Corruption and Development - pogar

When these formal and informal institutional systems are severely weakened by corrupt
practices, it becomes harder to implement and enforce laws and policies that ensure
accountability and transparency. Thus, according to the UNDP Anti-Corruption Practice Note,
corruption undermines the rule of law and leads to the violation of human rights by fostering
an anti-democratic environment characterized by uncertainty, unpredictability, declining
moral values and disrespect for constitutional institutions and authority (UNDP 2004).
For almost two decades now, UNDP has undertaken to improve governance and combat
corruption as a core requirement to achieve the goals of development that it is working for,
in poor and developing countries around the world. UNDP works with a range of partners to
make anti-corruption one of its imperatives in improving the governance of countries, and the
lives of people, especially the poor. UNDP was one of the pioneer organizations in the early
1990s to develop programmes to address and curb corruption, as part of its mandate to reduce
poverty, meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and promote sustainable economic
development. This, in some cases, implied shifting focus from traditional (neutral) areas of
public administration reform to more politically sensitive areas that are at the core of good
governance. Since then, anti-corruption has been a rapidly growing area of UNDP assistance,
making UNDP a leading provider of anti-corruption technical cooperation within its
governance portfolio (UNDP 2004, 2).
The advent of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption on 14 December 2005
brought new challenges and opportunities to the fight against corruption. It is increasingly
being realized that success in meeting the MDGs will depend on both the ‘quality’ of
democratic governance and the generation and management of resources. UNCAC is a
binding document ratified by 128 countries (as of November 2008) that provides a governance
framework that could prove very useful in this context. 1 According to the self-assessment
results of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, an overwhelming majority of
Member States indicated that they would need technical assistance to implement UNCAC.
Given UNDP’s previous work and its widespread presence at the country level, Member States
are increasingly approaching UNDP Country Offices for technical assistance in establishing and
strengthening national anti-corruption institutions, developing strategies and laws to prevent
corruption, and designing and implementing appropriate interventions.
It is within this context that this primer explores the theoretical and empirical relationship
between corruption and the various aspects of development including economic growth,
poverty, human rights, gender, governance, human development, and environment and
sustainable development. The primer also recommends ways in which UNDP could
integrate anti-corruption principles and strategies with its technical assistance to effectively
implement anti-corruption interventions to reduce poverty, realize the MDGs and promote
sustainable development.
The primer covers three areas of discussion — sections one and two provide a broad
understanding of corruption and its effect on different facets of socio-economic development.
Section three summarizes UNDP mandates and approaches to anti-corruption. Section four
outlines some of the challenges to programming anti-corruption interventions and provides
guidelines for addressing them in various contexts.
1
UNODC, United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Online: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/signatories.html.
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