Public Sector Governance

International Surveys

On this page

• 2010 Global Peace Index
• 2009 Global Integrity Report Released
• 2009 World Bank Governance Indicators
• Global Peace Index Highlights a Less Safe World
• Global Integrity Releases 2008 Report of 57 Countries
• ECI - Corruption in Russia Report
  
• Illicit Flows of Funds and Developing Countries
• World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators 2008
• Global Report Sheds Light on Corruption in the Water Sector
• U.N. Human Development Report Focuses on Corruption in the Asia-Pacific
• Report Finds Major Donors Fall $10bn Short in Aid tp Afghanistan
• 2007 Global Integrity Report Provides In-depth, Holistic Governance Data
• TI's 2007 Global Corruption Barometer
• New Index Aims to Set Objective Criteria for African Governance
• World Bank Institute Study Evaluates Governance Worldwide
• Corruption in Judicial Systems - Global Corruption report 2007
• Amnesty International's Human Rights Report
• Defense Sector Corruption News
• Informal Networks in East Central and South East Asia
• Open Budget Index 2006
• TI's 2006 Global Corruption Barometer
• World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators 2006
• TI Global Corruption Report 2006 - Focus on Healthcare
• PWC Global Economic Crime Survey 2005
• TI - Global Corruption Barometer 2005
• TI-Ireland and the Barometer

* * *

Global Peace Index 2010: Methodology, Results & Findings

The results of the Global Peace Index (GPI) for 2010 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year.

The GPI, which gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society and militarisation in 149 countries, registered overall increases in several indicators, including the likelihood of violent demonstrations and perceptions of criminality. In some nations, an intensification of conflicts and growing instability appears to be linked to the global economic downturn in late 2008 and early 2009.

The GPI was founded by Steve Killelea, an Australian international technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. It forms part of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new global think tank dedicated to the research and education of the relationship between economic development, business and peace. The GPI is collated and calculated by the Economist Intelligence Unit, with whom this report is written in co-operation.

This is the fourth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI). It has been expanded to rank 149 independent states and updated with the latest-available figures and information for 2008-09. The index is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from respected sources, which combine internal and external factors ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighbouring countries and the level of respect for human rights. These indicators were selected by an international panel of academics, business people, philanthropists and members of peace institutions. As before, we have explored the possibility of correlations between the GPI and other economic and societal indicators — including measures of democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. The GPI brings a snapshot of relative peacefulness among nations while continuing to contribute to an understanding of what factors help create or sustain more peaceful societies.

RANKINGS

New Zealand is ranked as the country most at peace for the second consecutive year, followed by Iceland and Japan. Small, stable and democratic countries are consistently ranked highest; 15 of the top 20 countries are western or central European countries. This is an increase from 14 last year, and reflects an improvement in Hungary’s score. Qatar and Australia remained in the top 20 – in 15th and 19th places respectively. All five Scandinavian counties are in the top ten of the GPI, although with the exception of Iceland, each experienced slight deteriorations in their scores and ranks. Island nations generally fare well, with the notable exception of Sri Lanka.

For the fourth year running, the country ranked least at peace is Iraq. Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan follow; countries that are in a state of ongoing conflict and upheaval. The average score for the countries surveyed in the 2010 GPI is 2.02 (based on a 1-5 scale), a slight rise (less at peace) compared with last year, when the average stood at 1.964. There is little variance (0.307) between the overall scores of the top 20 countries (from 1.188 for New Zealand to 1.495 for Hungary), unchanged from last year. The 20 lowest ranked countries exhibit a far greater spread of 0.832 (from 2.574 for the Philippines to 3.406 for Iraq), a slight fall (improvement) from 0.856 last year.

Changes to the methodology for 2010  -  The international panel of peace experts that oversees the compilation of the Global Peace Index chose to include fi ve additional countries in the 2010 edition: Armenia, The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Swaziland. This brings the total number of countries covered to 149, encompassing around 99% of the world’s population and over 87% of the planet’s land mass. As in the 2009 GPI the UN deployments indicator has been replaced with a measure of financial support to UN peacekeeping missions as all UN member states share the cost of mounting for these operations. The indicator calculates the percentage of countries’ “outstanding payments versus their annual assessment to the budget of the current peacekeeping missions”.

Posted 25/06/2010


* * *

Global Integrity Report 2009 Provides In-Depth Analysis of Latest Trends in Anti-Corruption. Key Issues Raised on Performance for many Countries, including the United States. Impact of Foreign Aid on Curbing Corruption is Questioned.   

See analysis... report-key findings...

Changes in Global Integrity’s “Grand Corruption Watch List”

Beginning in 2008, Global Integrity began looking for possible triggers of "grand corruption" in the countries assessed in the annual Global Integrity Report - countries where certain key anti-corruption safeguards were so weak that the risk of large-scale theft of public resources was greater than in most countries. We look in our data for three red flags: extremely poor conflicts of interest safeguards in government, weak oversight over large state-owned enterprises, and poor or non-existent controls over the flow of money into the political process. Our rationale is simple: "follow the money" from commercial and special interests to politicians (through political contributions), and then assess whether those officials are sufficiently constrained by conflicts of interest regulations to effectively regulate the large state-owned enterprises whose revenue plays such a large role in many economies. If those data (our Government Accountability, State-Owned Enterprises, and Political Financing categories) are all "Very Weak" (below 60) for a country, that country is placed on the Watch List.

Being placed on the Watch List does not necessarily mean that grand corruption and looting of public resources will always take place in the country, but rather that the risks may be significantly higher than in most countries. The exact drivers of corruption always vary from country to country and may also depend on income level and political systems.
Based on data gathered in 2009, countries newly added to the Grand Corruption Watch List include: Algeria, Jordan, Liberia, Mongolia, Ukraine, and Vietnam. Those countries join Angola, Belarus, Cambodia, Iraq, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Somalia, the West Bank, and Yemen, all of which were added in 2008 when the Watch List was first launched.

Three countries — China, Georgia, and Serbia — have been dropped from the Watch List based on new data gathered in 2009. While their removal from the Watch List does not preclude large-scale corruption from occurring, it does signal that important (though incomplete) progress has been made in establishing a minimum of key anti-corruption safeguards.
Promoting governance and anti-corruption reforms in some Watch List countries will be extremely challenging until fundamental changes take place. In Ukraine, the continuing political deadlock will continue to stymie progress on the good governance agenda until some degree of political stability emerges. In other countries such as Vietnam, effective one-party rule stands in the way of moving forward with setting up the basic checks and balances that are crucial to decreasing discretion and increasing transparency in the way government functions.

Foreign Aid May Not Help Anti-Corruption Enforcement in Aid-dependent Countries

Uganda and Bosnia and Herzegovina have the dubious distinction of boasting the biggest "implementation gaps" of all countries covered in the Global Integrity Report: 2009 - that is, the gap between their anti-corruption laws "on the books" and the actual enforcement of those same laws. These two countries are also among the largest recipients of international donor assistance, lending credence to some who argue that political leaders in aid-dependent countries are skillful at establishing laws and institutions to meet foreign donor requirements despite those same laws and institutions failing to deliver for ordinary citizens.

The "implementation gap," a score that Global Integrity publishes for each country covered, manifests itself differently in countries as distinct as Uganda and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the former, the auditing and monitoring of the declared assets of elected officials have proven ineffective despite a strong asset disclosure legal regime. In the latter, a national-level ombudsman agency exists but is considered to be impotent in practice, rarely acting on citizen complaints. In both cases, despite massive amounts of foreign aid, including a significant amount of aid for good governance and anti-corruption efforts, there is little evidence to suggest that ordinary citizens are benefiting from the proliferation of legal and regulatory reforms on paper.

Some country highlights -

In Uganda, our researcher states that: “in the period between 2005-2007, of all gifts declared [by government officials] none has been by a legislator. Not that they didn’t receive any gifts but because the Inspectorate of Government has no capacity to track all gifts received wherever they are handed.”

In Mongolia, our lead researcher speaks to media bias, stating “there are no significant examples of media outlets remaining separate from political or business interests as a point of brand distinction. News outlets do not appear to count objectivity, integrity, or trust as attributes they must cultivate in order attract consumers.”

In Lebanon, citizens must pay a deposit of approximately 16,000 USD to request to access asset disclosures from the General Prosecutor’s office or the first level investigative judge based in Beirut.

In Azerbaijan, opposition views are fiercely suppressed by government, who even go so far as to ban libraries from subscribing to opposition papers.

In Liberia, ballot security is threatened by high illiteracy rates which allow for people’s votes to be manipulated.

In Venezuela, our lead researcher notes that “one of the most important examples of the influence of the audit agency was the political sanctions imposed on about 200 politicians in the 2008 local and regional elections, which prevented them from running as candidates. Most of them were opposition leaders.”

Accountability and Anti-Corruption Unchanged in U.S. Despite New Administration

Despite a change of administration in the United States in 2009, significant progress has not been achieved in curbing corruption at the national level in the U.S. The overall score for the United States in 2009 — 85 — is virtually the same as when Global Integrity last assessed the United States in 2007. Despite the new White House's rhetorical commitment to reform and laudable efforts to increase the transparency of government information, there is little evidence to suggest that concrete changes have taken root that will curb corruption at the national level in the years to come. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow greater levels of corporate and union spending on election advertising will likely drive down future scores for the U.S., Global Integrity predicts.

Global Integrity's new data for the United States suggest several reasons why little progress was achieved in 2009. The Obama administration's early anti-corruption efforts focused significantly on tighter restrictions around lobbying. While certainly not harmful, there are few data to suggest that increasing the transparency around lobbying activities at the federal level is the solution to corruption challenges in the United States. Rather than lobbying, Global Integrity data point to the corrupting influence of massive amounts of money in the federal elections process as one of the core drivers of corruption in the American system. A failure to adequately control the influence of money in politics has blunted other reforms and continues to undermine the potential for lasting change.

The data gathered in 2009 also suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to allow greater corporate and union spending on political advertising (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission) will likely pour fuel on the fire of political corruption in the U.S. While free speech concerns loomed large in the court's decision to overturn longstanding campaign finance controls, the practical reality is that by allowing significant new inflows of private money into the U.S. political process, the court's decision may simply overwhelm an already dysfunctional Federal Elections Commission and undermine prospects for more accountable governance.

For Global Integrity data in the U.S. to improve in future years, innovative methods to control the influence of money in politics will need to be explored in the post-Citizens United era while important accountability agencies such as the Federal Elections Commission and the Inspectors General will need to be greatly strengthened, both politically and with larger budgets.

Posted 02/23/2010

* * *

World Bank Governance Indicators – 8th Annual Update

The chief authors of the report are Daniel Kaufmann, Brookings Institution, and Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi of the World Bank.

The indicators (presented in a user-friendly interactive manner) measure six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.

In a summary the World Bank noted:

Where there is commitment to reform, improvements in governance can and do occur.
Over the past decade from 1998-2008, countries in all regions have shown substantial improvements in governance, even if at times starting from a very low level. Examples include Ghana, Niger, and Peru in Voice and Accountability; Algeria, Angola and Sierra Leone in Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism; China, Colombia, and Rwanda in Government Effectiveness; the Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia and Libya in Regulatory Quality; Latvia, Liberia and Rwanda in Rule of Law; and Indonesia, Liberia and Serbia in Control of Corruption.

On average the quality of governance around the world has not improved much over the past decade, despite some of the individual country improvements noted above. Coinciding with countries that have done well, a similar number have experienced deteriorations in several governance dimensions, including Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Belarus, Eritrea and Venezuela. In many other countries, no significant change in either direction is yet apparent in recent years.

