Long term infringement of the autonomy of the judiciary is the main factor preventing the evolution of Colombia, a country which has steadily progressed on transparency and administrative reforms, as well as e-government and participation as part of a bid to join OECD. Popular demand for good governance has been growing, but the mixture with social grievances, as well as some unfinished conflicts makes it unlikely that any substantial evolution will take place soon.
Country: Colombia
Control of Corruption During the Post-Conflict: Promoting Good Governance in Colombia
This research is focused on the Colombian Government’s flagship post-conflict and statebuilding policy from 2009 to 2015, known as the “Consolidation Policy”. The Government’s policy aimed to transform the governance in post-conflict regions from a social order functional to the armed conflict to such a social order that would promote good governance and inclusive governmental institutions.
The analysis sheds light on the limitations and achievements of the policy on the control of corruption and examines the extent to which it shaped the governance order of post-conflict regions in the short term using a mixed methods approach including a differences-in-differences estimation and semi-structured interviews. The analysis is based in the Equilibrium Theory of Control of Corruption, which identifies policy-actionable variables that promote good governance and the control of corruption. This theory was operationalized in the context of post-conflict Colombia. This research determined the changes produced by the Government policy on the control of corruption by comparing control and intervention municipalities. The analysis revealed a mixed effect on the control of corruption where the intervention occurred. The results showed that the Consolidation Policy was associated with more civil society collective actions, at least in a group of municipalities, and an increase in local government accountability to citizens. On the contrary, there seems to be no association of the policy with increments in local government procurement transparency, or disciplinary sanctions to local civil servants by the Office of the Inspector General, one of the state control agencies
The research identifies the main issues that limited the Consolidation Policy’s mixed effect on the control of corruption. First, instead of a quick-impact approach, this research recommends a gradualist, long-term approach that combines insecurity reduction and empowering citizen group’s to keep corruption in check. Second, given the limitations of the Colombian State to regulate governance in conflict affected areas, civil society should be a central partner in the initiatives of good governance promotion.
How Does Political Finance Regulation Influence Control of Corruption? Improving Governance in Latin America
In this paper, we address the question of how political finance regulation affects control of corruption in Latin America from a quantitative perspective. We present a Political Finance Regulation Index with panel data from 180 countries over 20 years (1996-2015). This index was developed using the IDEA Political Finance Database, and once created, was applied to assess the relationship between political finance regulation and control of corruption.
In order to do this, we use the equilibrium model of control of corruption developed by Mungiu-Pippidi (2015). We also included judicial independence and public investment, considered as a constraint and an opportunity to corrupt, respectively. Lastly, we use control variables for level of development.
Results show that, in Latin America, increases in political finance regulation are related with a deterioration of control of corruption. This relationship is statistically significant in the panel estimations. Inversely, the negative relationship between regulation and control of corruption becomes positive in countries with high levels of judicial independence. In a similar way, increases in opportunities to corrupt, represented by levels of public investment, have a significant and negative effect in control of corruption.
Colombian journalist in line of fire for exposing corruption – Reuters
Visible Congress: an Initiative to Improve Transparency and Good Governance in Colombia
Civil society initiatives to monitor and disseminate information on Parliaments have emerged in several countries in the past years. In Latin America, a pioneer project of this kind, led by a group of students and academics from the University of the Andes in Colombia, has been active since 1998 and has by now become recognised at the national and international spheres as a model to strengthen accountability and transparency of the Legislative by better informing citizens about its activities.
The initiative, entitled Congreso Visible (Visible Congress), is intended to help citizens “become pro-active, participative and […] have arguments to demand accountability from their representatives”, explained one of the project’s administrators in an interview published on Technology for Transparency Network website.
The initiative first started with a campaign preceding the congressional elections. This initial stage was labelled “Visible Candidates” and provided information on the professional record of the candidates for Congress, prior to the 1998 elections. The Congress of Colombia is bicameral, composed by the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives, the members of both chambers being elected for four-year terms by popular vote. At the time citizens were disappointed by politicians, as “the country was experiencing its biggest political and electoral crisis in recent history”, stated Elisabeth Ungar, founder and former director of Congreso Visible, in an interview to the World Movement of Democracy. Therefore, it was essential for citizens to have access to adequate information about the candidates, in order to take an informed decision.
Nowadays, Congreso Visible provides up-to-date information on the profiles of candidates and members of Congress (up to 1859 profiles), as well as about the legislative process and political parties. Recently it also launched a public platform for open debate called “Agora Magazine”. Finally, another path of action is through partnerships with local NGOs to offer them training and organise face-to-face meetings with representatives at Congress to raise awareness about the importance of legislative activity.
Among the key accomplishments of the project, its representatives identify the cooperation with the Congress. Due to its non-partisan and established reputation “almost 70 percent of the members of the Colombian Congress periodically and voluntarily provide Congreso Visible with information about their legislative activities”, states Ungar. Other important wins have been the support of printed media and the multiplication work undertaken by local partners of Congreso Visible that have replicated the initiative and furthered disseminated the project among grassroots. Despite these achievements, sustainability is still a main obstacle to project. As one of the leaders of the project mentions, finding sponsors at the national level is not easy, as support by the private sector and other institutions in Colombia are limited, and the project has to rely mostly on funds by international donors or small contributions by partners.”
The picture above shows the Colombian Chamber of Representatives and is featured on justiceforcolombia.org.