Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda - The ICHRP

In recent years, measurements and indicators relating to corruption have evolved
into measurements of anti-corruption or integrity. For example, the Global Integrity
Index produced by Global Integrity does not measure corruption, but rather the
incidence of principles and institutions that fight it: openness, accountability,
and citizen oversight. These types of measurement and indicators are the most
relevant for a combined anti-corruption and human rights approach.
UNDP and Global Integrity address the issue of measurement and indicators,
listing good practices in the use and design of measurement mechanisms that
may be adapted to take human rights into account (see Box 13).
Box 13. UNDP and Global Integrity’s Guide to Measuring Corruption
Build your anti-corruption strategies and the indicators you need to measure progress
in a modest, incremental fashion:
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Unpack what you are trying to measure into discrete concepts.
Attempting to track the impact of corruption on the achievement of macro
development goals such as the UN MDGs or implementation of the UNCAC is
a dead end. The concepts are too broad and the linkages between “corruption”
(without further definition) and those policy outcomes are nearly impossible to
trace.
Gravitate, instead, to measuring corruption in a particular sector, branch of
government or portion of society with more distinct, but important, measures
that feed into desired policy outcomes (i.e., a particular section of the UNCAC or
component element of a specific MDG target). For example, measuring corruption
in hospital procurement and its impact on health-related MDGs will be far more
useful than tracking the impact of “corruption” on the achievement of all of the
MDGs.
Consider using existing data sources to construct indicators that capture the specific
experience of poorer groups and women:
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Many relevant data sources already exist for constructing pro-poor and gender
sensitive indicators, though they may not be widely used.
For instance, the indicator “level of trust in the police among the poor” could be
easily measured using a household survey asking questions about both the level
of trust and the economic status of respondents.
External assessments generated by international “experts” are likely to exclude
the experiences of those groups most impacted by corruption: the poorest and
most marginalised.
It is possible to unveil the distinct experience of marginalised communities by
disaggregating survey data along poverty, ethnicity or gender lines.
Source: UNDP and Global Integrity, 2008, pp. 44–45.
Drawing on the description earlier in this report of upward accountability and the
inclusion of disadvantaged groups, adding a human rights perspective would
42 Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Challenges, Possibilities and Opportunities