Please see reports from earlier years on the Governance Indicators further down this page.

A detailed discussion of the indicators, with in-depth analysis of the methodologies used, can be found at Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996-2008

Posted 07/01/2009

* * *

A Vision of Humanity - The Global Peace Index 2009

New report finds we are living in a less safe world

The Global Peace Index was founded by Australian Steve Killelea, an international technology entrepreneur and philanthropist, and it forms part of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new global think tank dedicated to the research and education of the relationship between economic development, business and peace.

From the report:...a culture of peace would be furthered by actions promoting education for peace and sustainable development, which it suggested was based on human rights, gender equality, democratic participation, tolerant solidarity, open communication and international security.

Key Findings: The results of the Global Peace Index for 2009 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year, which appears to reflect the intensification of violent conflict in some countries and the effects of both the rapidly rising food and fuel prices early in 2008 and the dramatic global economic downturn in the final quarter of the year. Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the GPI through various indicators measuring safety and security in society.

Rankings

New Zealand is ranked as the country most at peace, followed by Denmark and Norway. Small, stable and democratic countries are consistently ranked highest; 14 of the top 20 countries are Western or Central European countries. This is, however, a reduction from 16 last year, with Hungary and Slovakia both slipping out of the top 20, while Qatar and Australia moved up to 16th and 19th place respectively. All five Scandinavian countries are in the top ten of the GPI. Island nations generally fare well, although Madagascar fell by 30 places amid mounting political instability and violent demonstrations. For the third year running, the country ranked least at peace is Iraq. Afghanistan and Somalia follow – countries that are in a state of ongoing conflict and upheaval. The average score for the nations surveyed in the 2009 GPI is 1.964 (based on a 1-5 scale). There is little variance between the overall scores of the top 20 countries (1.202 for New Zealand and 1.481 for Chile), although the 20 lowest ranked countries exhibit a far greater spread, varying between 2.485 (Sri Lanka) and 3.341 (Iraq).

Methodology & Background

This is the third edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI). It has been expanded to rank 144 independent states and updated with the latest-available figures and information for 2007-08. The index is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from respected sources, which combine internal and external factors ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighboring countries and the level of respect for human rights. These indicators were selected by an international panel of experts including academics and leaders of peace institutions. As before, the GPI has been tested against a range of potential “drivers” or potential determinants of peace – including levels of democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. The GPI brings a snapshot of relative peacefulness among nations while continuing to contribute to an understanding of what factors help create or sustain more peaceful societies. The GPI is collated and calculated by the Economist Intelligence Unit, with whom this report is written in co-operation.

The difficulties in defining the concept of peace may partly explain why there have been so few attempts to measure states of peace across nations. This project has approached the task on two fronts – the first aim is to produce a scoring model and global peace index that ranks 144 nations by their relative states of peace using 23 indicators. The indicators have been selected as being the best available datasets that reflect the incidence or absence of peace, and contain both quantitative data and qualitative scores from a range of trusted sources. The second aim is to use the underlying data and results from the Global Peace Index to undertake investigations into the relative importance of a range of potential determinants or “drivers” that may influence the creation and nurturing of peaceful societies, both internally and externally.

See the Global Peace Index for the detailed ranking table, data and analysis.

Posted 06/03/2009

* * *

Global Intregrity Report 2008

Unregulated Money in Politics Is Greatest Corruption Threat Globally, Study Finds

Iraq and Somalia Included For First Time in New ReportAssessing Anti-Corruption Mechanisms and Government Accountability in 57 Countries

See Report 2008

The following is a summary of Global integrity's major study:

Regardless of income levels, the #1 corruption threat facing a majority of countries is the unregulated flow of money into the political process, a new report finds. The report, a major investigative study of 57 countries, was released today by Global Integrity, an award-winning international nonprofit organization that tracks governance and corruption trends globally.

“For the third straight year, poor transparency around the financing of political parties and candidates was the weakest element of most countries’ anti-corruption frameworks,” said Global Integrity’s Managing Director, Nathaniel Heller. “If we’re serious about rolling back corruption and abuse of power in both the developed and developing worlds, more effective safeguards to curb the influence of money in politics are desperately needed.  The Rod Blagojevichs of the world are just the tip of the iceberg.”  

The Global Integrity Report: 2008 covers developed countries such as Canada, Japan and Italy as well as dozens of the world’s emerging markets and developing nations, from Argentina and China to the West Bank and Iraq. Rather than measure perceptions of corruption, the report assesses the accountability mechanisms and transparency measures in place (or not) to prevent corruption through more than 300 “Integrity Indicators.”  Gaps in those safeguards suggest where corruption is more likely to occur.

Global Integrity’s new Grand Corruption Watch List, introduced as part of the 2008 report, includes Angola, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Georgia, Iraq, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Serbia, Somalia, the West Bank, and Yemen, all countries viewed at serious risk for high-level corruption.  The Watch List identifies countries where the lack of effective conflicts of interest regulations, unregulated flows of money into the political process, and poor oversight over large state-owned enterprises combine to pose a systemic risk of large-scale theft of public resources.  “Watch List countries are unfortunately characterized by a toxic mix of corruption risk factors that should be cause for alarm,” said Heller.

Other major findings of the report include the following:

• The most significant anti-corruption failure in much of the Arab world is poor access to government information.  While the countries in the Middle East and North Africa assessed in the 2008 Report struggle to match global medians on many factors, their comprehensive lack of effective access to government information is virtually double those countries’ deficit on any other issue assessed by Global Integrity.
  
  

• Several key countries experienced gains or backsliding since 2007.  Important anti-corruption improvements were noted in Bangladesh and Nigeria; in China, a more positive assessment was linked to the introduction of a new regulation granting citizens access to government information.  Noticeable decliners included Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ecuador; Georgia also slipped for the second straight year and continues to struggle consolidating democratic gains since the 2003 Rose Revolution.
  
  

• Corruption and transparency challenges appear to be worsening on the Horn of Africa, threatening to exacerbate tensions in an already-fragile security situation.  Drops in performance in Kenya and Ethiopia, combined with Somalia’s ignominious honor of boasting the worst-ever overall Global Integrity country score, do not bode well for establishing the kinds of checks and balances in all three countries that could promote good governance and improve stability.

 
“The country assessments that comprise the Report offer among the most detailed, evidence-based evaluations of anti-corruption mechanisms available anywhere in the world,” said Global Integrity’s International Director, Marianne Camerer. “They provide policymakers, investors, and citizens alike with the information to understand the governance challenges unique to each country and to take action.”

Posted 02/21/09

* * *

Ethical Corporation Institute

ECI Anti-Corruption, Ethics and Compliance in Russia

Summary findings from a new report

Background:

• World Bank 2003: the cost of corruption = 5% of the world economy (ie US$1.5 tn/yr)
• Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Russia a low 147/180 countries
• We wanted to dig deeper and expose the specific corruption challenges that major multinational companies confront.
• This research is timely considering the recent presidential push to fight corruption
• Some say (INDEM pres) that the cost of biz bribes is on the rise (ave $11,000 in 2001 and $137,230 in 2005), but incident rates/individuals/people involved in bribery has decreased.

Aim:

The report will provide practical information on mitigating corruption to companies seeking to expand their markets or operations into Russia. It intends to go beyond Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Indexes (CPI) and Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) in order to provide a more detailed overview of local risks to doing business. The report also intends to go beyond the World Bank’s Doing Business data in order to understand the level and nature of transaction time and cost exhaustion from doing business in an honest and transparent way.

Key findings:

1. President Medvedev’s Special Committee to counter corruption:
1. Top-level commitment is needed
2. Believed to be influenced by:

• UN Convention Against Corruption
• Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (Russia ratified in 2006)
• OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in Intern’l Business Transactions (made a public commitment)
• Variety of national and regional supported by various ministries
• Businesses support it & are mainly optimistic.
• Needed: Elena Panfilova, Director of TI Russia, notes existing legislation is very complicated and it’s difficult to tell which relates to a-c. Also, the new bill does not address state a-c from the top, only officials and business people.

2. Examples:
1. Still a problem with occasional regulatory officials manipulating data – especially high incidence rate among customs officials and agents. Unfortunately, there is no specific a-c law in regards to customs.
2. Passing bribery risks to a local intermediary
3. Russia’s a high context (rel’p-based society):

• Gift giving – Int’l Woman’s Day.
• Lavish entertainment
• Hiring friends and family - Subjective interpretations of what is ethical
• Build trust
• Turnover is extra expensive

4. Historically, tariffs of 5x higher for foreign co.’s and registration fees can be up to 10x higher
5. Lack of transparency in legal enforcement
6. Kickbacks in contracts – more pay once job is completed/approved
   
   Posted 01/21/2009

* * *

A from A Report from the Center for International Policy

Raymond W. Baker Director, Global Financial Integrity

Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries 2002-2006: Executive Summary by Dev Kar and Devon Cartwright-Smith

lllegal flight capital is intended to disappear from any record in the country of origin, and earnings on the stock of illegal flight capital outside of a country do not normally return to the country of origin.

Illegal flight capital can be generated through a number of means that are not revealed in national accounts or balance of payments figures, including trade mispricing, bulk cash movements, hawala transactions, smuggling, and more.

Principle Findings

1) In 2006, the most recent year of the GFI study, developing countries lost an estimated $858.6 billion – $1.06 trillion in illicit financial outflows.

2) Even at the lower end of the range of estimates, the volume of illicit financial flows coming out of developing countries increased at a compound rate of 18.2 percent over the 5 year period analyzed for the study.

3) On average, for the five-year period of this study, Asia accounts for approximately 50 percent of overall illicit financial flows from all developing countries.

4) Due to a large volume of illicit financial flows from mainland China, Asia was the dominant region in overall illicit financial flows from developing countries.

5) On average, Europe ranks second in the share of overall illicit financial flows from developing countries, accounting for approximately 17 percent of the total.

6) The share of illicit financial flows from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the Western Hemisphere region are each approximately 15 percent of total illicit financial flows from developing countries.

7) The smallest share of illicit financial flows is from the Africa region at approximately 3 percent of the total. However, there are strong reasons to believe that the share would have been higher if more complete and reliable data were available.

8) Over the five-year period of this study, illicit financial flows grew at the fastest pace in the MENA (49.4 percent) region followed by Europe (25.4 percent), Asia (15.7 percent), and the Western Hemisphere (2.8 percent) in that order. Illicit financial flows from Africa actually declined (-2.9 percent) but this decline is more the result of incomplete data than supportive economic or political factors.

9) The nearly 50 percent compound rate of growth in illicit financial flows from the MENA region reflects the phenomenal growth of the current account surplus and external debt of many oil producing countries in the region, rather than the flight of capital through trade misinvoicing.

Posted 01/14/2009

* * *

World Bank’s Governance Indicators 2008

Report says results show improvements can be made over time

The latest update to the World Bank’s Governance Indicators survey shows good governance is not necessarily tied to developing countries.  For the past 11 years, the World Bank has undertaken the challenging task of measuring governance across different countries taking into account six different dimensions.  This year’s survey included 212 countries, and data was collected from 35 different sources.  Improvements were found in a number of developing countries and backsliding in many industrialized ones. 

The survey is meant to be used for assessing cross-country performance as well as individual country performance over time, according to the report.  The six categories under which countries were analyzed are:

1. Voice and Accountability: the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.

2. Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism: the likelihood that the government will be destabilized by unconstitutional or violent means, including terrorism.

