Tackling Corruption is Essential in Making Poverty History, says Transparency International

"Assisting countries to curb corruption needs to continue to be a central pillar of global anti-poverty efforts and the World Bank needs to be encouraged to work with an expanding range of partners in this area," said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International.

"We have provided the Bank with a comprehensive set of comments on its new draft strategy and we look forward to intensive consultations with the Bank as it moves ahead in coming months to implement the operational program that we expect the Development Committee to endorse."

In its written comments to the World Bank the anti-corruption NGO stressed the need for greater consultation by the Bank with all partners in every aspect of the design, implementation and appraisal of programs. It stressed the need for building institutions that encourage transparency, public accountability and enforcement of the law.

TI campaigned in the early 1990s for the World Bank to accept anti-corruption as a priority and at the Bank's annual meeting in Hong Kong in 1997 the Development Committee finally accepted this position. Since then, under the leadership of James Wolfensohn and most recently Paul Wolfowitz, the Bank has been implementing governance reform programs and pursuing important research in this area.

TI is encouraging the Bank's efforts, recognizing the massive scale of bribery today and the enormous damage it does to development. "Without effective anti-corruption strategies in coming years, involving bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of those in absolute poverty by 2015 will not be achieved, " said TI's Chair.

Huguette Labelle added, "Fighting corruption is not an end in itself, rather it is a critical path to providing opportunity, to securing health, education, sanitation and basic services for the poor and strengthening prospects for economic growth. Anti-corruption programs need to be integrated fully into development strategies. They need to involve the building of partnerships between civil society, the private sector, parliaments and the executive branches of government and the World Bank can play important catalytical roles in this context."

TI also stressed that corruption is not only due to the abuse of public office by public officials for their own gain, but also due to the propensity of business to use bribes to secure unfair commercial advantage. Huguette Labelle said, "As we consider new development strategies we need again to underline the critical importance for all industrial countries to enforce their laws which call for prosecution of companies that pay bribes to foreign officials."

More than US $1 trillion is paid annually in bribes around the world, according to Bank figures, and internal investigations offer growing evidence that corruption plagues Bank projects and many of its countries of operations.

An assessment of corruption risks by the Bank and by donors would increase knowledge of local social, political and cultural conditions that contribute to specific types of corruption. This information is essential to the effectiveness of new risk assessment and risk mitigation tools.

The Bank should also stimulate demand for good government by encouraging governments to publish information on budgets, procurement, concessions, draft legislation and judicial decisions. Governments must also provide meaningful opportunities for comment, participation and oversight by civil society. The proposed strategy recognises the importance of engaging civil society but is unclear on how the Bank should do this.