My comments on Strengthening the World Bank Group's Work in Governance and Anticorruption
Dear Friends,
Recently Moisés Naím in an article, Bad Medicine, in Foreign Policy (March–April 2005), suggested that the world might have become too fixated on battling corruption. Of course, blaming corruption for all evil is stupid, and Naím’s article is a good aide-mémoire on that, but the alternative of turning a blind eye on corruption sounds so much worse! Therefore, we very much welcome the World Bank’s efforts to do more and better. The Naím article also cited Daniel Kaufmann as saying, “The last 10 years have been deeply disappointing . . . Much was done, but not much was accomplished. What we are doing is not working,” but this has to be interpreted as a clamor for better strategies and not as a capitulation.
Given our current global problems, a corrupt world—a world where everyone is looking for his or her short-term gratification—is just an unsustainable world, and so it is imperative that the many difficulties that come up while fighting corruption should only strengthen our will to fight it. That it has to be done intelligently is obvious. Also, while doing so, we need to heed Naím’s warning that “before we engage the enemy, we should take the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath, and promise first to do no harm,” That goes without saying.
I can in many ways demonstrate the importance I have given to the issue of fighting corruption, in any of its manifestations, not the least during the two years when I was an Executive Director of the Bank, and when, as an example, I requested that some major documents relevant to the issue should be discussed at a full Board meeting, with the presence in person of the Bank’s president. The fast-track procedure that had been envisaged in my mind belittled its importance.
In this respect, I am very grateful for this opportunity that allows me once again to voice my opinion publicly on the issue of fighting corruption and the World Bank’s role in this struggle. I will do my utmost to try to keep it as brief and concise as possible. Likewise, I shall use as a reference the discussion document presented as part of this consultation process.
1. First and foremost, corruption, in all its manifestations, has its origin in those frailties that affect all human beings. In this respect, any attempt to classify the world in terms of the corrupted and the not corrupted is in itself corruption. Accepting this fact, with humility, is an absolute prerequisite if we are going to reach the necessary enlightenment to move forward and upward as a civilization. In fact, what we now observe in many of the supposedly corruption-free developed countries may in fact just be some better-camouflaged and more resistant strains of the same virus. In this respect, we urge the World Bank to eliminate from all its documentation any holier-than-thou manifestations, explicit or implicit, since these serve no useful purpose. That the Bank should listen to its shareholders and look for guidance goes without saying. However, to qualify some shareholders as having “significant experience in assuring sound governance policy and practices,” (1) in this context, is not helpful since in its anticorruption efforts the Bank will do its best when it works to help all shareholders, and not some specially singled out. This, of course, has nothing to do with limiting the possibilities of the World Bank to speak out in very clear terms against any particular outrageous manifestations of corruption. Indeed, we believe it should, much more forthrightly than it has in the past.
2. The fight against corruption, like so many other aspects of life, lies on a continuum where it is impossible to ascertain validly and precisely just how much has been achieved. The Bank should refrain from trying to categorize achievements in these matters, and most especially its own, since the resulting flag-waving contains many elements that bear uncomfortably close resemblance to corruption. For instance, a phrase like “The World Bank has come a long way on governance and anticorruption in a brief period” (8) is a no-no, not only because the distance traveled in that short time might be almost insignificant relative to the distance we need to travel, but also because it is disrespectful of all the efforts that must have been made earlier. In many of our developed and developing countries, one of the most disgraceful manifestations of corruption occurs when governments and politicians use taxpayer money to advance their own image. Thus, the Bank needs to set an example and refrain itself as much as possible from doing just that.
3. Corruption has many faces. Unfortunately, we tend to single out just some of them by placing them in a display case that contains the typical products
