CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute) Development Studies and Human Rights
 
 

Report in External Series

Anti-corruption Reforms: Challenges, Effects and Limits of World Bank Support

CMI authors:
Odd-Helge Fjeldstad
Jan Isaksen

Thematic research group:
Public Sector Reform

Keywords:
Anti-corruption, corruption, World Bank

Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Jan Isaksen (2008)

Washington DC: Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), World Bank (IEG Working Paper no. 7) 78 p.

[pdf] Download publication

This study compares the evolution of the state-of-the-art in research and analysis of anticorruption and transparency with World Bank practice. The first part of the paper reviews the theoretical and empirical approaches that have influenced the World Bank's and the donor community's thinking on how to diagnose and fight corruption. Also covered are interventions and diagnostic tools that have been developed to improve governance and assess corruption, as well as recent Bank-supported international initiatives to curb grand corruption. Thereafter, the paper analyzes experiences from the Bank's engagement in anti-corruption, drawing on the results of 19 country case studies covering developing and transitional countries. From the country cases it appears that anti-corruption measures are too often proposed by the Bank without considerations of the political economy and without clear strategies to win the support of a critical mass of key leaders who would help overcome the inevitable opposition of vested interests.

Evidence from the country cases are used to highlight past pitfalls and propose directions for future support to governance and anti-corruption reforms. First, the Bank needs to do more to understand corruption in the particular country context. The priorities for anticorruption efforts need to be based on an assessment in each country of the types of corruption most harmful to development. Second, direct measures to reduce corruption, such as the establishment of anti-corruption commissions, rarely succeed since they often lack the required support from political elites and the judicial system. Third, linking governance work with visible public service improvements may help build the credibility of reforms as from the point of view of citizens and government. Fourth, sustaining efforts to reduce corruption have better prospects when they emphasize making information public and building systems to reduce the opportunities for corruption.

This study was prepared as part of the Independent Evaluation Group's evaluation of World Bank support for public sector reform. The evaluation focuses on World Bank experience in the period 1999-2006, but also looks further back in the 1990s to cover the full trajectory of World Bank support for these reforms. The evaluation report Public sector reform: What works and why? can be downloaded from IEG's website http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/

[pdf] Anti-corruption Reforms: Challenges, Effects and Limits of World Bank Support

Project/programme:

Evaluation of the World Bank's Support for Public Sector Reform

Public Sector Reform
News

Monitoring and Evaluating Mozambique's Poverty Reduction Strategy

This report analyses poverty and well-being in the rural district of Murrupula, revisiting four local communities and a total of 120 households, three years after the first study in 2006. Read more

The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law

Detained in solitary confinement, tortured, exiled and eventually blown up by a car bomb. From an early age Albie Sachs played a prominent part in the struggle for justice in South Africa. Later in life he helped draft South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution, and served as a member of the Constitutional Court for fifteen years. Sachs talks to host Siri Gloppen about his life and role as a judge in the formative years of post-apartheid South Africa. Read more

The public sector - how can it deliver?

Equal access to health and other services require adequate funding of the state. Read more

A Momentous Year

2009 was a momentuous year at CMI. We moved to the city centre. We opened a new arena for research communication: Bergen Research Centre for International Development. And in the same year, we achieved a publication record with the highest number of peer reviewed articels ever. Read the online version. Read more

'Opitanha' revisited. Assessisng the implications of PARPA II in rural northern Mozambique 2006-2009

A number of improvements have taken place in local governance, physical infrastructure and agricultural marketing options, this has so far primarily benefitted the better-off with few, if any, implications for the very poorest. Read more

Sub-Saharan Africa Southern and Central Asia Middle East Latin America