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Anti-Corruption Agencies:
A Review of Experience
Discussion paper, Project report
Patrick Meagher
February 2004 |
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The problem of how best to control corruption has challenged policymakers from the dawn of civilization. Strategies and institutional responses have varied, but in recent decades, the approach of choice has increasingly been to establish an anti-corruption agency. This ostensibly straightforward response actually poses a lot of difficulties. How much authority, and which specific powers, to give it? How big should the agency — and its jurisdiction — be? What should we expect of such an agency, and how will we know whether it has been successful?
In this paper, we review experiences with a wide range of agencies from around the world, in both industrialized and developing countries, and exhibiting a variety of designs. In recent decades, Singapore and Hong Kong have provided the impetus, and the paradigm, for the establishment of strong, centralized agencies in this field. Other countries, such as the US and India, have chosen the alternative strategy of strengthening anti-corruption capabilities in government, but spreading these powers across multiple agencies. Given the level of interest in centralized or single-agency approaches, our focus lies there. We both analyze existing documentation on anti-corruption agencies and present three new, original case studies. We aim to provide practical guidance in this area to policymakers and donor agencies such as the World Bank, and also to identify promising strategies for developing a more rigorous assessment framework.
One can imagine various definitions of an anti-corruption agency. In this study, we focus on permanent agencies whose primary function is to provide centralized leadership in one or more of the core areas of anti-corruption activity — including policy, analysis, and technical assistance in prevention, public outreach and information, monitoring, investigation, and prosecution. Even somewhat narrowly defined in this way, anti-corruption agencies are numerous and their ranks are growing. They respond to a variety of concerns and crises, and are modeled on a mix of organizational forms. |
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| Last updated on: 3/23/2006 |
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