Context
Corruption weakens the capacity of public institutions and misdirects public resources to serve private purposes. This prevents the use of those resources for sustainable and socially inclusive development. Corruption is a threat to the legitimacy of the political system and democratic institutions. It diminishes the impact of development cooperation and undermines reforms. And it inhibits the development of the private sector. It is therefore essential to strengthen good governance, which includes anti-corruption measures. This is one of the key elements of German development policy.
The strategy paper of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) on ‘Anti-Corruption and Integrity in German Development Policy’ contains the basic principles. It is now necessary to devise the means of incorporating these principles, both at the policy level and in the organisational and technical procedures of BMZ and the implementing organisations of German development cooperation.
Objective
The strategy paper ‘Anti-Corruption and Integrity in German Development Policy’ has been systematically integrated into the work of official German development cooperation.
Approach
The programme advises BMZ on ways of implementing the anti-corruption and integrity strategy paper. As part of this, it is analysing, revising and further developing the ministry’s existing procedures and steering processes, with the ultimate goal of integrating the strategy in the ministry’s work and in that of the implementing organisations of German development cooperation.
The programme is also developing practical approaches to anti-corruption and integrity, and it provides advice on how to apply these approaches in the implementing organisations and in their projects and partner institutions worldwide. In addition, it provides appropriate training for the employees. In the pilot countries, Kenya and Kyrgyzstan, the programme is working to strengthen the measures contained in the BMZ strategy paper, and to introduce them more rapidly.
On behalf of BMZ, the programme feeds the experiences of German development cooperation into the international debate. It does so, for example, through Germany’s membership in the Utstein Anti-Corruption Resource Center (U4), by contributing to the OECD DAC anti-corruption task team, and participation in UNCAC conferences (COSP). The programme also cooperates with civil society organisations like Transparency International, with regional initiatives such as the ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific and with private sector initiatives such as the Alliance for Integrity (Afin).
Results achieved so far:
Appropriate BMZ steering processes have been identified in which to integrate anti-corruption and integrity. Together with BMZ, the programme has developed proposals for the revision of the catalogue of criteria and the brief politico-economic analysis.
A methodological framework has been developed that should ensure anti-corruption is taken systematically into account in steering processes and standard procedures. This is intended to guide both the integration of anti-corruption into development cooperation projects and programmes and the management of corruption risks which is of utmost importance whenever funds are deployed through official development assistance that is financed by taxes.
Anti-corruption measures have been carried out in cooperation with projects in partner countries. This includes conducting judicial integrity scans to assess integrity standards in the judicial systems and identify measures for their improvement. Developed by the programme, these scans will now be included in integrity analyses carried out jointly with OECD. In addition, a water integrity management toolbox has been piloted in Kenya, while in Liberia a review of the procurement system in the transport sector was carried out. The advisory tool Anticorruption (AC) WORKS, which was originally developed by the programme, has been deployed several times, for example in the Philippines.
The lessons learnt from anti-corruption and governance studies undertaken in the pilot countries have been fed into the work of the implementing organisations of German development cooperation. Two funds have also been set up to support anti-corruption measures in the pilot countries.
Each year, about 700 GIZ employees learn about anti-corruption and integrity issues in monthly introductory courses carried out together with GIZ’s integrity managers. As many as 40 German development cooperation employees take part in U4 online courses every year, while approximately 300 participants from all U4 partner countries are involved in in-country training (e.g. in Bangladesh). Meanwhile, training courses offered in cooperation with the German Academy for International Cooperation reached development experts in other countries including Afghanistan, boosting their anti-corruption competences.