×

Our award-winning reporting has moved

Context provides news and analysis on three of the world’s most critical issues:

climate change, the impact of technology on society, and inclusive economies.

Is the World Bank rethinking its anti-corruption strategy?

by Stella Dawson | https://twitter.com/stelladawson | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thursday, 31 January 2013 11:26 GMT

* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

World Bank president asks for evidence of what works in combating corruption, hinting at changes ahead

By Stella Dawson

How do you prevent corruption in the first place? 

This question was woven through World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s speech on anti-corruption and tackled in discussions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on Wednesday. How can the development community do a better job in identifying what works in the anti-corruption arena, and how can knowledge be shared more effectively among World Bank staff and its development partners?

Two broader issues underlie those questions: the role of the World Bank as a global leader in fighting graft, and the best use of its resources in carrying out that work. These issues are under active debate within the $57 billion development-lending institution.

There are no straightforward answers, but it is to Kim’s credit that he is engaging the matter. Much experience has been gained since the seminal speech by then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn in 1996, when he condemned “the cancer of corruption”, which diverts resources from poor to rich elites, distorts public investment and undermines sound and fair development policies.

In the intervening years, a veritable anti-corruption industry has emerged of lawyers, professors, corporate compliance officers, investigators, auditors, non-governmental activists and experts – all committed to upholding and enforcing a fast-growing body of laws, conventions, rules and regulations, both national and international, that are designed to prevent abuse of public office for private gain.

So what has been learned about what works? A few themes emerged at the CSIS conference that suggest a path forward.

Firstly, no one questioned that vigorous enforcement is an essential element of any anti-corruption programme. As Stephen Zimmermann, director of operations in the World Bank’s integrity vice presidency, put it, there is no trade-off. “Prevention begins with a strong deterrent. You need enforcement, you need investigations to provide that deterrent,” he said.  

What is required, however, is a deeper understanding of the data on enforcement activities and sanctions to “distill the lessons so that we can better modulate the risks to ensure that those insights guide future business decisions”, Kim said in his speech, putting the focus on prevention.

He also hinted at a more country-based approach to anti-corruption efforts. “We should learn from governments’ enforcement and prevention methods,” he said, citing work turning drug-infested Brazilian slums into safer neighborhoods, Italy’s crackdown on tax dodgers and India’s push on anti-corruption legislation. Technical experts at the World Bank spend only 3 percent of their time sharing expertise outside their region, he added.

‘GET YOUR BOOTS DIRTY’ 

Decentralising World Bank activities is something strongly supported by Gwen Hines, the bank’s executive director for the UK. “Get your boots dirty” and get out into the field, conduct spot checks on projects, and listen to local officials and communities to find out what works, she said.  

And there is an urgency. The risks are “very, very high” that, if a major corruption scandal erupted, the World Bank would lose significant international support from its shareholders during a time of budget austerity, she said.   

A second theme was the potential for new technologies, combined with citizen activism, to change the dynamics of anti-corruption efforts. This is a favorite topic of Sanjay Pradhan, vice president of the bank’s research arm, the World Bank Institute.

Technology is by no means the solution, because dumping budget documents online when few people know how to decipher them is transparency in name only, he warned. But if World Bank and government programmes build into their design ways for citizens to monitor and report back on the outcomes, accountability can be increased and opportunities for corruption greatly curtailed, he said.

The World Bank frequently highlights checkmyschool.org, a Philippines accountability tool where citizens can find information about education facilities and report back if the buildings fail to meet specifications, school books never arrive or teachers do not turn up for work. For initiatives like this to spread, Nancy Boswell, a law professor at the American University and former head of Transparency International USA,  said civil society groups need more training on how to access and manipulate the reams of data that governments and the private sector are making public.

A third theme at the event was reinforcing the linkages with the private sector. Businesses must adhere to a growing array of new disclosure rules, and at the same time, face reputational risk and opportunity cost from corruption. They have a common interest in working with governments and civil society in seeking solutions. Pradhan of the World Bank Institute pointed to networks such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative as an example of how companies can join alliances to fight corruption.

The solutions are complex and multi-layered, and given the human propensity for greed, the best anyone hopes for is a curtailment of corruption. Yet for all the effort expended over the past 20 years, there is little measurable progress to date. Hence Kim’s questions are timely.  

Will this lead to a recalibration of the World Bank’s anti-corruption strategy?  At the least the CSIS event suggested Kim prefers a shift in emphasis toward prevention and country-level initiatives.  

 

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

-->