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This is the World Bank's blog on governance and anti-corruption. It aims at providing a space for debate and knowledge sharing on this critical field of development. | Learn more...

November 2008

How about next G-20 Summit on good governance for sound financial markets?

Submitted by Kaufmann on Wed, 2008-11-19 18:27

The first G-20 summit, focused on the financial crisis, just took place this past weekend.  When measured against expectations of such gatherings, there were some accomplishments.  Such as in trade:  the collective pledge to avoid raising any trade and investment barriers, or the promise to ‘strive’ for a deal on the stalled Doha round.  And the  summit's ‘action plan’ holds promise. 

The declaration includes a generic list of a plethora of financial sector  ‘principles’ and many areas of work.  But at least it is comprehensive in scope, touching on most of the right ‘buttons’.  It provides space to work concretely on real issues.

Emerging e-government themes in the Obama administration

Submitted by Tanya on Mon, 2008-11-17 18:07

"Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability.

The most useless procedure: cutting red tape and corruption in Mexico

Submitted by Alfredo on Tue, 2008-11-11 16:15

It’s been recognized that civic engagement is fundamental to hold governments accountable and to improve the quality of governance.  This bottom-up approach was recently put into practice in Mexico, where the president decided to reward citizens who denounce the most absurd bureaucratic procedure that they have faced, and who propose the best solutions to cut red tape and bribery.

“The most useless procedure” is the name of the temporary campaign launched by the Mexican government to get citizens’ inputs about how it can improve its effectiveness to deliver public services and goods as well as to combat bribery. The citizen with the most original proposal at the federal level will win about $30,000, while more than $9,000 will be awarded to the best case and solution proposed at the state and local level of government.

So far, procedures related to health and social security , tax administration, education, civil registration and property rights protection are among the most denounce by citizens.

As innovative and attractive as this approach looks, in order to be effective it must be appropriately linked to major plans of modernization and reform of the public sector.  Moreover, even though more than 20 thousand citizens participated in this campaign, there needs to be more massive and permanent, rather than temporary, options to empower citizens in the fight against corruption and red tape.

Putting Governance before the “E” in E-Government

Submitted by Tanya on Fri, 2008-11-07 14:17

Taking e-government beyond the same tired e-government applications require innovations such as social networking, web 2.0/3.0 and mobile technology, all of which are democratizing the web in different ways.  The basics of e-government are in the process of moving from a top-down model (e-government strategy, vision, principles, down to agencies, businesses and citizens) to a bottom-up paradigm (citizen-level application managed and developed at the lowest level) with the citizen being the engine of the new e-government. 

When did e-government become stagnant?  Well, not so long ago it wasn’t stagnant.  The anticipation and optimism behind e-government when it first entered the international consciousness was immense, a prodigious vision of sorts.  Led in the US by the Clinton-Gore administration and pursued by other administrations in developed and developing countries alike, e-government became a mantra, a fix-all for the various problems in the public sector.  As e-government implementation matured, the potential for significant failure became clearer. Yet, when successful, e-government projects could make a real difference.  For instance, e-government -a significant part of Singapore’s “Vision of an Intelligent Island” with respect to public services-, helped to improve public sector performance and governance in a manner that positively impacted the daily lives of its citizens.

Capture and the Financial Crisis: An Elephant forcing a rethink of Corruption?

Submitted by Kaufmann on Mon, 2008-11-03 01:48

Mushrooming analysis of the determinants of the financial crisis are all over the web.  They range from simplistic and blanket accusations of the ‘greed’ of the market capitalism to the arcane technical explanation of a misguided regulatory covenant on the other. And the spectrum is crowded, including the misstep by Treasury Secretary Paulson in letting Lehman fail that fateful weekend.

When all is said and done, some consensus may emerge about which particular combination of a few fundamental factors, coupled with recent policy and oversight failure, were culprits. I am not weighing in now on what the precise ingredients of such debacle were.  Instead, I want to focus on one factor that has often been kept under wraps:  the regulatory and policy capture by vested interests.  This has been years in the making.  And we have been researching and measuring the notion of capture for a decade, and providing some general warning. A frank and open debate about this issue, grounded on sound analytics and data, is overdue.