3. Government Effectiveness: the quality of public services, the capacity of the civil service and its independence from political pressures; and the quality of policy formulation.

4. Regulatory Quality: the ability of the government to provide sound policies and regulations that enable and promote private sector development.

5. Rule of Law: the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, including the quality of contract enforcement and property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.

6. Control of Corruption: the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests.

According to the survey, Ukraine and Haiti showed improvement in accountability, Argentina showed improvements in its political stability, and Georgia and Tanzania showed improvements in fighting corruption.  By contrast, Zimbabwe saw the steepest overall decline in governance by far, according to the survey, along with Cote d’Ivoire, Belarus, Eritrea and Venezuela.  Although the survey noted significant improvements in some countries, this progress was offset by substantial declines in others so that the net change showed no progress toward improved governance worldwide.

Despite a lack of improvement overall, the survey cites the more positive trend that governance can in fact be measured, and over time, improved.  A particular tendency for many development practitioners, the survey noted, is to have a pessimistic view of progress in African countries.  However, this year’s survey shows marked improvements in Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, Angola, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There have been critics of the survey who doubt the reliability of governance measurements, the report says.  As in past surveys, the World Bank notes throughout each data survey the margin of error.  The report says that over time, the margin of error has improved, showing that progress can be made in the area of governance. 

For in-depth analysis of the Governance Indicator methodology and the findings for individual countries, please visit the Governance Indicator interactive website the World Bank has created, which makes the survey results more accessible to readers.

See past EthicsWorld coverage of Governance Indicators: 2007 Survey, 2006 Survey

Posted 6/27/08

Back To Top

* * *

Global Report Sheds Light on Corruption in the Water Sector

Over one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water, and corruption is the root cause.  This was the main message delivered today at a conference in Washington D.C., where Transparency International-USA officially launched its new Global Corruption Report, which focuses on the water sector. 

The TI Global Corruption Report is an annual publication that focuses each year on a different topic related to international corruption.  This year’s topic was chosen in part because there are few other areas where corruption so directly impacts the livelihoods of so many people.

“Water is a resource without substitute,” said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International.  “It is paramount to our health, our food security, our energy future and our ecosystem.  But corruption plagues water management and use in all these areas.”

Dieter Zinnbauer, Chief Editor of the Global Corruption Report, noted the stark absence of corruption in policy debates in the water sector.  The goal of this year’s report is to provide a highly concentrated analysis of corruption and the water sector so that corruption becomes a larger part of the policy dialogue when developing water strategies.  

Zinnbauer started the discussion by presenting some disconcerting conclusions from the report.  Not only does corruption plague all levels of the water industry itself, but also sub-sectors associated with it, such as agriculture and hydropower.  The report itself includes a number of examples where corruption has a directly negative impact on the local population, and not all of the examples are from developing countries.  Zinnbauer cited a specific case-study that was conducted in India where the additional burden on water projects due to corruption amounted to 25 to 45 percent of the total cost.  With the coming challenges of water scarcity and climate change, the global population cannot afford to avoid finding solutions, Zinnbauer stated.

Five expert panelists, all deeply involved in water sector development, unanimously agreed on the sheer complexity of the problem.  Some of the barriers to progress that the panelists mentioned included a fragmented regulatory environment, an overall lack of accountability by those parties involved, an inability on the part of the victims to demand accountability and a limited number of qualified companies to take on the projects due to what Peter Harrold, Director of Operations Services at the World Bank, called a “procurement nightmare.”

Despite these challenges, one panelist, Roberto de Michele at the Inter-American Development Bank, said the new TI report “brings complexity into something operational.”  All of the panelists agreed there is no one solution to the problem, but will take a concerted effort on the part of many stakeholders to do their part in finding a sustainable solution.  In this respect, information will be critical and the process will take time, said Hakan Tropp, Chairman of the Water Integrity Network. 

Some of the initiatives encouraged by the report include:

• Establishing transparency and participation as guiding principles for all aspects of water governance.
• Strengthening regulatory oversight.
• Ensuring fair competition and accountable implementation of water projects.
  
  

TI hopes this report will present the framework and rigorous analysis that are needed to start a larger discussion on how the international community can tackle this issue.  

Regional Highlights from the Global Corruption Report 2008

To read about many more examples, please download the full report from the Transparency International website.

Posted 6/26/08

Back To Top

* * *

U.N. Human Development Report Focuses on Corruption in the Asia-Pacific

New report says problem of corruption “goes to very core” of human development

A new United Nations Human Development Report focuses on tackling corruption in the Asia-Pacific region.  The team responsible for the report, lead by Anuradha Rajivan, chose corruption as its theme as a follow-up to the recent Second Session of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in Bali, Indonesia.  The report takes the view that corruption is a key barrier to human development.  At the halfway point to the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals, curbing corruption will be an important step toward reaching them.    

According to the report, “In a diverse region like the Asia-Pacific, which is attempting the twin task of development and democratic consolidation, the problem of corruption goes to its very core.”

There is a strong emphasis on what is commonly termed “petty” corruption, a word the report calls a misnomer.  The authors argue that small scale bribery, as opposed to corruption on a grand scale, can be just as damaging and hurts the poor the most.  The report cites numerous surveys that suggest corruption is likely to slow economic growth, but certainly it affects poverty.  Corruption reduces the effectiveness of social programs, and even relatively small bribes take a toll on poor people’s already meager incomes, the report stated.

The report covers all areas of corruption in the context of the Asia-Pacific region, but the top three sectors most affected by corruption are law enforcement, the judiciary and the tax system.  The report also includes what it says are issues less covered by the media, such as corruption of natural resources and legislative loopholes that allow corruption to take place legally. 

Although the majority of the report is background information on the status of corruption in various areas of the Asia-Pacific, the report does offer important recommendations, which are included below:

1. Join with international efforts – All countries in the region should join the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative.
   
   
2. Establish benchmarks of quality – To judge their success, governments can use international benchmarks – for anticorruption agencies, for example, and for the national media.
   
   
3. Strengthen the civil service – Some governments could raise salaries, but all should be able to ensure merit-based recruitment and promotion – along with more rigorous systems of control. Governments and donors will clearly need to invest much more in local government.
   
   
4. Encourage codes of conduct in the private sector – Among the professions, the most critical codes are those of lawyers and accountants.
   
   
5. Establish the right to information – All countries in the region could enact laws on the right to information – and encourage public officials, the media and civil society organizations to take advantage of this right.
   
   
6. Exploit new technology –Information technology and e-governance offer fresh opportunities to break the information monopoly of corrupt officials.
   
   
7. Support citizen action – Local governments should publish the basic information on contracts to facilitate citizen auditing; individuals can do much as citizens and consumers, including keeping themselves informed and networked.

To download the full report and other document materials, please visit the UNDP website.

Posted 6/13/08

Back To Top

* * *

International Aid Alliance Says Major Donors Fall $10bn Short in Aid to Afghanistan

The prospects for peace in Afghanistan are being undermined because Western countries are failing to deliver on their promises of aid to the tune of $10bn and because aid going to the country is used ineffectively, according to a new report written by ACBAR, an alliance of national and international aid agencies working in Afghanistan. The international community has pledged $25bn to Afghanistan since 2001 but has only delivered $15bn. The US is the biggest donor to Afghanistan but also has one of the biggest shortfalls - between 2002 and 2008 the US only delivered half of its $10.4bn commitment, according to the Afghan government.

The same sources show that over this period the EC and Germany distributed less than two-thirds of their respective $1.7bn and $1.2bn commitments, and the World Bank has distributed just over half of its $1.6bn commitment. The UK pledged $1.45bn and distributed $1.3bn.

An estimated 40% of the money spent has returned to rich donor countries such as the US through corporate and consulting overhead costs, vastly pushing up expenditure. For example, a road between the centre of Kabul and the international airport cost the US over $2.3m per kilometer, at least four times the average cost of building a road in Afghanistan.

Around 90% of all public spending in Afghanistan comes from international aid so the massive shortfall hinders efforts to rebuild infrastructure damaged by over two decades of war, and to ensure the widespread delivery of essential services such as education and health.

The report’s author Matt Waldman, Afghanistan policy adviser at international aid agency Oxfam, said: “Spending on tackling poverty is a fraction of what is spent on military operations. Whilst the US military is currently spending $100m a day in Afghanistan, aid spent by all donors since 2001 is on average less than a tenth of that - just $7m a day.”

The report also shows that a disproportionate amount of aid follows the conflict and is being used for political and military objectives rather than reducing poverty.

Looking to the future of aid to Afghanistan, Mr Waldman said: “The priority now is to increase the volume of aid and ensure it makes a sustainable difference for the poorest Afghans, especially in rural areas. Aid must address Afghan needs, build local capacities and help Afghans help themselves.”

ACBAR’s main recommendations are:

• Increased volume of aid, particularly to rural areas.
• Transparency by donors and improved information flows to the Afghan government.
• Better measurement of the impact, efficiency and relevance of aid.
• An independent commission on aid effectiveness to monitor donor performance.
• Effective coordination between donors and with the Afghan government.

Posted 3/25/08

Back To Top

* * *

Nathaniel Heller Introduces New Global Integrity Report for EthicsWorld...

2007 GI Report Provides In-depth, Holistic Governance Data Across the Globe

Among data, G8 countries rank near developing countries on government accountability and political financing

Nathaniel Heller, Managing Director of Global Integrity, states:

"The Global Integrity Report: 2007 makes clear that elections cannot be used as a simplistic litmus test for 'democracy' or 'good governance.' We saw very little relationship between countries that scored well on clean and fair elections and those that had tackled the tougher government accountability issues so crucial to cementing long-term reforms.  While many countries can boast of regular elections free from violence, a far smaller number can point to reforms such as effective conflicts of interest regulations, 'cooling off' periods for former senior officials, and robust asset disclosure requirements in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

What allows us to peek behind the curtain of 'governance' and unpack it into discrete and actionable concepts are our Integrity Indicators. These 300 finely tuned questions are scored by our in-country teams of local experts in each country and offer a snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of national-level anti-corruption systems.  The Indicators help move the debate beyond a name-and-shame, single-number ranking (which is not particularly useful for policymaking) and towards a dispassionate discussion of how best to prioritize governance challenges where political and financial capital are scarce.  By offering a road map for reform, they help to stimulate buy-in from governments and local civil society change agents alike.

Global Integrity country assessments, and the Integrity Indicators prepared for each country, are accessible to and widely used by a variety of actors -- government policymakers (particular donor governments and aid recipient governments) seeking to design evidence-based reform programs; grassroots advocates that want to sharpen their message when calling for reform; journalists seeking insight into where corruption is more or less likely to occur in a country; researchers and academics interested in exploring the relationship between anti-corruption safeguards and other variables; and businesses (especially investors focused on emerging markets) seeking to assess risk and opportunity."

Some key findings from the report...

• There was little evidence to suggest elections are strongly related to improved government accountability.  An analysis of the 2007 data reveals that “elections-strong” countries were just as likely to face serious problems with government accountability as “elections-poor” countries.
  
  
• In China, more than half of the 23 governance sub-categories that GI assessed were “very weak” which should be a significant concern to investors interested in capitalizing on China’s expanding market.
  
  
• The wealthier G8 countries suffer from similar corruption challenges as developing countries.  In the United States, gaps in the political financing system are as problematic as those in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Overall, poor regulation over political financing was the most serious deficiency in anti-corruption systems around the world.
  
