Advice to Mr. Wolfowitz on Fighting Corruption

By Paul

This time from Ruth Levine at CGD;

“Evaluating the impact of anti-corruption programs may seem far-fetched. How, after all, could one measure the prevalence or cost of corrupt practices, which by definition are hidden from view? Moreover, how could the effects of specific programs be assessed? While not easy, such evaluation is indeed possible. For instance, in path-breaking research completed last year, Ben Olken of Harvard University compared the impact of audits and grass-roots participation on “missing funds” in a road-building project in Indonesia using a randomized field experiment. Earlier work by Harvard’s Rafael di Tella and others estimated the cost of kick-backs for procuring medical supplies by comparing variation across public hospitals in Latin America…

The U.S. and other countries that own the World Bank have a rare opportunity to fix this problem. As corruption-fighting programs are put into place, donor and recipient countries can request and fund careful, credible and independent third party evaluation of Bank and other agencies’ programs. Collect information about starting conditions, roll out programs so that sensible comparisons can be made, conduct rigorous evaluations and, when the results are in, publish them regardless of whether or not they make the funders and implementers look good. If Mr. Wolfowitz and his friends really want honesty and transparency, they could start by closing the evaluation gap.”

Related:

- Measuring Corruption in Road Building Projects in Indonesia

- Business Against Corruption – Case Stories and Examples ( recent UN publication via CIPE Development Blog )

-- May 10, 2006 12:23 AM |

Comments

paul wrote:

Parking tickets, diplomats and corruption;
an intresting post by Pablo
http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2006/05/parking_tickets.html

-- May 10, 2006 12:37 AM ∞

Per Kurowski wrote:

In relation to the World Bank’s fight against corruption I have no doubts whatsoever that the most important first step it needs to take is to make perfectly clear what it cannot be expected to do. For the World Bank to help create the impression that certain risks of corruption are effectively taken cared off, would be collaborating and camouflaging for corruption.

For this I would recommend that all projects include in their documentation, a very simple one page Public Notice that lays out the most important risks of corruption in the operation, making clear what the World Bank is doing to diminish them but, much more importantly, what is not in their hands to do. That page should then surf transparently the web in order to enlist the civil civilians in the fight.

As an institution the World Bank is always well served by a good dose of humility and should always fight the corruptive arrogance of believing it can do it all on its own. The world needs, more than ever, a World Bank that needs the world.

-- May 19, 2006 8:06 AM ∞

Steven Burda, MBA wrote:


Steven Burda, MBA
www.linkedin.com/in/burda
e-mail me: steven.burda.mba @gmail.com


-- September 7, 2006 2:04 AM ∞

Post a comment