Chile and Kazakhstan named in KPMG report into countries able to grasp opportunities of a changing global economy

They lack the size of China or India. Many have to import natural resources. They have yet to be given a snappy label such as the BRICS. But Chile, Tunisia, Taiwan, Jordan and Kazakhstan have been identified as the possible rising stars in a report that looks at the ability of countries to grasp the opportunities of a rapidly changing global economy.

The study from consultants KPMG and the Overseas Development Institute thinktank looked at the long-term potential of 60 emerging market countries and found some surprising names in its roll call of those deemed most fit to face the future.

After using economic, governance and social measures, the report found to the researchers' surprise that the five BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – were well down the league table.

Instead, it tended to be smaller countries that were seen as best geared up to change, seen as the key factor in determining the capacity for sustained, long-term growth.

Chile came 30 places ahead of its bigger South American neighbour Brazil, while South Africa, in 26th place, was a long way behind two North African nations – Tunisia (2nd) and Morocco (6th).

China, now the world's second biggest economy after three decades of rapid growth, could manage only 13th place in the list, while India was 23rd and Russia 51st.

The report looked at economic diversification, corruption, entrepreneurship, the relationship between business and government, the health of civil society and the investment climate as some of the indicators. It put Bolivia in last place, just ahead of Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

"You only need to look at the impact of recent food, fuel, and financial crises on countries around the world to see the importance of achieving a greater understanding of a country's change readiness," said Timothy A A Stiles, KPMG's Global Head of International Development Assistance Services. "The results of the index are surprising and, when verified, are expected to provide important new insight for policy development and donor action aimed at strengthening government and national capability."

The idea of a Change Readiness Index was first floated at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2011 and over the past few months KPMG and the ODI have been using work by the Economist Intelligence Unit to compile their league table.

"Understanding a country's capacity to handle new and unexpected developments is critical to advancing effective policy," said ODI director Dr Alison Evans. "This index begins to paint a new picture and is an exciting starting point. We will be enhancing and refining the index over time to make it an even more reliable measure to help predict a country's economic prospects."

The report admitted that the high ranking of Tunisia, one of the countries involved in last year's Arab Spring, would spark debate, as would Syria's position at 14th, only one place behind China. Explaining the high rating of Chile over Brazil and Malaysia over Thailand, it said there were often marked differences between the potential of countries within the same continent.

"Chile has made considerable efforts in recent decades to diversify their export structure with noticeable impacts on economic growth. Chile's competitive position is also supported by high levels of domestic and foreign competition and by an efficient financial market."

It added: "One significant area of difference is in macroeconomic management, with Brazil demonstrating poorer performance with regard to variables such as the inflation rate and government debt."

Comparing the two south-east Asian countries, the report said: "The Malaysian government has been working to improve the business environment, fight crime and corruption and enhance infrastructure and transport. In studying Thailand, analysts identify institutions as one of the most important weaknesses of the country's economy, with recent political instability further undermining the perceived capability of the country to achieve sustained growth."

The authors of the study said it used evidence from a number of existing indicators with measures identified to capture specific elements of change readiness that were not currently being captured, including risk management capabilities, efforts to promote economic diversification, strong governance and social safety nets.

Top 15 countries in Change readiness index

1 Chile

2 Tunisia

3 Taiwan

4 Jordan

5 Kazakhstan

6 Morocco

7 Malaysia

8 Uruguay

9 Turkey

10 Peru

11 Botswana

12 Costa Rica

13 China

14 Syria

15 Namibia

Source: KPMG

Chilean dictator's daughter says government attempts to recover funds from his estate amount to 'political persecution'

Chile plans to open the last will and testament of General Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday, a key step in determining the true size and whereabouts of a fortune the dictator allegedly amassed by diverting public funds for decades before his death.

The will, apparently prepared shortly before his death aged 91 in 2006, has remained under seal since then, and the Pinochet family wanted it to stay that way. The opening was requested by the defence council of the state, which is seeking to recover funds from Pinochet's estate.

His oldest daughter, Lucía Pinochet, said the order to open the document amounted to "political persecution" in an interview with the newspaper la Segunda. She accused Chile's leaders of lacking the moral courage to call off the investigation into allegations that he stole from the state.

Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 and then spent years as a "senator for life", died under house arrest, without facing trial on charges of illegal enrichment and human rights violations.

An academic study ordered by Chile's supreme court determined years ago that the dictator had accumulated $21m (£13m) before he died and that only $3m of it was justified by his military salary.