  
• Government accountability had the lowest overall mean score, of the six high-level categories GI assessed, across all countries.  This is a major problem for aid agencies that continue to work primarily with governments, since the money is less likely to reach the target population. 
  
  

The report covers many other areas such as freedom of speech, the strength of civil society organizations, as well as progress made in individual countries.  To read the full report, see the Global Integrity website.

Posted 2/4/08

Back To Top

* * *

Poor Across the World Hit Hardest by Corruption, Says New Transparency International 'Barometer' Survey

The Transparency International (TI) Global Corruption Barometer is a public opinion survey that has been administered around the world each year since 2003. The Barometer explores how corruption affects the daily lives of ordinary citizens, asking about the general public’s attitudes toward corruption, the extent to which they believe corruption pervades public institutions, their experience with petty bribery and their sense of how the fight against corruption will fare in the future.

Key findings in the Global Corruption Barometer 2007 are:

• The poor in developing countries, are the most penalised by corruption. They are also more pessimistic about the prospects for less corruption in the future.
  
  
• About 1 in 10 people around the world had to pay a bribe in the past year; reported bribery has increased in some regions, such as Asia-Pacific and South East Europe.
  
  
• Bribery is particularly widespread in interactions with the police, the judiciary and registry and permit services.
  
  
• The general public believe political parties, parliament, the police and the judicial/legal system are the most corrupt institutions in their societies.
  
  

• Half of those interviewed – significantly more than four years ago – expect corruption in their country to increase in the next three years, with some African countries being the exception.
  
  

• Half of those interviewed also think that their government’s efforts to fight corruption are ineffective.

TI said the countries most affected by petty bribery include Albania, Cameroon, Macedonia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania and Senegal.

The new report stated that out of 11 services sectors, citizens reported that contact with the police far and away involves the biggest bribery problem. One in every four citizens around the world who had contact with the police was asked to pay a bribe – and one of every six citizens reported that they ended up paying such a bribe. Bribery is also reported to be a considerable problem for the judiciary, registry and permit services, education and medical services as well as electricity providers.

The fact that the judiciary emerges as the sector, after the police, most affected by bribery casts serious doubts about citizens being guaranteed their democratic right to equal access to courts. Institutions such as the judiciary and the police are in charge of sanctioning corruption-related acts – if they are beset by bribery, as the Barometer 2007 indicates, then the very enforcement mechanisms that are crucial for effective anti-corruption efforts are hindered, and public trust is undermined.

TI noted that the Global Corruption Barometer 2007 interviewed 63,199 people in 60 countries and territories between June and September 2007. The Barometer survey was carried out on behalf of Transparency International by Gallup International Association as part of its Voice of the People Survey. The Global Corruption Barometer 2007 covers seven countries not included in the 2006 edition: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Ecuador, Ghana, Ireland, Lithuania and Vietnam.

Posted 12/6/07

Back To Top

* * *

New Index Aims to Set Objective Criteria for African Governance

Mauritius Ranks First Out of 48 Countries, Somalia Comes Last

The inaugural Ibrahim Index of African Governance has been published in a joint effort between the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  Mr. Ibrahim, born in Sudan, who has built a very successful African mobile telephone company, has established a major prize for African leaders who have demonstrated outstanding governance. The new index is part of Mr. Ibrahim’s effort to strengthen governance in sub-Saharan Africa. 

According to the new index the best performers out of 48 countries in terms of good governance are:

1. Mauritius
2. Seychelles
3. Botswana

Trailing the rankings in worst positions are:

46. Chad
47. Democratic Republic of Congo
48. Somalia

The Index has been created “In recognition of the need for a more comprehensive, objective and quantifiable method of measuring governance quality in sub-Saharan Africa,” said the Foundation.

The Index measures the performance of government in 48 African countries from 2000 and 2002 (for baseline indicators) and 2005 (the last year with reasonably complete available data for nearly all ranked countries).  Rankings are based on objective data, including outputs (not inputs) of government spending.  In addition to the ranking, individual reports on countries are available. The Index establishes five categories of measurement:

Safety and Security
Rule of Law/Transparency and Corruption
Participation and Human Rights
Sustainable Economic Opportunity
Human Development

Underneath these categories are sub-categories, which in total, comprise 58 markers for governance, providing what the Foundation believes is “One of the most comprehensive assessments of the governance in sub-Saharan African ever undertaken.”

The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will be awarded to a former African executive Head of State or Government who has demonstrated excellence in African leadership on October 22, 2007.

The top and bottom scores in each specific category of the Index are as follows:

To see an in-depth analysis of each category and each country, visit the Mo Ibrahim Foundation website.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation is an African initiative that has been established to:

1. Stimulate debate on good governance across sub-Saharan Africa and the world
2.Provide objective criteria by which citizens can hold their Governments to account
3. Recognise achievement in African leadership and provide a practical way in which African leaders can build positive legacies on the continent when they have left office

Posted 10/2/07

Back To Top

* * *

World Bank Institute Study Evaluates Governance in 212 Countries

The World Bank Institute released its annual “Worldwide Governance Indicators” volume, which attempts to measure governance practices in 212 countries across six categories. Within each category, the countries are color-coded according to their ranking within a percentile. The comprehensive report takes into account 33 individual data sources and hundreds of variables; however, WGI experts emphasize the considerable margin of error that inevitably accompanies measurements of governance.

The following categories were used to evaluate each country:

1.       Voice and Accountability – measuring the extent to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.

2.       Political Stability and Absence of Violence – measuring perceptions of the likelihoood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including terrorism

3.       Government Effectiveness  – measuring the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies

4.       Regulatory Quality – measuring the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development

5.       Rule of Law  – measuring the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence

6.       Control of Corruption – measuring the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as "capture" of the state by elites and private interests.

The report suggests “significant improvement” in governance practices among a range of countries, specifically many in Africa. Over the period from 1998 to 2006, Kenya, Niger, and Sierra Leone have shown marked recent improvements in Voice and Accountability, while Algeria and Liberia have strengthened their Rule of Law. Countries like Algeria, Angola Libya, Rwanda and Sierra Leone have made improvements in Political Stability and Tanzania has recorded gains on Control of Corruption. However, other countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe are still behind. Zimbabwe has actually gotten worse in all areas since 1998.

Another trend suggests that some emerging economies are matching some rich countries within certain governance indicators. Some countries such as Slovenia, Chile, Botswana, Estonia, Uruguay, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Costa Rica are actually scoring higher in some areas of governance than developed countries such as Greece and Italy. For example, the Czech Republic received a high ranking in Government Effectiveness 80.1 (80.1% of countries are ranked lower) and in Regulatory Quality 79.5 (79.5% of countries ranked lower). Italy, on the other hand, had a score of 67.3 in Government Effectiveness and 74.1 in Regulatory Quality.

Researchers at The World Bank Institute believe the progress made in governance practices have a big impact on development as a whole. According to the report that accompanies the WGI volume, “researchers estimate that when governance is improved by one standard deviation, incomes rise about three-fold in the long run, and infant mortality declines by two-thirds.”

WGI researchers also emphasize that the WGI volume should only be used as a starting point to make strategic decisions in improving countries’ governance practices. Considering the individual characteristics of each country, policymakers should investigate additional outlets, such as the individual data sources used to create the governance indicators and the Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) country diagnostics.

To read more about the WGI, click here.

To access the interactive website, which presents an in-depth analysis of the indicators, click here.

Posted 7/10/07

Back To Top

* * *

Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2007

View it here.

Some of the key conclusions of the May 24, 2007 report on Corruption in Judicial Systems

Key Reform Recommendations

Focus on Africa and the Middle East

Focus: Latin America

Focus: Asia Pacific

Europe and Central Asia

10 Key Recommendations for Judicial Transparency

1. The judiciary must publish annual reports of its activities and spending, and provide the public with reliable information about its governance and organisation.
   
   
2. The public should have reliable access to information pertaining to laws, proposed changes in legislation, court procedures, judgements, judicial vacancies, recruitment criteria, judicial selection procedures and reasons for judicial appointments.
   
   
3. The prosecution must conduct judicial proceedings in public (with limited exceptions, for example concerning children); publish reasons for decisions; and produce publicly accessible prosecution guidelines to direct and assist decision makers during the conduct of prosecutions.
   
   
4. Judges should make periodic asset disclosures especially where other public officials are required to do so.
   
   
5. Judges must declare conflicts of interests as soon as they become apparent and disqualify themselves when they are (or might appear to be) biased or prejudiced towards a party to a case; when they have previously served as lawyers or material witnesses in the case; or if they have an economic interest in the outcome.
   
   
6. Formal judicial institutional mechanisms should be established to ensure that parties using the courts are legally advised on the nature, scale and scope of their rights and procedures before, during and after court proceedings.
   
   
7. Journalists must be able to comment fairly on legal proceedings and report suspected or actual corruption or bias. Laws that criminalise defamation or give judges discretion to award crippling compensation in libel cases inhibit the media from investigating and reporting suspected criminality, and should be reformed.
   
   
8. Journalists and editors should be better trained in reporting what happens in courts and in presenting legal issues to the general public in an understandable form. Academics should be encouraged to comment on court judgements in legal journals, if not in the media.
   
   
9. Civil society organisations should contribute to understanding the issues related to judicial corruption by monitoring the incidence of corruption, as well as potential indicators of corruption, such as delays and the quality of decisions.
   
   
10. Judicial reform programmes should address the problem of judicial corruption. Donors should share knowledge of diagnostics, evaluation of court processes and efficiency; and engage openly with partner countries.

Focus: Africa and the Middle East

Judiciary is perceived to be corrupt

• Africa has bleak perceptions of judicial corruption. A majority of people in seven of the eight African countries polled perceive the legal system/judiciary to be corrupt, according to TI’s Global Corruption Barometer. South Africa was the exception.

Reality supports this perception: One in five people who had interacted with the judicial system paid a bribe.

Persistent problems in the region: Political influence in the judicial process:

• Political influence over the selection of judges in sub-Saharan Africa is especially serious (e.g. Niger, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe).
  
  
• Zimbabwe: The government allocated farms expropriated under the fast-track land reform programme to judges at all levels, from lower court magistrates to the Chief Justice, to ensure that court decisions favour political interests.
  
  
• Algeria: The judicial disciplinary body is not transparent and is often influenced by the executive.  
  
  
• Egypt: The failure of the public prosecutor to address corruption and abuses by government employees has gained the office notoriety as a defender of the regime, in contrast with its constitutional mandate as the ‘people’s defender’.
  
  
• Morocco: The Minister of Justice heads the prosecuting authorities, which follow his instruction on when to commence proceedings, and he exercises extensive power through the judicial service commission. This limits the independence of the judicial system in the fight against corruption.
  
  
• Palestine: Ongoing conflict places structural limitations on the judiciary’s ability to act, which contributes to a climate of impunity for crimes, including corruption, and increases the scope for political interference with judicial decisions.
  
  Lack of resources provides room for corruption, often denying access to justice for the poor:
  
  
• Niger: The country has fewer than 200 judges and law officers for a population of 11 million. The excessive workload of the lower courts slows down proceedings, allowing corruption and influence peddling to flourish.
  
  
• South Africa: Few courts are computerised and many transactions are not properly recorded, providing room for corruption. An audit of magistrate offices has uncovered significant misappropriation of funds with regard to maintenance, bail money, estates and deposits.
  
  
• Zambia: Lack of training and shortage of magistrates mean that poorly trained individuals are applying complex laws to difficult facts and must rely on the competence of lawyers, who may not be impartial, to guide them.
  
