Review of anti-corruption strategies Rob McCusker - Australian ...

There are a number of potential advantages to the SGZ concept. First, a successful SGZ can provide a
working model for application to the rest of the country. Secondly, the cultural or traditional rationale for
avoiding systematic change in governance issues often advanced by bureaucrats can be challenged
in by the success of an SGZ in which similar cultural concerns exist. Thirdly, any brain drain of talented
individuals from outside to within an SGZ may increase the pressure of non-SGZ regions to increase
their capacity and anti-corruption efforts in turn. Finally, a successful SGZ would permit national or state
governments to apply the concept to other areas with the proof that such a concept will resonate. There
are indications that approaches allied to the SGZ concept have met with a high degree of success,
notably in Campo Elias (Venezuela) and Obninsk (Russia) in which cities have developed anti-corruption
programs without the assistance of state authorities and have nevertheless achieved a good deal of
positive change (Wei 2001).
Finally, consideration might be given to market strategies to increase the competitiveness of the economy
through less government regulation. This requires, for example, economic reforms such as lowering
tariffs and other barriers to international trade, unifying market-determined exchange and interest rates,
eliminating subsidies and simplifying licensing requirements, permits and other barriers for new firms and
investors (Tay & Seda 2003).
Effective measures in poor or transitional countries
Transparency International (2002) provides examples of successful approaches undertaken including
anti-corruption radio spots in Brazil, workshops on public procurement in Paraguay, monitoring election
coverage in Chile, a construction permit manual in Lebanon, monitoring the Senate in Argentina, a
comprehensive ethics programme for small to medium business enterprises in Colombia and an urban
bribery index in Kenya. It is possible to produce examples of similar and successful (relative to the context
in which they are applied) anti-corruption efforts. However, individual in-country efforts do not necessarily
make a national anti-corruption program, laudable as they certainly may be.
Crucially, Transparency International recognises that states in transition may experience unique difficulties
in the creation and/or application of a NIS. In essence, such states, aside from being inherently weak,
may also have inherited bureaucracies that lack many of the regulatory institutions necessary for a
modern state and economy to function and also the mechanisms required to ensure that accountability
can operate. Thus, there may be an ineffective judiciary, infrastructure reform processes integral to the
movement from transition to effective economic status may naturally deflect attention from anti-corruption
efforts, the economic transition processes may actually subject players to corrupting practices, the
generally weak civil society in transition states will be unable to support any anti-corruption processes
attempted and the private sector (eager to embrace the rewards stemming from economic development
by possibly corrupt business practices) is unlikely to actively support anti-corruption measures
(Transparency International 2001).
A survey of 257 experts from 49 countries asked them to rate the effectiveness of 24 anti-corruption
methods. In Table 6 the percentages refer to the percentage of respondents who considered the strategy
in question to be ‘very effective’.