Chile's justice system is obligated to keep the dictator's last wishes private, a court spokesman told Associated Press. But a government representative will attend the private opening, looking to recover any state money the will might point to, so at least some of its contents might become public at a later date.

Also present at the opening will be members of Pinochet's close family who want to attend and a lawyer for the family.

The late dictator's known wealth, including real estate, cars and several million dollars in bank accounts, remains embargoed. Although his family has always maintained the wealth came from his honest work leading Chile, the study by the Universidad de Chile said that $17.86m was unjustified by his military salary and that its origins were unknown. In the years since his death, much of those millions has not been found.

Even many supporters of Pinochet turned against him after allegations about his hidden wealth were revealed in 2004 by a US Senate committee investigating allegations of money laundering by the Riggs bank of Washington. Pinochet accounts were later discovered in Europe and the Caribbean.

The former dictator said in 2005 that his wealth came from "lifetime savings" after a judge investigating the Riggs case ordered the arrest on tax fraud charges of his wife, Lucía Hiriart, and his youngest son, Marco Antonio Pinochet.

The dictator's known wealth includes a weekend country house in El Melocoton, luxury apartments in the coastal town of Renaca and the nearby port of Valparaiso, his home in a wealthy neighbourhood of Santiago, several cars, $2.6m deposited in a local bank and $280,000 in savings at BankBoston.

A Chilean NGO's online app has revealed that 40% of the country's MPs have not been registering their assets and interests in full, despite being compelled to do so

An app that cross-matches Chilean MPs' register of assets and interests with their voting record has revealed a startlingly low level of openness among the parliamentarians about their interests.

Chilean MPs have been compelled for some time to register their assets and interests – but it was only last year, when a non-government body, the Ciudadano Inteligente Fundacion, cross-matched that data with a wide range of information about MPs' voting records that it was revealed that 40% of MPs were not registering their full assets and interests.

The organisation has set up a database, that enables members of the public to find potential conflicts of interest by analysing the data disclosed through the members' register of assets.

"No-one was analysing this data, so it was incomplete," explained Felipe Heusser, executive president of the Fundacion. "We used technology to build a database, using a wide range of open data and mapped all the MPs' interests. From that, we found that nearly 40% of MPs were not disclosing their assets fully."

Publicity about the finding has resulted in greater use of the app, which enables people to map MPs' declared interests against topics on which they are voting.

The app is one example being highlighted at this week's Open Government Partnership conference in Brazil. Heusser said the aim is to change MPs' behaviour and highlight potential conflicts on interests. "And this was all done with a simple app and open data," he said.

The Guardian public leaders network is a digital media partner of the Open Government Partnership conference in Brazil.

Environmentalists and local groups say plan for five giant dams will damage wildlife and endanger people living downstream

Chile's supreme court has green-lit a controversial dam project in the Patagonia that could generate up to 20% of the country's electricity demand in 2020, but is opposed by environmentalists and local groups for the damage it will cause the region.

The highest legal authority in Chile rejected seven appeals filed against Project HidroAysén, which plans to build five dams, flooding 6,000 hectares. The government had approved the project last year but the case was taken to the supreme court after objections were raised over the environmental impact study.

Judges on Wednesday rejected all claims by opponents, including allegations that the study had failed to properly evaluate the effects on endangered Huemul deer, on the national park Laguna San Rafael and the dangers to people living downstream.

"This wasn't a surprise. We didn't have any confidence that the court was going to make a favourable decision," said Luis Mariano Rendon, co-ordinator of Acción Ecológica that last year organised protests of 40,000 people against HidroAysén in Santiago. "Unfortunately this means that once again citizen protests are only way that we have left to defend the Patagonia."

The dams will have a capacity of 2,750MW to power Chile's rapidly growing economy, and the government has said that hydroelectric energy will be crucial for the country's future energy security. But Wednesday's court decision is expected to spark further unrest, particularly in the Patagonian region of Aysén where many locals feel that decisions are being taken without their consent.

"We are a close people here, very kind, very warm, always around a fire, sharing. It is a rich family-centred quality of life that has developed here and we do not want to lose it," said Hugo Díaz, a local businessman whose great-grandparents first came to Aysén in the pioneer boom of the 1920s.The string of communities the settlers left behind in the Patagonia, are used to their independence. Isolated towns such as Caleta Tortel, downstream and fiercely resistant to the dams, were only connected by road to the rest of Chile in 2003.