  

• Social tolerance contributes to corruption.
  
  

• Kenya: The saying ‘why hire a lawyer, if you can buy a judge’ is common. Surveys and polls have mapped a widespread loss of public trust in the justice system.
  
  
• Lesotho: Until the Highlands Water Project, corporations doing business in the country had little expectation of being prosecuted for corruption. In that trial, evidence against Acres, the first corporate defendant, pointed to an established pattern of corruption by major corporations, suggesting that this is an acceptable way to do business in a poor African country.
  
  

Ongoing but limited judicial reforms:  

• Nigeria: Various judicial reforms in Lagos State have had some success, including a drastic reduction of delays in the trial process. Corruption is considered pervasive in Nigeria, and although the Lagos State has made significant efforts to tackle judicial corruption, many other Nigerian judiciaries have yet to implement anti-corruption initiatives.
  
  
• Ghana: Several reform initiatives have been introduced, such as computerisation of the courts to reduce delays and judicial council review of the service conditions of judges. But whether these reforms have succeeded in reducing corruption remains to be seen. To date, there have been no successful prosecutions of judicial officers for corruption.
  
  
• Kenya: Some argue that the policy of ‘radical surgery’, which saw the removal of the chief justice and suspension of 23 judges and 82 magistrates on grounds of corruption, has had a negative impact on the judiciary by violating safeguards on the security of tenure. Allegations of corruption and impropriety against judges were investigated under this policy, but the subsequent removal of judges was not considered constitutionally just and proper.    

Other forces of change: 

Political reform: In Egypt, the call for a more representative democracy and improved judicial independence came from the judges themselves. The Judges’ Club, concerned that its role as the electoral supervisory body would force it to legitimise rigged polls, demanded greater independence from the executive and permission to supervise all stages of the election process.

Civil society: In Zambia, rural NGOs are working with the judiciary and development agencies to train local court personnel in law, procedure and social issues to equip them with the skills to handle cases and reduce corruption.

TI’s work: Monitoring civil and criminal proceedings: Since 2003, TI’s chapter in Ghana, the Ghana Integrity Initiative, has systematically promoted court monitoring by raising awareness, offering training and preparing a Judiciary Watch manual. Raising awareness of court procedures: TI Initiative Madagascar helped produce and distribute Malagasy and French language brochures that describe court procedures, define the jargon of the judiciary and list the different stages of a judicial file. The main objectives are to promote transparency in the Ministry of Justice and reduce petty corruption by informing users about court procedures.

Focus: Latin America

Judiciary is perceived to be corrupt

• According to TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006, the majority of people in nine of the ten Latin American countries polled perceive the legal system/judiciary to be corrupt. In Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru, 80 percent or more of respondents described the justice system as corrupt.
  
  
• A 2004 poll showed that more than 70 percent of Americans believe that judicial campaign contributions have some influence on judges’ decisions; 51 percent of African Americans believe that contributions carry a ‘great deal’ of influence.
  
  

Persistent problems in the region: Political influence in judicial processes

• Argentina: The executive is increasing its control of the judicial council, which is responsible for the appointment, transfer, training and discipline of judges.
  
  
• Dominican Republic: A merit-based selection process seems to have improved the quality of the bench and temporarily decreased corruption. However, there are complaints of slippage, and recent Supreme Court appointments have been highly politicised.
  
  
• Guatemala: Some judges, especially in the Supreme Court, have talked of receiving ‘instructions’ on how to resolve certain cases if they wish to remain in their posts. The appointment process for judges in higher and lower courts is highly politicised.
  
  
• Mexico: The dependence of the public prosecutor’s office on the executive diminishes its ability to conduct independent investigations against officials who belong to the same political party as the government in power.
  Poor resources and sometimes dangerous working conditions make judges more susceptible to corruption.
  
  

Corruption in the broader judicial system:

• Mexico: Judges handling drug trafficking cases receive little protection and are susceptible to coercion and corruption. Among traffickers, it is common to assess how amenable a judge might be to corruption by asking “Plata o plomo?” (“Silver or lead?” What will make a judge comply with a corrupt demand: money or a bullet?)
  
  
• Guatemala: The prison system and the national police have a reputation for corruption, creating further obstacles to justice.
  
  
• Venezuela: Studies show that the most common manifestation of judicial corruption involves tampering with evidence by prosecutors for personal gain.
  
  Judicial reforms have had mixed results:
  
  
• Panama: The public prosecutor’s office has contributed to a deterioration of the justice system’s image. Since 2005, a series of investigations were carried out in an attempt to counter the perception of corruption in the office, which led to the dismissal of a number of prosecutors.
  
  
• Chile: The judiciary drove the process of reform, which has led to greater transparency, modernised administrative procedures and better trained judges and court staff, particularly in the criminal justice system. However, the executive remains a significant influence in the appointments process, and reforms have yet to be extended to the civil justice system.
  
  
• Costa Rica: The judicial system is considered one of the least corrupt in Central and South America. Various reforms have been undertaken to build its capacity to tackle increasingly sophisticated corruption, such as the creation of special courts to hear crimes against the government, including tax fraud cases. In spite of this, many high-profile corruption cases remain unresolved, reinforcing the perception that elite powerbrokers still enjoy impunity.
  
  
• Paraguay: A key reform was the creation of a judicial council to manage lower appointments, and a separate disciplinary board. However, both are highly politicised and are believed to encourage, rather than combat, corruption.

Other forces of change:

• Throughout Central America, civil society has recently launched a new wave of monitoring and accountability initiatives aimed directly at combating corruption in the judiciary.
  
  
• El Salvador: The NGO Protejes has designed indicators to evaluate the transparency, independence and performance of Salvadoran judges. The project enjoys credibility in part because it is headed by two respected Salvadorans, and because it takes judges’ perspectives into account in the process of improving the judiciary.
  
  
• Panama: Alianza Ciudadana Pro Justicia, a coalition of 16 NGOs, carried out an in-depth review of six Supreme Court decisions, concluding that four indicated either serious deficiencies in the work of the judges or undue influence.

TI’s work 

• Argentina: TI’s chapter in Argentina, Poder Ciudadano, joined other civil society organisations in calling on the Supreme Court to make their asset declarations public, listing the names of judges who had complied on their website.
  
  
• Ecuador: TI’s chapter in Ecuador, Corporación Latinoamericana para el desarrollo, was one of a group of civil society NGOs that monitored the Supreme Court selection process to ensure that candidates were free of undue influence.
  
  
• Guatemala: A 2005 study by Acción Ciudadana, the TI chapter in formation, analysed the capacity and limitations of the judiciary’s disciplinary body, while an earlier publication presented findings and recommendations from a series of anti-corruption training workshops with civil society and government representatives.
  
  

• Nicaragua: Etica y Transparencia, TI’s chapter in Nicaragua, created a monitoring bodythat follows the progress of important corruption cases. It has also conducted an analysis of constitutional jurisprudence and precedents behind Supreme Court decisions.

Asia Pacific

Perceptions about judicial corruption vary across the region: According to TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have relatively low levels of perceived judicial corruption. However, the judiciaries of India and Pakistan fare badly, with 77 percent and 55 percent of respondents, respectively, describing the judicial system as corrupt.

• Cambodia: Judicial officers are among the least trusted government officials, and provincial courts among the least trusted institutions, according to a recent opinion survey.
  
  
• Bangladesh: Two thirds of people who used a court in 2004 paid bribes, with the typical bribe amounting to 25 percent of average annual income.
  
  
• Nepal: The judiciary is perceived to be among the most corruption-afflicted sectors.
  
  
• Pakistan: According to a 2002 survey, 96 percent of respondents who had contact with the lower courts had encountered corrupt practices, mainly by court officials.
   

Persistent problems in the region: Insufficient resources and backlogs are major causes and consequences of corruption. In contrast to Asia’s middle to high-income countries, governments of many low income countries (including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) have lowered their commitment to ensuring adequate support for courts and their personnel, inviting corruption and undermining the rule of law.

• Bangladesh: 77 Supreme Court justices and 750 other judges cover a population of nearly 150 million. The salary structure for judges in the countryside is insufficient, and discourages capable people from joining the judiciary.
  
  
• Cambodia: There are 225 judges in the country - 17 per million citizens - and fewer than 300 practicing lawyers.
  
  
• India: In February 2006, 26 Supreme Court judges faced a backlog of more than 30,000 pending cases; over three million cases were pending in the high courts - 350 years of work for the country’s 670 judges at the current rate of resolution.
  
  
• Nepal: Judges often supplement their meagre salaries with ‘incentives’ from lawyers.
  
  
• Pakistan: In Punjab, more than 770,000 civil and criminal cases are pending.
  
  
• Philippines: In 2005, more than 800,000 cases were pending.

The system is weighted against the people:

• Cambodia: Even complicated trials routinely last less than 10 minutes, and an estimated 50 percent of cases go forward without an attorney.
  
  
• Pakistan: English is the official language of the justice system even though 98 percent of the population do not understand it. The poor in villages turn instead to the local panchayat, an informal system of dispute resolution.
  
  
• Nepal: The judicial system is viewed as too expensive and corruption-ridden; poor people often turn to Maoist courts for prompt justice in petty cases.
  
  Faulty selection and promotion systems add to the problem:
  
  

• Cambodia: No official system exists for transferring, promoting or dismissing judges.
  
  
• Nepal: A spirit of collegiality among judges hinders peer oversight and opens the door to corruption.
  
  
• Across the region, political influence affects appointments, case selection and rulings, for example, in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
  
  Poor accountability mechanisms and a lack of transparency diminish the chances of corruption being properly detected and punished:
  
  

• Cambodia: Judicial opinions are not documented transparently, and judges rarely explain their reasoning or note it in the court record, although this is required by law.
  
  
• Mongolia: Court decisions are often made in secret, allowing judges to hide the lack of evidence to support their decisions. Mongolian laws can be ambiguous, allowing different, even conflicting, interpretations by judges and lawyers, often to their financial advantage.
  
  
• Pakistan: While the Supreme Judicial Council, the judiciary’s highest disciplinary body, is willing to accept ‘information’ about the corruption of judges from the police and media, it reserves the right to take ‘direct action’ against the originator of any complaint that it finds ‘false, frivolous, concocted or untrue’. This paves the way for corrupt judges to escape scrutiny and disciplinary action. 
  
  Judicial reform is under way, but unfolding slowly and sometimes with limited effect: 
  
  
• Bangladesh: More than 20 postponements have been granted on implementation of the Supreme Court directive for structural reform of the judiciary.
  
  
• Pakistan: The judicial reform programme fails to address the opaque appointment and promotion system for judges. The government’s unwillingness to provide increased resources to improve salaries and infrastructure also reduces the impact of reforms.
  
  Electronic case handling systems have a mixed record of improving efficiency and accountability:
  
  
• Mongolia: Full automation of Mongolia’s 61 courts, automated random case assignment and public terminals to allow lawyers and the public to access case files have halved the number of people who perceived that the courts were corrupt.
  
  
• Papua New Guinea: An improved case management database has helped to achieve a 30 percent reduction in delays caused by lost files.
  
  
• Philippines: An Action Programme for Judicial Reform was introduced that includes an electronic case administration information system. However, the shortage of telephone lines has inhibited its impact.
   
  Other forces of change: Political reform: Nepal’s 2006 interim constitution included a plan to appoint district judges according to merit. Integration into the global economy: In Indonesia, a commercial court was created to enable foreigners to avoid the corrupt regular court system. However, its judges made allegedly corrupt rulings that favoured well-connected local debtors.
  
