Fighting Corruption in the Water Sector -- 2 Success Stories

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.

Led by WBI in alliance with the Water Integrity Network, Transparency International, and the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), “Increasing Transparency, Accountability, and Information in the Water Sector” provided a platform for discussion of how corruption is affecting the water and sanitation sector in both countries, and to find ways to deal with the problem.

National and international experts showed how recent initiatives in water and sanitation have defeated corruption and improved service delivery -- through greater transparency, more diligent disclosure of information, and direct accountability mechanisms that enable customers to raise their voices to demand and get better service.

Concrete tools to fight corruption were presented at the workshops. They included water distribution systems owned and managed by communities (Agua Tuya Program), legal instruments that support transparency, accountability and information mechanisms, e-procurement and transparency mechanisms at the Panama Canal Authority, the use of integrity pacts to increase trust in public contracts, accountability practices to keep the customers informed, citizen-based report cards, benchmarking, and vulnerability assessment, among others.

Participants – local public officials, water regulatory entities members, and civil society and private sector representatives – drafted anti-corruption action plans based on the workshop tools.  So far we have concrete results in two projects – one in the Municipality of Mercedes in Honduras  and the other in the Municipality of Quilali in Nicaragua.  Diagnostic analysis, surveys, and local council meetings have involved all stakeholders in the fight against corruption. Accountability mechanisms, participatory meetings, and monitoring and evaluation systems have increased the flow of information and led to more transparency.

To learn more about this program,  visit this this website. For more information on how corruption affects the water sector, check out the TI 2008 Global Corruption Report . Two major international events are scheduled for later this year: the Expo Zaragoza  in Spain from June 14 through September 14, 2008, and the International Anti-Corruption Conference organized by TI from October 30 through November 2, 2008, in Greece.