Greenland, Iceland and Estonia all have tiny populations, which means few people to fill all of societies’ positions from politicians to business people, from media to civil society. We are all connected - the next person over is for sure either a friend of the family, a cousin, a business partner, a neighbour or a former girlfriend.
This provides a special challenge in ensure that entrusted power is not misused in the form of nepotism or beneficial treatment. Iceland and Estonia both score lower than the Nordic countries in the TI Corruption Perception Index – Iceland is ranked as number 13 and Estonia as number 21, while there is no data for Greenland.
All three countries have seen examples of the negative consequences of the loss of trust when politicians or business people are – or are perceived to be – misusing entrusted power to benefit themselves or their personal networks.
Many smaller countries are facing significant challenges with nepotism and the misuse of entrusted power. The session addresses these issues from a distinct small country perspective to clarify what is unique to this setting.
In addition to the benefits gained from bringing people together in the workshop for a fruitful discussion, we are also planning to use the workshop as a communication platform to raise awareness of the issues. As a preparation for the workshop, the three TI Chapters will draft a short publication focusing on the topic and the main challenges we see. This will be used as a starting point for the workshop, and following the workshop, the article will be updated with inputs from the workshop and released broader in all three countries and beyond. We are planning to use the workshop and joint article as a platform for a social media campaign, and potentially as a foundation for joint fundraising for a project to help understand and address the issues further.
Session Rapporteur:
Iben Ellersgaard