  TI’s work
  
  

• Monitoring civil and criminal proceedings in the courts: The Court Watch Project run by the Centre for Social Development (CWP), TI’s chapter in formation in Cambodia, has monitored thousands of cases since October 2003. As an independent watchdog, CWP helps to ensure fair trials and reduce opportunities for corruption.
  
  
• Monitoring selection process and judicial council proceedings: TI Philippines, along with other NGOs in the country, are active in improving the judiciary, forming watchdog groups to monitor selection of the chief justice and to observe proceedings in the judicial and bar council.

Europe and Central Asia

Divergence in the perception of judicial corruption : Denmark, Sweden and Finland lead TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006 with the lowest perceived levels of judicial corruption. In Denmark, 81 percent of respondents perceive little or no corruption in the legal system/judiciary. However, in all former communist countries, 45 percent or more of those polled described the legal/judicial system as corrupt.

Political interference is a significant problem: Selection, transfer and disciplining of judges are still influenced by the executive.

• Azerbaijan: The president has the final word on the selection of new judges. Supreme Court judges and the general prosecutor owe their positions to the executive branch.
  
  
• Croatia: The state judicial council, which appoints and disciplines judges and state attorneys, has been criticised for appointing judges according to political loyalty.
  
  
• Turkey: Appointment and transfer lists are vetted by the Ministry of Justice, which exerts critical influence on the removal of judges and prosecutors from cases.

Some countries have seen backsliding on international standards:

• Russia: Political powers have increased their influence over the judiciary. The International Bar Association is particularly concerned by a number of cases of judicial dismissals where undue influence appears to have been wielded by court chairpersons or other parties.
  
  
• Georgia: A report by the American Bar Association’s Europe and Eurasia Division of the Rule of Law Initiative, or CEELI, named executive influence as one of the most serious issues facing the country’s judiciary, and concluded that the problem has increased since 2003.
  
  Other concerns: Lack of resources is an obstacle to citizens’ access to justice.    
  
  

• Azerbaijan: The country has 4.06 judges per 100,000 citizens, compared to 25.3 in Germany. This is the lowest number of judges per capita in the region.
  
  
• Georgia: Lack of qualified personnel, poor infrastructure, inadequate financial support and poor enforcement of judgements deter citizens from pursuing justice through the courts.
  
  
• Romania: Only 89 percent of judicial and 78 per cent of prosecutors’ posts are currently filled, while the number of parties waiting for their cases to be heard exceeds 22 million.
  
  Poor accountability mechanisms and lack of transparency diminish the chance of corruption being properly detected and punished:
  
  
• Czech Republic: There is no universal, formal and transparent system of evaluating judges - the basis for a high quality human resource policy within the justice system.
  
  
• Turkey: To protect their independence, judges and prosecutors are entitled to immunity from investigation and prosecution for crimes, even bribery. This leads to serious abuse, and the high council rarely lifts this immunity.
  
  Corruption in the broader judicial system:
  
  

• France: Close links between public prosecutors and the executive allow room for political interference in the investigation of major corruption scandals.
  
  
• United Kingdom: Whilst allegations of corruption are seldom made against judges, allegations and convictions of corruption, particularly in the enforcement agencies, have been more common.
  
  EU accession processes are limited drivers of judicial reform:
   

• Czech Republic: The European Union accession process has had a relatively limited impact on judicial reform, the chief exception being the creation of a new career system in the Czech Republic.
  
  
• Georgia: The government is seeking stronger ties with the EU and has formed a government commission on judicial reform that is expected to include representatives from international and local organisations. However, it has yet to undertake substantive activities.
  
  
• Romania: The EU accession process has helped increase the pace and effectiveness of judicial reforms, but many exist only as well-articulated legal frameworks and have not been put into practice.
  
  

TI’s work

• Raising awareness of court procedures and offering advice to victims: TI has established Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres (ALACs) that offer corruption hotlines and legal advice to victims of corruption in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Romania.

* * *

Amnesty International published its Annual Report on May 23, 2007

Earlier in May, Amnesty International, the leading human rights non-governmental organization released its ….

The State of the World's Human Rights

Powerful governments and armed groups are deliberately creating a climate of fear to erode human rights, according to the Amnesty International Report 2007, our annual assessment of human rights worldwide.

Scarred by distrust and division, the international community has been too often weak-willed in the face of major human rights crises in 2006, whether in forgotten conflicts like Chechnya, Colombia and Sri Lanka or high profiles ones in the Middle East.

Secretary General of Amnesty International Irene Khan said: "The politics of fear are fuelling a downward spiral of human rights abuse in which no right is sacrosanct and no person safe." Scarred by distrust and division, the international community has been too often impotent or weak-willed in the face of major human rights crises in 2006, whether in forgotten conflicts like Chechnya, Colombia and Sri Lanka or high profiles ones in the Middle East.

The UN took weeks to muster the will to call for a ceasefire in the conflict in Lebanon in which approximately 1,200 civilians lost their lives. The international community showed no stomach to tackle the human rights disaster resulting from severe restrictions on freedom of movement of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, reckless attacks by the Israeli army and inter-factional fighting among Palestinian groups.

Irene Khan continued: "Through short-sighted, fear-mongering and divisive policies, governments are undermining the rule of law and human rights, feeding racism and xenophobia, dividing communities, intensifying inequalities and sowing the seeds for more violence and conflict. The 'war on terror' and the war in Iraq, with their catalogue of human rights abuses, have created deep divisions that cast a shadow on international relations, making it more difficult to resolve conflicts and protect civilians.

"Darfur is a bleeding wound on the world's conscience. The UN Security Council is hampered by distrust and double-dealing by its most powerful members. The Sudanese government is running rings around the UN. Meanwhile 200,000 people have died, more than ten times that number have been displaced, and militia attacks are now spreading to Chad and the Central African Republic.'

Thriving in an arc of instability, extending from the borders of Pakistan to the Horn of Africa, armed groups flexed their muscles and engaged in massive abuse of human rights and international humanitarian law.  

* * *

Keeping Up With News On Defense Sector Corruption

For several years a group of experts working with Transparency International - UK have led an important project to forge industry-civil society-government coalitions to find ways to curb corruption in the defense sector. On a regular basis TI-UP compiles a digest of latest news stories on the sector. Click here to access the pdf of the April report. Please also visit TI-UK.

* * *

Informal Networks in East Central & South East Europe

Åse Berit Grødeland & Aadne Aasland
Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research

In the following article written for EthicsWorld and based on a paper presented at the 12th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Guatemala (see footnotes), experts Berit Grødeland & Aadne Aasland, senior researchers at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (1) discuss their research of informal networks and corruption in East Central and South East Europe.

Introduction:  Informal practice is widespread in post-communist states in East Central & South East Europe.  Such practice is in itself neither good nor bad.  However, it has the potential to inflict considerable damage on society if used improperly.  This article investigates elite perceptions of the use of informal networks (2), their origins, their corruption potential, and possibilities for reform – presenting partial findings from four quantitative elite surveys (3) conducted in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, respectively. (4)

Elite Perceptions of Informal Practice:  To get an idea of how widespread formal versus informal practice is in these countries, we gave our respondents four statements and asked them to select the one best describing their country.  Some two thirds of the respondents in the Czech Republic and Slovenia and close to half in Bulgaria and Romania opted for ‘a society formally defined by the rule of law, but in which the rule of law is not functioning properly’ (table 1).   We expected the majority of the respondents to choose this option:  although all four countries have joined the EU, it will no doubt take some time for the new institutions to function properly and for laws and regulations to become effective.  It is more alarming that approximately one fifth of the respondents in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania and roughly one third of the Bulgarian respondents, chose ‘a society formally defined by the rule of law, but in which people prefer to do things informally.’ And even more so, that almost one fifth of the Bulgarian and Romanian respondents perceived their country as ‘a disorganised society, defined by contradicting laws that people largely ignore’, given that transition in post-communist states is primarily conducted by means of institutional change and the introduction of new legislation. 

Elite Perceptions of Informal Networks:  Informal practice was a key feature of communism. Consequently, it might be expected to “wither away” as transition takes hold.  However, it is also possible that transition has brought about circumstances that either require, or encourage, informal responses.  The importance of national culture should also not be underestimated.  We asked our respondents to identify the origins of informal networks in their country (table 2). 

The impact of communism was deemed more significant in the Czech Republic and Romania than in Slovenia and Bulgaria.  Czechs and Romanians are less nostalgic about the communist past than Slovenes and Bulgarians because of 1968 (Czech Republic) and Ceausescu (Romania) – which helps explain our findings.  More importantly, however, national culture and the transition to the market were identified as the root cause of informal networks to more or less the same extent in all countries.  Our findings therefore have implications for reform as mentalities are much more difficult to change than temporary conditions facilitated by transition. 

The majority of the respondents in all countries thought informal networks facilitate corruption – though Czech and Romanian respondents were considerably more inclined to (strongly) agree with this statement than the Slovenian and Bulgarian respondents.  Consequently, efforts to reduce corruption must also target the networks that facilitate it, rather than only the corrupt practice itself.

Informal Networks and Reform:  As noted above, informal networks in post-communist EU member states are a result of three factors:  national culture, the communist experience, and transition.  Efforts to reduce the negative impact of informal networks should take account of this.  Further, to be effective, they should address not only negative manifestations of informal networks, but also their root-causes.

We gave our respondents a list containing 16 different measures that may – either on their own or in combination – reduce the negative impact of informal networks, and asked them to select the most, the second most and the third most effective measures.  Four of these measures – efforts to strengthen the rule of law, change people’s mentality through education, strengthen public trust in the state, and lustration – primarily address the root causes of “negative” informal practice.  The other measures are more technical, targeting the negative practice itself.  Figure 1 shows how effective the respondents considered each measure to be.  The area in black indicates the percentage of respondents that thought the given measure would be the most effective, whereas the grey area indicates the additional percentage who selected the measure as the second or third most effective. (5)

Post-communist EU member states have introduced extensive legal and institutional reform in order to qualify for EU membership. It is therefore worth noticing that our respondents chose two measures aimed at addressing the negative impact of the past – i.e. efforts to strengthen the rule of law and to change people’s mentality through education – as the two most effective measures with which to address the negative impact of informal networks.  Measures aimed at strengthening public trust in the state also received a fairly high score. In contrast, lustration was considered unnecessary.

Efforts to strengthen the role of law – i.e. new and better laws, better law enforcement, a more efficient and independent judiciary – also scored fairly high.  Such measures would be most effective in countries where the formal mechanisms of modern democratic institutions are in place, but where laws are not yet functioning properly and where law enforcement is still poor.  Promoting openness and transparency received lower scores, as did efforts to promote a more professional state administration. 

Regulatory measures were considerably less popular amongst our respondents.  Given that communist states tended to be rather over-regulated, this does not come as a big surprise.  Politicians tend to be sceptical of regulating party funding and lobbying regardless of the type of society they represent.  Besides, the vested interests benefiting from corrupt practices in politics and public procurement make these sectors difficult to regulate in post-communist states. 

Fig. 1 The Effectiveness of Reform Measures aimed at reducing the negative Impact of Informal Networks

Note:  N=2,400 (600 respondents x 4 countries). 

