27 Jun 2011

Norad and Hsog Release New Anti-Corruption Report

An excerpt from the report: Why, despite unprecedented investment in anticorruption in the last fifteen years, since the implementation of global monitoring instruments and global legislation, have so few countries managed to register progress?

This new report commissioned by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) to the Hertie School of Governance argues that conceptual flaws, imprecise measurement instruments and inadequate strategies are to blame. But it also argues that the quest for public integrity is a political one, between predatory elites in a society and its losers, fought primarily on domestic playgrounds.

As such, the donor community can play only a limited part and its needs to play this part strategically in order to create results. Based on new statistical evidence, the report recommends cash-on-delivery/selectivity approaches for anticorruption assistance. Effective and sustainable policies for good governance need to diminish the political and material resources of corruption and build normative constraints in the form of domestic collective action. Most of the current anticorruption strategies, on the contrary, focus on increasing legal constraints, which often fail because most interventions are localized in societies that lack the rule of law.

For the full report, please see the Reports section on the right side of the home page.