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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...

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Building Good Governance from Local Traditions: Botswana’s Former President on Diamonds and the Fight against Corruption

Submitted by Boris on Tue, 2008-08-26 10:24

It’s an impressive, almost blinding sight: a big pile of sparkling diamonds, hundreds of precious stones piled up in front of the President as if they were pebbles. The head of state grabs a handful. The glitter reflects in his eyes as he looks at them, millions of dollars worth. 

Fighting Corruption in the Water Sector -- 2 Success Stories

Submitted by Maria on Thu, 2008-07-17 14:28

Corruption in the water sector is a root cause of the global water crisis that threatens billions of lives and exacerbates environmental degradation, according to the new “Global Corruption Report 2008: Corruption in the Water Sector” released by Transparency International.

The World Bank Institute (WBI) is taking the lead in fighting this corruption in two Central American countries where both the World Bank’s Governance Indicators and the Corruption Perception Index of TI indicate that corruption is common in the public administration and the delivery of basic services including water.  A capacity-building program organized for both Honduras and Nicaragua in September 2007 has had a positive impact on how both users and practitioners look at this challenge.

From Assessment to Practice: Action Planning for Governance Reform

Submitted by Susana on Fri, 2008-07-11 19:23

Developing countries increasingly recognize the importance of monitoring governance in order to identify institutional vulnerabilities and take measures to strengthen the effectiveness of their governments. With that in mind, the World Bank Institute recently brought together 30 members of government and civil society from Benin, Burundi, Cameroun, and the DRC to learn from each other and the experiences of various countries with governance and anti-corruption initiatives -from assessment to implementation.

Through prolonged engagement via videoconference before meeting face to face in Kinshasa, DRC, the participants shared experiences about the challenges and opportunities they face for governance reform  and talked about how to harness the power of data to push reforms.

Daniel Kaufmann from WBI discussed the links between governance and growth and lessons learnt from an empirical perspective in Africa: even in a shorter term, African countries can benefit from improvements in governance and the control of corruption in the form of increases in income per capita, he pointed out.

How Citizen Feedback Strengthens Governance Reform in Francophone Africa

Submitted by Boris on Thu, 2008-07-10 16:31

Citizen feedback is helping many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa improve their overall governance and fight corruption. That good news was shared by some 90 representatives from government, civil society, the private sector, and the media from Francophone Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, and the DRC provinces of Bandundu, Katanga, and South-Kivu, who came together in Kinshasa to learn from each other and exchange their experiences.

 

 see video in French here