Dealing with corruption: the next steps

The 1997 White Paper from the British Government's Department for Internati onal Development (DFID) was specific in identifying the role of governance now being addressed by international and national donors: "improving govern ance can ... improve the lives of poor people directly. It is also essentia l for creating the environment for faster economic growth. Both aspects can be compromised by corruption, which all governments must address. In devel oping countries it is the poor who bear proportionally the heaviest cost" ( DFID, 1997, p. 30). Dealing with corruption is thus a priority both in term s of who it most affects and in terms of which objectives of governance - i ncluding participatory and responsive government and economic growth - it c onstrains. Although it has long held a specialist academic interest, corrup tion has become the subject of growing practitioner attention which means t hat the focus on corruption is beginning to move significantly from theory to practice and the practical. While there is substance to the belief that fire-engines cannot be designed without a thorough understanding of the fir e they are intended to put out, there is also a sense in which the pervasiv eness and tenacity of the current fires of corruption are such that action rather than refining theories and processes is what is now required. To par aphrase an analogy made by a senior British civil servant about the general issue of identifying policy - that corruption "is rather like the elephant - you recognise it when you see it but cannot easily define it" (quoted in Hill, 1997, p. 6) - is also to suggest that, while theorising may help dra w up longer-term approaches to dealing with corruption, there is enough inf ormation and experience to develop best practice proposals for more immedia te implementation and for developmental strategies that link to the longer- term approaches. This article addresses some of the issues of this agenda w hich seeks to develop, for those actively involved in anti-corruption initi atives, frameworks within which to consider realisable and cost-effective s horter-term anti-corruption strategies.