Name Ronald Abaroa | Role Politician | |
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De cerca ronald maclean abaroa
De Cerca - Ronald MacLean Abaroa 1991
Biography
Ronald MacLean-Abaroa (born in La Paz, Bolivia on March 11th, 1949) is a world recognized expert on anti-corruption policies, and implementation. He teaches at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and at the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in Austria, and has also lectured at The Hague Academy in the Netherlands, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School, Viet Nam, Japan, Central and South American, and several United Nations institutions.
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MacLean-Abaroa has developed his innovative approach from his successful experience as mayor, national cabinet minister, academic, and international practitioner at the World Bank. He is a founding chairman of “Islands of Integrity, Anti-Corruption Partners Network LLP” together with Ana Vasilache, with whom they have developed the anti-corruption methodology "Islands of Integrity" and a network of anti-corruption practitioner's training (ACT*).
In March 2002, MacLean-Abaroa won his party's first-ever primary election, and the nomination as the presidential candidate of the center-right Nationalist Democratic Action or A.D.N (Acción Democrática Nacionalista), the party founded by former Bolivian President, General Hugo Banzer). The June 2002 elections marked his first unsuccessful bid for the presidency of Bolivia. Shortly after, he joined the World Bank as a Lead Public Sector Management specialist on governance, decentralization and poverty reduction (2003-2011).
In 1985, MacLean-Abaroa was the first democratically elected mayor of La Paz, Bolivia after 40 years, and was reelected three additional terms between 1987 and 1997. He is credited to have had fought corruption throughout his 20-year political career. Appointed the youngest chief economic cabinet minister at age 29, he has held five national cabinet positions between 1978 and 2000, as minister of Planning, Foreign Affairs, Communications, Finance, and Sustainable Development, under three different Bolivian presidents.
In the late 1990s he spent three years at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) as a Senior Research Fellow on Governance, leading research on institutional reform, and working on issues of decentralization, devolution of power to local citizens, and in anti-corruption strategies.
MacLean-Abaroa was also a founding member of Transparency International (1993), served on their Advisory Council and was the first chairman of TI-Latin America, as well as consultant and adviser on governance and anti-corruption issues to the UNDP, UNODC, OAS, IDB, OECD, ADB, other international organizations, and several national and local governments. He chaired both the Economic and Social Council of the Andean Pact Countries (1977) and the Board of Directors of the Andean Development Corporation (2000).
In his career at the private sector, he led the feasibility studies , and managed “Inti Raymi Corporation” (1982-84) one of the largest gold mining operations in South America at the time, when he left to re-enter politics; and previously in 1973, he had joined International Mining Co./ESTALSA mining group, formerly owned by W.Grace Co.
MacLean-Abaroa received his Masters in Public Administration (1980) from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he became a Research Fellow, his Bachelor's Degree in Development Economics (1971) from the University of Maryland, and his Associate's Degree in Business (1969) from Montgomery College in Maryland USA. He completed his secondary studies at the Deutsche Schule La Paz (1967).