My parents didn’t know that the name they chose for me meant “transparent” in Spanish. But they did know the importance of transparency, honesty and integrity, and passed on to me these values when I was growing up in Bulgaria. I hold them dear in my work at the World Bank.

A lack of transparency fuels corruption, a corrosive force that hits the poor and the vulnerable the hardest. Its effects are very real. Corruption stops medicine and drugs from reaching the sick, stops schools from being built, leads to roads washing away in the rain, and empties the public coffers. In the most fragile corners of the world, corruption undermines work to bring stability or prevent violence and extremism from taking root. 

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