding in South Africa, Gisella Schneider on missions work in Africa, work across Nepal on integrity, and Haiti's rural corruption watchdogs.

It was heartening to see campaigns develop clear and defined national policy asks (often in practical coalitions with groups like Transparency International (TI), Tax Justice Network (TJN), Public What You Pay (PWYP) and Tearfund). The international asks of EXPOSED were designed collaboratively with Tearfund, Christian Aid, PWYP, TJN as well as Micah Challenge. The process worked well - thanks to the expertise of partners who contributed staff time.

There were significant policy wins at the G20. Leaders committed to on-going work to addressing all the policies at the heart of the Campaign - global tax dodging and corruption.

There are still more steps to take but that is the beauty and curse of the G20 - it is small enough to have honest discussions but large enough for those discussions to end in general promises that need meaty detail at the national level.

G20 nations have agreed to share tax related information with each other and have established high level principles for ensuring that more is known about the true owners and beneficiaries of anonymous companies and trusts. In a bid to consider the interests of low-income countries, the G20 have also communicated plans to support the administrative skills and systems of developing countries' tax systems through 'capacity-building'.

It was possibly confusing to talk about tax issues, which are not technically corrupt. The broader message of integrity and God's ethical standards did however help to focus the campaign messaging a great deal.

EXPOSED had action at its heart. Some partners understood this but few were comfortable to be in campaigning mode. Heartening participation came from Nepal, UK, Malaysia, South Africa, France, Germany (in 2013) Australia (in 2014), Bangladesh and Benin. All these were led by Micah Challenge.

Conclusion

The EXPOSED campaign was the largest and most significant campaign of its type to date.  It was able to mobilize an unprecedented number of persons across the world in a short space of time, to witness and act against corruption. However, its true impact is difficult to measure concretely at this early stage and there are some areas of disappointment. It would be good for a comprehensive review to take place in 2015. And it will be interesting to see how issues of governance and integrity feature in the ongoing work of partners in the years to come.

Praise God for the excellent work of the Exposed team on this arduous and challenging assignment. Let's pray that this effort will continue to bear much fruit around the world.