As Wednesday, December 9th dawns, there is a dim reminder that one is supposed to 'celebrate' International Anti-Corruption. 'Dim reminder' to 'celebrate' in quotation marks indeed, because unfortunately anti-corruption continues to be largely in the backburner for most world powers, for most international institutions, and for many of their leaders.
Or worse. To place this special Anti-Corruption Day in poignant perspective today, as the decade draws to a close, consider that over six years ago, in late 2003, the UN General Assembly designated December 9th as International Anti-Corruption Day. It was intended to further the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and encourage countries to sign and ratify it, so to ensure its swift entry into force. The UNCAC was touted by the UN as 'the first legally binding, international anti-corruption instrument that provides a chance to mount a global response to corruption.'
What happened since then? Countries signed. Countries ratified. Lots of work by secretariats went into process. And so many government officials and others just gathered in Doha in mid-November, in order to reach closure on six years of work regarding implementing the review mechanism for country progress on anti-corruption. But an important group of governments present in Doha, including China, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan and Zimbabwe were against agreement of serious commitment to such implementation…
The resulting review mechanism for UNCAC is toothless. It gives governments discretion in denying inclusion of civil society in reviewing progress, it introduces voluntarism into monitoring progress (rather than mandating it), and it allows governments to be non-transparent and withhold full publication of country reports. Further, they somehow managed to create what is already by design a very ineffective and bloated implementation review group, which incidentally will not even be allowed to review country reports. And they failed to advance on key pending challenges on asset recovery.
All this conspires against the objective of governments fulfilling their obligations under the UNCAC.
Thus, in the immediate aftermath of such UNCAC setback, today, as we face the (UNCAC-inspired) International Anti-Corruption Day, it may be appropriate to have an hour of silence instead, in order to pause and reflect where we are today, and where we need to go instead. Let us reflect, and try to reboot.
Any such reflection needs to take a broader view, beyond the UNCAC (and the UN), and would need to consider the world's changed geopolitics today, the lessons and aftermath of the financial crisis, and would also have to consider that one does not fight corruption by merely fighting corruption. Leadership, institutions and governance needs to be brought to the fore.
In fact, taking the broader path, it was exactly a year ago that on International Anti-Corruption Day 2008 I was asked to give a farewell address at the World Bank, as I was leaving after decades there, to join the Brookings Institution. I was reviewing some slides from that presentation and find that its essence still applies today (it is here).
At the time, after recounting some of my earlier experiences working on development, I spent some time on unorthodox notions such as 'Legal Corruption' as well as the State and Regulatory Capture of the US financial system and the havoc that it was causing around the world. I also addressed the problematic approach that the aid donor community has had to furthering good governance and corruption control when working with developing countries. If anything, some of those problems have become even more serious over the past year, as I have written in this space and elsewhere in recent months.
Fortunately, there are a some far sighted leaders and reformists in some countries who recognize that the global financial crisis was not only a challenge but also an opportunity for implementing reforms that otherwise may have been more difficult politically to carry out. Those countries will emerge stronger from the crisis, with better prospects in the medium term than the many that used the crisis as an excuse to postpone reforms. Further divergence among countries, not convergence, will take place, driven by starkly different quality of leadership and governance.