Aid
Corruption, anti-corruption efforts and aid: do donors have the right approach?
Corruption and aid: analysing donor approaches
Authors:
I. Kolstad (ed); V. Fritz (ed); T. O'Neil (ed)
Publisher:
Overseas Development Institute, London, 2008
Corruption is the abuse of public office or entrusted power for private gain. This paper looks at the linkages between good governance, new aid modalities and poverty reduction. It provides a review of the literature relating to corruption, anti-corruption efforts and aid with a focus on:
- Tools for measuring corruption
- The social science literature on the country-level causes of corruption and its relationship to poor governance
- Donor approaches to reducing corruption
- The debates and evidence on aid modalities and corruption.
The paper further discusses how different strands in social sciences look at the causes of corruption and looks at the various approaches donors have adopted to reduce corruption in developing countries. It explores the relationship between aid modalities and corruption focusing on how corruption should affect the choice of budget support as an aid modality using existing arguments and empirical evidence.
The paper concludes that:
- Donors should reconsider their rationale about combating corruption because it leaves the anti-corruption agenda vulnerable to partial interpretations of empirical results missing out the important dimensions
- Donors should recognize the limitations of quantitative indices and seek more detailed qualitative information to inform their concrete efforts to address corruption
- More research is needed on the choices that actors face and the conditions that make working within the formal rules more or less costly for both elected and bureaucratic officials.
The paper suggests the following possible directions for further analysis:
- Understanding how corruption is embedded in social and political relationships and the socio-cultural norms related to corruption
- Political economy considerations suggest that donors should think realistically and innovatively about how to approach corruption in developing countries
- The current focus on how different accountability mechanisms influence the incentives that public officials face should be complemented by an understanding of the material and social incentives that motivate private agents to corrupt transactions
- More systematic research is needed to understand the relationship between corruption and different aid modalities and the need for governments to be accountable to their own taxpayers.