Even now Tortel's buildings are connected by wooden walkways rather than roads, built over the hundreds of small waterfalls and shrubs of wild fuchsia in the Gulf of Sorrow. "Things are done differently out here in the Patagonia – slowly. We do things to the rhythm of rains, of the moon, many of us sow our crops like that still and this is the life that we want to keep," said Hugo.

But HidroAysén's promises of cheaper electricity and a new hospital have convinced many other Ayséninos that the dams are worth having. "I get the feeling that there could be a balance of people for and against," said Dr Giovanni Daneri, scientific director of the Centre of Ecosystem Investigation in the Patagonia.

Before the protests took over, the argument was played out on local radio stations and across giant billboards. Posters for and against were slashed and "HidroAysén = $" signs were replaced overnight with "No dams!" in yellow spray paint.

With the new announcement tensions have risen again. A general strike was called for within hours of the court's decision as well as a series of national protests. As town squares filled up with protesters on Wednesday evening, the political battle remains far from over. Project HidroAysén's plans for a transmission line stretching more than 2,000km to Santiago still needs to be revised by the government.

Until then relocation plans for local people remain uncertain. Seven years have passed since Elisabeth "Lili" Schindele first heard about the dams and she is no closer to knowing what will happen to her home on the edge of the River Baker. It was almost a year ago that Lili found herself trapped with officials during the first of the violent protests. "There was all this noise outside," said Lili. "The intendant of Aysén turned to the journalists and said: 'Now that this project has been approved, all the people of Aysén can be at peace.' It's been many months since then and I still can't get those words out of my head: 'Now the people can be at peace'."

Widow of GDR leader Erich Honecker gives unapologetic interview in documentary showing her at home in Chile

She was known as the "purple witch" for her arresting lilac rinses and tenacious political outlook. Now the widow of the former East German leader Erich Honecker has broken a 20-year silence to defend the dictatorship, attack those who helped to destroy it, and complain about her pension.

Margot Honecker, 84, who as education minister of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) served alongside her dictator husband, describes her homesickness for a "lost nation" and calls its demise a tragedy in an interview due to be broadcast on German television on Monday evening.

The documentary, which was years in the making due to Honecker's dogged insistence she would never give an interview to "West German" media, shows her at home in Chile where she escaped to with her husband after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the early 1990s.

For the first time since 1989 Germans are given an insight into Honecker's life and a full-blown taste of her unforgiving views about a GDR that she continues to idealise. In shockingly frank exchanges in which she cuts a robust, vigorous figure, she defends East Germany to the hilt and refuses to accept any responsibility for its more tyrannical traits, including her own role as the minister responsible for thousands of forced adoptions.

"It is a tragedy that this land no longer exists," she tells the interviewer, Eric Friedler, adding that, while she lives in Chile "my head is in Germany". She does not, however, mean united Germany, rather the "better Germany" of the GDR.

Honecker dismisses in a single sentence the fate of hundreds of people who lost their lives trying to escape East Germany for a better life in the west.

"There was no need for them to climb over the wall, to pay for this stupidity with their lives," she says.

Asked why the revolution of 1989 took place if, as she claims, the country was such a good place to live, she suggests that the demonstrations were driven by the GDR's enemies. "The GDR also had its foes. That's why we had the Stasi," she says, referring to the country's repressive secret police.

Questions about the programme of forced adoptions of the children of regime opponents, for which she was responsible, are met with the response: "It didn't exist". Equally, the economic demise of the GDR "is simply untrue", and she describes victims of the regime as "criminals who today make out that they were political victims", who were in some cases "paid". Does she have any feelings of guilt? "It didn't touch me at all. I have a thick skin."

Friedler said that over the several days he interviewed her, Honecker, who during her 26-year tenure as education minister introduced weapons training to schools, and ordered every teacher to report all incidences of deviation by pupils from the communist line, remained bizarrely detached from reality and resolute in her defence of East Germany.

"Margot Honecker showed no remorse, or discernment, she expressed no word of regret or apology," he said.

"She might be in Chile, but she is very well connected to a whole guard of old comrades. She regularly spends hours reading the internet, knows exactly what's going on in Germany, but says her desire for Germany is restricted to … the GDR."

She also takes the opportunity to complain about her €1,500 state pension which she receives every month from Germany, calling it "derisory".

Honecker predicted the socialist Germany for which she and her husband, who died of cancer in 1994, fought for, would have its chance again. "We laid a seed in the ground which will one day come to fruition," she says. "We just didn't have enough time to realise our plans."