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International Anti-Corruption Day 2009: An Hour of Silence to Reflect and Reboot
By Kaufmann | December 9, 2009 5 Comments »
As Wednesday, December 9th dawns, there is a dim reminder that one is supposed to ‘celebrate’ International Anti-Corruption. ‘Dim reminder’ to ‘celebrate’ in quotation marks indeed, because unfortunately anti-corruption continues to be largely in the back-burner for most world powers, for most international institutions, and for many of their leaders.
Or worse…
To place this special Anti-Corruption Day in poignant perspective today, as the decade draws to a close, consider that over six years ago, in late 2003, the UN General Assembly designated December 9th as International Anti-Corruption Day. It was intended to further the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and encourage countries to sign and ratify it, so to ensure its swift entry into force. The UNCAC was touted by the UN as ‘the first legally binding, international anti-corruption instrument that provides a chance to mount a global response to corruption.’
What happened since then? Countries signed. Countries ratified. Plenty of process work by secretariats. And a very large contingent of government officials and others just gathered in Doha in mid-November, in order to reach closure on six years of work regarding implementing the review mechanism for country progress on anti-corruption. But an important group of governments present in Doha, including China, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, were against agreement of serious commitment to such implementation.
The resulting review mechanism for UNCAC is toothless. It gives governments discretion in denying inclusion of civil society in reviewing progress, it introduces voluntarism into monitoring progress (rather than mandating it), and it allows governments to be non-transparent and withhold full publication of country reports. Further, they somehow managed to create what is already by design a very ineffective and bloated implementation review group, which incidentally will not even be allowed to review country reports. And they failed to advance on key pending challenges on asset recovery.
All this conspires against the objective of governments fulfilling their obligations under the UNCAC.
Thus, in the immediate aftermath of such UNCAC setback, today, as we face the (UNCAC-inspired) International Anti-Corruption Day, it may be appropriate to have an hour of silence instead, in order to pause and reflect where we are today, and where we need to go instead. Let us reflect, and try to reboot.
Any such reflection needs to take a broader view, beyond the UNCAC (and the UN), and would need to consider the world’s changed geopolitics today, the lessons and aftermath of the financial crisis, and would also have to consider that one does not fight corruption by merely fighting corruption. Leadership, institutions and governance need to be brought to the fore.
In fact, taking the broader path, it was exactly a year ago that on International Anti-Corruption Day 2008 I was asked to give a farewell address at the World Bank, as I was leaving after decades there, to join the Brookings Institution. I was reviewing some slides from that presentation and find that its essence still applies today (it is here).
At the time, after recounting some of my earlier experiences working on development, I spent some time on unorthodox notions such as ‘Legal Corruption’ as well as the State and Regulatory Capture of the US financial system and the havoc that it was causing around the world. I also addressed the problematic approach that the aid donor community has had to furthering good governance and corruption control when working with developing countries. If anything, some of those problems have become even more serious over the past year, as I have written in this space and elsewhere in recent months.
Fortunately, there are a some far sighted leaders and reformists in some countries who recognize that the global financial crisis was not only a challenge, but also an opportunity for implementing reforms that otherwise may have been politically difficult to carry out. Those countries will emerge stronger from the crisis, with better prospects in the medium term than the many that used the crisis as an excuse to postpone reforms. Further divergence among countries, not convergence, will take place, driven by starkly different quality of leadership and governance.
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Corruption, Measurement Frontiers, Public Financial Management, Public-Private Linkages, Rule of Law, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights, capture, financial crisis | | 5 Comments
December 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
[...] fact, Daniel Kaufmann, over at his Governance Post, compains about lack of success in fighting corruption. The WSJ piece notes that 58 FCPA cases have been initiated by the Justice Department in the past [...]
January 8th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Daniel,
After five years of experience overseeing an effective USAID funded anti-corruption initiative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2002-2007) that could, and arguably should have been replicated across the country, I agree with your argument but would specify the following from our lessons learned:
1. as long as donors treat anti-corruption programming as essentially a policy and law based initiative, versus a participatory stakeholder initiative where the latter are involved in assessing corruption baselines, monitoring incidents across corruption types, advocating for administrative application of existing lawas and regulations, holding public administration and elected leadership acountable…anti-corruption work will remain primarily academic and of little on the ground relevance.
2. the DRC project (it was colloquially know as “Relance Economique du fleuve Congo et ses Affluents”) we did proved the concept that (a) multi-stakeholder coalitions to fight corruption can be fashioned (b) even government officials can support it (c) for an initiative to work, geographic coverage must be strategic and substantial (d) civil society and business must drive the iniative (e) external technical assistance does have a key/nuanced role to play at various levels.
3. this type of initiative can be (a) cost effective (b) high profile (c) integrated with other sectoral programs to increase impact.
4. it is very unclear whether a genuine commitment to hands on fighting of administrative or grand corruption really exists. For it to be prioritized, donors will have a major role to play by initiating hands-on projects as demonstration of how/what works, and why it can be beneficial (to countries versus the corrupt).
5. Focusing on grand corruption is arguably counterproductive from a strategic and operational standpoint. Starting with administrative corruption as it is linked to local economies (or “development”) is something most everyone across stakeholder groups can buy into.
6. It is hard to see how developing countries can and will develop until administrative and grand corruption is coherently tackled. Starting with the lower hanging fruit – administrative corruption which is slightly less threatening than grand corruption – offers operational advantages to enable momentum to be gained, and spread effect achieved as well.
Looking forward to hearing any response.
Happy new year.
Michael Brown
January 10th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Michael, this feedback is thoughtful and concrete. Definitively a Yes to participatory multi-stakeholder approaches, with serious diagnostics of course. Wonder whether there is an evaluation of the DRC project you were involved, and if so what worked and what didn’t. As to donor focus on ‘low hanging fruits’, I am afraid that too often that has been an excuse not to even bring up higher level corruption, given the incentive not to rock any boat and to continue pushing money to governments out of the door irrespective of the extent of corruption at the higher levels.
January 13th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Corruption is the worst discovery ever made by mankind
January 14th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
This discussion is very interesting: We are just launching a project in the Philippines (Philippines Public Transparency Reporting Project) which is funded by USAID (through ABA), doing precisely what Michael Brown is suggesting – getting media to partner with civil society, voters and ordinary citizens (through social media, and town hall meetings, advocacy campaigns, to monitor, report, challenge, demand and the like. Much will be built around a website we are now in the process of setting up (for launch in March) subtitled Iyong Pera! (It’s Your Money). I am/was very surprised the role of media and public information websites and the like have not been used/supported in the past in some kind of very structured or focused way to promote greater accountability given the potential for reach. I will keep you ‘posted’ on how it goes. All great credit for USAID (and our colleagues at ABA) for supporting this. A key thing we are trying to do from the very outset is to get everybody (including journalists) to understand everything possible about the public income/expenditure/budgeting/procurement and auditing processes. Right now, nobody knows, so they cannot even begin to duly monitor. I’m on a great big learning curve myself. Cheers. Alan