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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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Promoting rural youth engagement through radio and cell phones in Burundi

Submitted by Susana on Tue, 2009-05-26 11:57

For several weeks, local radio waves transmitted an unusual program in Burundi. This time, by combining radio and cell phones, the marginalized youth from rural Burundi received a chance to express their views on a series of issues that affect their daily lives. A rap song, composed with key findings of the study “Voices of the Youth” and the "Governance Survey," served as background of this pioneer and different approach, transmitted by Radio Publique Africaine.

Cell phones and radio were a way of outreaching places where information hardly makes its way, as well as to engage leaders in rural communities in debates about information obtained through studies that are hardly disseminated among the locals.

Problems solved: corruption, lack of transparency and leadership

Submitted by Kathrin on Wed, 2009-05-06 16:55

The global economic crisis revealed large scale fraud in the financial sector and dropped public confidence and trust. This presents a daunting array of challenges to companies and government alike. It is practically impossible for a single stakeholder on their own to effectively address the problems that contributed to this crisis: corruption, greed, lack of transparency and leadership. Hence there is a case for collective action that enables companies to collaborate with competitors and/or stakeholders from the public and civil society sector to create and maintain fair market conditions.

Recognizing this, the World Bank Institute is organizing an Executive Development Program precisely on such joint approaches titled Fighting Corruption through Collective Action in Today’s Competitive Marketplaces. 

Notebooks for school children in Burundi: Improving performance in the education sector

Submitted by Susana on Fri, 2008-10-03 07:00

During my recent mission to Bujumbura, Burundi, I witnessed the rapid results initiative team in action.  Earlier this March, a group of government officials participated in a training session on the use of the Rapid Results Approach to promote good governance and anti-corruption.  During this training, a group of officials from the Ministry of Education decided that this method could help them to improve efficiency in their sector.

Corruption warning signs: is your project at risk?

Submitted by Edouard on Wed, 2008-09-03 13:51


What factors conspire to cause a development project to fail? Poor project design and management of course. Also lack of client ownership. And capacity constraints. And corruption. 
 
Corruption puts assistance projects at risk at every step of the project’s life, and even before that projects exist on paper.  "Corruption warning signs: is your project at risk?" is a toolkit recently developed by the Latin America and Caribbean unit of the World Bank that lists these pitfalls phase by phase throughout the project's life.  The toolkit is addressed to Bank project managers and teams.  Here's a quick synthesis of these warning signs.