Prospects for Reform:  Expressing support for reform is one thing – introducing and implementing it, quite another.  We did not explicitly ask the respondents of our quantitative surveys whether reform efforts were likely to succeed.   However, quite a few respondents who took part in our earlier, qualitative surveys, spontaneously raised this issue themselves.  Slovenes and Czechs thought tackling informal networks would be difficult, but not impossible.  In contrast, Bulgarians and Romanians considered this to be impossible – mainly on the grounds that there is insufficient political will. 

The reform efforts referred to above all require political will.  If our findings accurately reflect political realities on the ground, which we believe they do, then efforts to address the negative impact of informal networks are unlikely to succeed.  Civil society, which could challenge politicians to instigate changes, is rather weak in post-communist states, scepticism to NGOs is widespread, and public participation is considerably lower than in Western Europe. (6)  The potential for effective domestic pressure in support of reform is therefore limited.  For this reason it is all the more important to try to root out old habits and patterns of thinking that encourage illegitimate and/or illegal informal practice. Measures specifically targeting “old” thinking and “old” habits provide no “quick-fix”, but are in the long term more likely to facilitate real and lasting change than formal measures focusing exclusively on the “negative” informal practices themselves.

Posted 3/5/07

Back to Top

* * *

First Ever Open Budget Index Released

Finds Nine in Ten Countries Fail to Provide Budget Information Needed for Government Accountability

On October 18, 2007, 59 civil society organizations from around the world launched the Open Budget Index, the first index to rate countries on how open their budget books are to their citizens. The Index finds that while most countries provide at least some information to their citizens about the budget, the vast majority fail to provide the basic information necessary for good governance.

The Index was coordinated and calculated by the International Budget Project, an organization that aims to assist civil society in making budget systems in developing and transition countries more responsive to the needs of poor and low-income people in society and, accordingly, to make these systems more transparent and accountable to the public. With the goal of helping citizens, legislators, and civil society advocates pinpoint where and what reforms are needed, the Index was measured based on questionnaires completed by local experts in 59 participating countries from every continent. It assesses the availability of key budget documents, the quantity of information they provide, and the timeliness of their dissemination to citizens in order to provide reliable information on each country’s commitment to open budgeting.

Major Findings Include:

• Only six of the countries — France, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States — provide the extensive budget information necessary for government accountability.

• More than 50 percent (32) of the countries — fail to make public all of the seven key budget reports they produce. These governments produce this information for their own internal use or for international donors, but do not make it available to their citizens.

• Six countries keep their budget secret until after it is adopted by the legislature – effectively barring any public participation in the budget’s consideration. (Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Mongolia, and Viet Nam)• Nearly half (25) of the countries fail to hold public hearings on the budget.

• In 16 of the countries, the executive can fire the head of the country’s external auditing body without the consent of the legislature or judiciary. The failure to provide security of tenure to the chief of the national auditing agency indicates the lack of a fundamental institutional safeguard to guarantee the office’s independence from the executive.

According to Pamela Gomez, project leader of the Open Budget Initiative at the International Budget Project, while much needs to be done before budgets are fully transparent, “countries could achieve major reforms simply by releasing all of the budget documents they already produce to the public. With that small change, more than half the countries would improve their performance and, more importantly, citizens would be significantly more informed about the budget.”

For the full 2006 report and information on the participating civil society organizations from 59 countries, visit www.openbudgetindex.org.

Posted 1/5/07

Back to Top

* * *

TI Releases 2006 Global Corruption Barometer

Barometer Shows Police, Political parties, Parliaments Most Compromised

On December 7, 2006 Transparency International released its 2006 Global Corruption Barometer, a public opinion survey conducted for Transparency International by Gallup International that looks at the extent of corruption through the eyes of ordinary citizens around the world. The Barometer finds that that police, political parties, and parliaments are globally the most compromised sections of society. It explores the issue of petty bribery in greater depth than those of past years, highlighting people’s personal experience of bribery, and identifying the sectors most affected by corruption, its frequency, and how much people must pay.

Key Findings Include:

There is widespread scepticism about government efforts
Most respondents have a poor opinion of their government’s anti-corruption efforts. Sixty nine percent say their government is not effective in fighting corruption, or that it makes no effort to fight it, or that it actually encourages corruption. Only 22 percent labelled their government’s actions “effective” or “very effective”.

Regionally, 42 percent of Europeans and 50 percent of North Americans think their government’s actions are ineffective, with 19 percent of North Americans, 15 percent of Asians and 23 percent of Latin Americans stating that their governments actually encourage corruption. In contrast, many African respondents were more positive, though African views about government anti-corruption actions are more mixed.

Bribes For Public Services: Bribes to Police Are the Most Commonly Paid
The Barometer asked respondents about bribes they paid in conjunction with public services. The findings: bribes are most commonly paid around the world to police. In Latin America, for instance, about one in three respondents in contact with the police end up paying a bribe. This indicates that the gears of law enforcement have been jammed by corruption, with the judiciary ranked the third most corrupt institution.

Bribery for access to services is most common in Africa. Registrations and permits command the biggest bribes – on average, more than €50. Bribes to utility companies average a much smaller €6, still large enough to place electricity and other vital services out of the reach of many of the continent’s desperately poor citizens.

In wealthier regions such as North America and Western Europe, the Barometer showed that concerns about large-scale corruption run high despite a low level of direct experience of bribery for services. In spite of the lack of day-to-day experience with bribe-paying, respondents in North America think that the business environment (85 percent) and political life (89 percent) are affected to a moderate or large extent by corruption.

Political parties are again seen as most corrupt
Ordinary citizens perceived political parties, on average, to be the institution most affected by corruption, followed by parliaments and legislatures and then by police. Police top the chart in respondents’ own experience of bribing, though the police are perceived as the fourth most corrupt institution.

Religious bodies, NGOs make a positive showing - barely
Perceptions of sectors and institutions are presented as a point score on a scale from 1 to 5, with 3.0 considered the mid-point. Institutions with a score below 3.0 reflect more positive than negative public opinion.

Globally, only three institutions make a positive showing: religious bodies (2.8), non-governmental organisations, and registry and permit services (both 2.9), though none of these scores are strong endorsements.

Corruption affects personal, political and commercial life
Respondents were also asked how corruption affected their personal, commercial and political lives. Political life was seen as being the area most compromised by corruption. The percentage of respondents who believe corruption affects their personal or family life varied greatly among regions, with 22 percent of Europeans feeling personally affected to a great extent, compared to 70 percent of Africans. In Bolivia, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, South Korea and Turkey, more than 70 percent of respondents indicated that corruption affects their personal and family lives to a large extent.

UN convention is key
According to Transparency International, governments' political and economic committment to the UN Convention Against Corruption is key to overcoming many of the problems highlighted in the report, as the Convention contains obligations on everything from protecting whistleblowers and denying criminals safe haven to codes of conduct for civil servants to tools for implementation.

Countries that are party to the Convention will come together at the Conference of States Parties in Jordan on 10 to 14 December to make key decisions regarding the Convention. They will decide how much money to commit to monitoring implementation, and how to ensure compliance with the agreement.

For the full Barometer visit this link

For information on the 2005 Barometer see below.

Posted 12/8/06

Back to Top

* * *

World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators 2006

To download as .pdf

On September 15, 2006 the World Bank released the newest version of its closely watched governance indicators of over 200 countries in its ‘Governance Matters, 2006: Worldwide Governance Indicators.' The indicators are used by donor countries and insititutions (such as the Netherlands and the Millenium Challenge Corporation) to montior aid recipients and make grant decisions and by many risk rating agencies and NGOs. According to the press release, some goals of the indicators, which, according to the Bank, represent the largest publicly available data resource on governance in the world, are to demonstrate that a) despite criticism to the contrary, governance can be measured, b) poor governance is not an exclusive challenge of the developing world, and c) reforming countries can make significant improvements in governance and in curbing corruption in relatively short periods of even less than a decade.

Based on more than 120,000  responses from citizens, experts and enterprises worldwide, distilled from 30 underlying sources the indicators measure 6 components of good governance:

Voice and Accountability - political, civil and human rights
Political Stability and Absence of Violence - the likelihood of violent threats to, or changes in, government, including terrorism
Government Effectiveness - m the competence of the bureaucracy and the quality of public service delivery
Regulatory Quality - the incidence of market-unfriendly policies
Rule of Law - the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, including judiciary independence, and the incidence of crime
Control of Corruption - the abuse of public power for private gain, including petty and grand corruption (and state capture by elites)

Findings Include:

Global trends in governance are sobering. On average the quality of governance around the world has not improved much. In spite of improvements in a number of countries, there has been a similar number of countries where deterioration has taken place, and many where no significant change is yet apparent.

Taking aim at what it refers to as, “Afro-pessimists” the report shows that many countires who have enacted governance reform programs, for example Tanzania, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria and Mozambique have made concrete progress in at least one governance category over the last ten years.

The indicators show the links between institutional quality and socioeconomic outcomes in countries, and on worldwide and regional trends in governance. For instance:

- Improved governance leads to higher standards of living and poverty alleviation. Research on governance shows that improved standards of living are largely the result of improved governance, and not the other way around.

- Good governance delivers a large "development dividend" in the form of higher standards of living and poverty alleviation. The indicators show that when governance is improved by one standard deviation, incomes rise about three-fold in the long run, and infant mortality declines by two-thirds.
 
Poor Governance is Not Exclusive to the Developing World
According to the World Bank, contrary to popular belief poor governance is not exclusive to developing countries. The indicators also show that over a dozen non-OECD countries, including Slovenia, Chile, Botswana, and Estonia, score higher in rule of law and in control of corruption than many industrialized countries, such Greece and Italy.

Strong reformers over the past decade include countries as diverse as Peru, Ghana, Tanzania, Mexico, Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia with strong improvements in Voice and Accountability, Bulgaria, Slovak Republic and Romania in Government Effectiveness; Armenia, Hungary, Slovak Republic, and Lithuania in Regulatory Quality, and Georgia, Latvia and South Korea on Control of Corruption.

Governance Can Be Improved Quickly
Where there is resolute leadership and reform, improved governance outcomes can take place relatively quickly. While not the norm, the governance indicators show that a number of countries have made significant progress even in the very brief period since 2002, as for example in Ukraine, Serbia, and Liberia in Voice and Accountability; Georgia in Political Stability and Control of Corruption; and the Slovak Republic on Government Effectiveness.

The full report is available at the World Bank Governance Indicators website, which provides a wealth of information on data and methodology in multiple chart, text, and statistical format as well as allows readers to search by indicator, country and year.

Posted 10/5/06

Back to Top

* * *

Transparency International Launches Global Corruption Report 2006

Tens of Millions of People Suffer Because of Corruption in Healthcare
Costing Tens of Billions of Dollars Each Year

Corruption in the health care industry deprives those most in need of essential medical care and helps spawn drug resistant strains of deadly diseases, says Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2006 (GRC). For the millions of poor held hostage by unethical providers, stamping out corruption in health care is a matter of life and death.

“Corruption in health care costs more than money. When an infant dies during an operation because an adrenalin injection to restart her heart was actually just water -- how do you put a price on that?” said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International. “The price of corruption in health care is paid in human suffering.”

“This is a genuinely remarkable global report,” said TI Board Director Frank Vogl. “This GCR highlights critical issues of healthcare and corruption in developing countries, but it also provides in-depth analysis of corruption and fraud in healthcare in the most advanced industrial countries, notably the United States.”

