Bank Hears Views on Governance & Anti-corruption
The World Bank’s Cambodia office has organized consultations on its new Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) Strategy with four separate groups of stakeholders – government, donor, civil society, and private sector on January 11 – 12, 2007. These consultations were part of a very active on-going dialogue on these issues in Cambodia.
The Government’s Rectangular Strategy (RS) puts governance at its heart and the Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) that was endorsed by the Board of Directors in May 2005, and which was designed to support the implementation of the RS, also puts governance at its heart. The CAS was designed after extensive consultations with a broad range of stakeholders who all identified governance and corruption as the main challenges in Cambodia’s development.
The Bank has been tackling these challenges through a program designed to support public financial management; private sector development; natural resources management; and decentralization and social accountability.
An innovative part of the CAS is also to help strengthen the demand for good governance in Cambodia by working with a broad range of stakeholders. The detailed feedback from participants in these consultations is available at www.worldbank.org/governancefeedback. The key issues raised are summarized below.
1. The World Bank is to be congratulated in formulating this global Governance and Anti-corruption (GAC) strategy. It has also done well in taking the lead on these issues in Cambodia in the last two years, but it needs to persist and see follow through.
2. The Bank needs to stay engaged even in countries with weak governance (in most cases) since these countries are also often the poorest countries and the Bank will not be able to fulfill its mandate of poverty reduction without engaging in the more challenging countries.
3. The Bank’s mandate should remain poverty reduction—improving governance and fighting corruption should be the means to an end, not an end in itself.
4. The Bank needs to treat all client countries equally and with respect. This applies especially to the Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity (INT). The INT review should involve public consultations to seek inputs, like those being held for the GAC strategy.
5. The strategy presents a two-pillar approach for fighting corruption—prevention and enforcement. A third, even more important pillar, is one of education and awareness-raising in the general population. This should be the first and most important pillar of the strategy because without that, the strategy will not be effective.
6. The approach of using “sticks” should be complemented with using “carrots”: donors need to create incentives for honesty and commitment to good governance. The Bank’s approach with the Government should be constructive to be productive. The approach should not be confrontational and should avoid a deadlock in dialogue.
7. The Bank has worked well on the supply side, and should continue to play a strong role in that. But it now needs to work with a much broader range of stakeholders—the private sector, civil society, donors, parliamentarians, media, and reformers within government—to create a stronger demand for good governance.
8. Sub-national level government is a good entry point for the Bank to promote governance reform and promote the idea of social accountability. The Bank should create an environment where resources are linked to progress on governance at the sub-national level. By building institutions at the local level, citizens are then trained to demand better from their elected leaders. The Bank should continue to support the process of decentralization and deconcentration in Cambodia and elsewhere.
9. Working with women also provides a strong entry point for better governance. The Bank should work with women to help them create and support organizations of women at local levels that come together to demand greater focus on women’s and children’s issues.
10. A third important area of focus is civil service reform. The Bank should support and advocate for civil service reform in countries with weak governance. Corruption starts in the public sector, normally because civil servants are not adequately compensated.
11. The Bank’s approach to governance and anti-corruption should be practical and not excessive. The new measures to protect the Bank’s portfolio should not be too costly or burdensome. Corruption cannot be eliminated overnight and the Bank needs to have patience to deal with this issue. Also, the Bank needs to work with other donors to harmonize its procedures with others.
12. The Bank needs to work with multinationals, especially in the extractive industries sector.
13. The Bank should set clear standards in defining and measuring governments’ commitment to good governance and anti-corruption and to monitoring progress in this area. Without these clear criteria, it will be seen to be subjective and that will undermine the Bank’s credibility in its governance and anti-corruption (GAC) agenda.
14. All key stakeholders—government, civil society, donors and private sector— are willing to work closely with the Bank to support its GAC strategy. Civil society organizations could play an important role in education, prevention, and investigation of corruption. Donors should move in a multi-donor fashion in encouraging governments to have better commitments to governance and the fight against corruption. The private sector can share their experience of corruption, as they are direct victims of it.
(Source: The World Bank Newsletter, Volume 5, Number 2, February 2007)