Harvard University’s Malcolm Sparrow notes in one GCR essay that not only is corruption today a major issue in U.S. healthcare, but that the new approaches to Medicare drug prescriptions open up entirely new opportunities for corruption. In another essay, Boston University’s Taryn Vian explains that abuse in U.S. healthcare costs an annual estimated $12 billion to $23 billion.  Professor Jerome Kass of Case Western Reserve University highlights the serious and destructive conflicts of interest that exist in marketing relationships between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. He argues that this too needs to be recognized as a major course of corruption.

Hemorrhaging health systems

The report shines light on the US $3 trillion global health services industry, exposing a maze of complex and opaque systems that often provide fertile ground for corruption. While the majority of health service employees perform their jobs with diligence and integrity, there is compelling evidence of bribery and fraud in almost all types of medical services. This ranges from petty thievery and extortion to massive distortions of health policy and funding fed by payoffs to officials. Corruption permeates health care delivery, whether public or private, simple or sophisticated.

Among other things, the reports concludes that:

- Public health budgets often become subverted by unethical officials for private use;

- Hospitals frequently function as self-service stores for illicit enrichment, with unclear
procurement of equipment and supplies and ghost employees on the payroll;

- Health workers often demand fees for services that should be free. In Bulgaria, for instance (as is the case in much of South East Europe) doctors frequently accept small informal payments or gifts for medical treatment. This can be anything from between US $10 – US $50 and in some cases can rise to US $1,100.

- In the Philippines, a 10 per cent increase in the extortion of bribes by medical personnel was shown to reduce the rate of child immunization by up to 20 per cent.

- In Cambodia, certain health indicators have worsened partly because of direct embezzlement of public health funds and despite increased health aid. In contrast, in the United Kingdom tighter control mechanisms have reduced losses to corruption by US $300 million since 1999.

- In Costa Rica, nearly 20 percent of a US $40 million international loan for health equipment wandered into private pockets.

“Corruption eats away at the public’s trust in the medical community. People have a right to expect that the drugs they depend on are real. They have a right to think that doctors place a patient’s interests above profits. And most of all, they have a right to believe that the health care industry is there to cure, not to kill,” said David Nussbaum, Chief Executive of Transparency International.

Market distortions and counterfeit drugs

Aggressive marketing techniques frequently buy physicians’ support for specific drugs, resulting in a high rate of prescriptions that are not always based on patient need. With individual “blockbuster” drugs pulling in tens of billions of dollars each year for pharmaceutical companies, ballooning marketing and lobbying budgets have outpaced the research and development outlays necessary to create new and necessary medicines that could save lives in low-income countries.

Moreover, corruption underpins a lucrative counterfeit drugs trade. Payoffs at every step of the chain smooth the flow of counterfeit drugs from their source to the unwitting consumer. With pharmaceuticals often the largest household health expenditure in developing countries – estimated at 50-90 per cent of total individual out-of pocket health expenses – corruption in the pharmaceutical industry has a direct and painful impact on people depending on its drugs for survival.

Undermining the Fight Against HIV/AIDS

Corruption has hampered the success of global efforts to reign in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The international response to the growing crisis has been to scale up aid in order to fund prevention programmes and the disbursement of life-saving anti-retroviral medications. Increased aid alone will not be effective if corruption is not curbed. Accountability mechanisms need to be introduced to prevent money from leaking at every level.

For instance, according to the report, theft by ministries and national AIDS councils of funds allocated for treatment leave sufferers without critical care. Kenya’s National Aids Council, for example, was hijacked by a few high-level civil servants, diverting critical resources through shell organizations expressly formed to siphon off public funds. Corruption can contribute directly to infection when relatively low-cost measures, such as sterile needles and screening of blood donations, cannot be carried out because a corrupt procurement or distribution process holds up supplies.

Millennium Development Goals Under Threat

Corruption is undermining progress towards the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, in particular the three related directly to health: reduced child mortality; improved maternal health; and the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. With the target date for achieving the goals just nine years away, the global community is already off target to meet them – and corruption is one of the primary causes.

“Poor families, particularly in rural areas, who cannot afford private health care
face the agonizing choice of food or medicine. Feed your child or cure his illness, but not both? No parent should face that awful choice,” said Huguette Labelle.

Transparency International’s Recommendations

Curing corruption in the health care industry starts with transparency:

- Donor and recipient governments should grant easy access to information on key aspects of health-related projects, budgets and policies. Budget information should be available on the internet and subject to independent audits. They should:

· Adopt and enforce codes of conduct for health workers and private sector companies and provide ongoing anti-corruption training.

· Incorporate conflict-of-interest rules in drug regulation and physician licensing procedures.

· Public health policies and projects should be independently monitored, both at  the national and international level, and their reports should be open to public scrutiny.

· Procurement processes should be competitive, open and transparent, and comply with Transparency International’s Minimum Standards for Transparency and Public Contracting. Rules on conflicts of interest must be enforced and companies that engage in corruption debarred from future bidding. No-bribe pledges such as TI’s Integrity Pact should be adopted to level the playing field for all bidders.

· Rigorous prosecution should be pursued in order to send the message that corruption in health care will not be tolerated. To facilitate this, there must be robust whistleblower protection for both government employees and private sector health, pharmaceutical and biotech employees.

State of corruption worldwide

Back to Top

* * *

PricewaterhouseCoopers Finds 50% More Companies Report Financial Losses Since 2003

Rising economic crime poses a growing threat to companies, with nearly half of all organisations worldwide being victims of fraud in the past two years, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Economic Crime Survey 2005, released in November 2005. The number of companies reporting fraud increased from 37 percent to 45 percent since 2003, a 22 percent increase. The cost to companies was an average US$1.7 million in losses from "tangible frauds," those which result in an immediate and direct financial loss. These include asset misappropriation, false pretences and counterfeiting.

The biennial survey involved 3,634 companies from 34 countries and was conducted in association with Germany's Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg. It revealed that the total losses at 1,227 of the companies that could quantify their losses exceeded US$2 billion over the last two years; the number of companies reporting financial losses increased by 50 percent since 2003.

Companies around the world, on average, reported suffering eight fraud incidents since 2003. The larger the company, the more likely it experienced and detected acts of fraud. Larger companies reported an average of 12 incidents. Regardless of size, no company or industry, regulated or unregulated, was immune from fraud. Depending on industry, from 38 percent to 60 percent of surveyed companies reported significant frauds.

"The rise in economic crime is cause for concern. Companies may have a false sense of security when it comes to fraud. More companies are reporting financial crimes, they're reporting a higher number of incidents, and most cases are detected by accidental means," said Steven Skalak, Global Investigations Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Economic crime is not something to be taken lightly; companies need to tighten their controls to avoid not only direct financial losses, but also damage to their brand, to staff morale and to relationships with customers, suppliers and other business partners."

An Increase in Fraud

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the 22 percent increase in companies reporting fraud since 2003 may be attributed to:

• More incidents of fraud being committed
• Increased fraud reporting due to tighter regulations requiring increased transparency
• Introduction of risk management controls to detect fraud
• A "confess and remedy" environment among regulators that encourages fraud reporting

Despite the growing number of companies reporting fraud, nearly 80 percent did not consider it likely that their company will suffer fraud over the next five years.

The survey also showed increases in the various types of fraud that can affect a company, from asset misappropriation to counterfeiting. In particular, there has been a 140 percent increase in the number reporting financial misrepresentation, a 133 percent increase in the number reporting money laundering, and a 71 percent increase in the number reporting corruption and bribery.

Nearly 90 percent of those responsible for fraud are male, between the ages of 31 and 40, with college educations or higher degrees. Half were employed by the defrauded company, almost one quarter of them in senior management. And of those who were caught, the most common means of detection was through accident or chance (34 percent).

The Cost of Economic Crime

In addition to the financial losses, 40 percent of companies reported suffering significant "collateral damage" to the day-to-day operations and success of their businesses. Of those, 43 percent suffered damage to their brand; 42 percent to their relations with other businesses (including suppliers and contractors); and 54 percent to staff morale.

"Despite the increase in the number of frauds being detected and the effectiveness of risk management systems, there are always individuals or groups who have the incentive and the ability to circumvent or override controls. Companies must not drop their guard, but must constantly develop new controls and build on the loyalty of their employees so that they do not provide an environment in which fraud can flourish," said Skalak.

The Illusion of Safety

While the number of fraud reported has increased, companies on the whole believe the prevalence of fraud in their business was greater in 2003 than it is today. Only 21 percent consider it likely that their company will be a victim of fraud over the next five years. The most common means of detecting fraud was by accident or chance (34 percent) followed by internal audit (26 percent).

The more controls a company has, the better its chances of detecting fraud and recovering losses, the survey confirmed. Companies with a larger number of controls were better at discovering how much more damaging fraud was, uncovering three times as many losses as those with less controls. Additionally, companies with more than five fraud control measures were better able to recover their losses, (52 percent) than those with less than five control measures (43 percent). The internal audit is the most successful of all processes and controls in detecting fraud.

Back to Top

* * *

Transparency International Releases its Latest Global Corruption Barometer
December 9, 2005

The report surveys the opinions of over 55,000 people in 69 economically diverse countries (five more than covered in TI’s 2004 Barometer report). The report seeks to answer three broad questions: 1) which institutions and sectors of society does corruption most affect in the countries polled? 2) How are levels of corruption perceived to be evolving and changing over time and 3) How frequently does bribery occur, what forms does it take, and what implications do these factors carry for its impact? 

The report finds that corruption in political parties is almost universally perceived to be greater than in other institutions such as business, basic social services, the media and legislatures and parliaments, NGOs and religious institutions. The data also confirms that the poor are the most affected by corruption and the most likely to pay bribes, regardless of region.

The report’s findings are relevant for those seeking to evaluate anti-corruption initiatives. The Barometer helps to measure past and current perceptions of corruptions and expectations, which is valuable in gauging the success of anti-corruption programs. Moreover, the report is useful for policy makers engaged in designing anti-corruption programs because it illuminates which institutions and sectors of society are most vulnerable to bribery and in what situations.

Stories Highlighted in the Barometer Include The Following:

Which Sectors Are Most Affected By Corruption?
Which Spheres of Life Does It Affect Most?
How is Corruption Evolving Over Time?
How Frequently Do People Bribe?
How Much Does It Cost?
What Form Does Bribery Take?

Back to Top

* * *

Irish Political Parties Are The Least Trusted Sector According to TI Global Corruption Barometer 2005

Transparency International (Ireland) released the following report at the same time as the global launch by Transparency International of its “Barometer.” The Irish statement noted that the Irish public believe that political parties are the most corrupt institutions in the state. The Global Corruption Barometer rated political parties as the least trusted sector with a score of 3.7 out of 5. A score of 1 denotes a sector or institution which is seen as very clean compared to a score of 5 which indicates a sector or institution as highly corrupt.

Political parties were followed in order by the Judiciary/Legal System, Dáil Éireann, and the private sector as most prone to corruption. Conversely trust in An Garda Síochána and the medical services has increased over the past twelve months. Irish respondents also appear to be amongst the most optimistic that levels of corruption will decrease in the next three years. They also were amongst the least likely to pay or be solicited for a bribe.

Only 1 per cent of respondents claim to have paid a bribe in the past year, while 28 per cent of respondents believing that corruption will decrease a little or a lot, compared to a worldwide average of 19 per cent. However the latter figure is down 10 per cent from last year, when 38 per cent of the Irish public believed that levels of corruption would improve.

The Global Corruption Barometer was carried out by Gallup International among more than 55,000 people worldwide to assess public perceptions and experiences of corruption. It is used widely to gauge the effectiveness and public awareness of efforts to combat corruption.

Back to Top

* * *