Stopping the Rot

If, as the old cliché goes, a fish rots from its head, can the solution to corruption be found at the, er, grassroots? Corruption-buster Transparency International (TI) seeks to answer that question with its first Global Corruption Report (GCR), which looks at the role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play in promoting everything from wholesale political ...

By Brad Amburn

November 16, 2009, 8:29 PM

If, as the old cliché goes, a fish rots from its head, can the solution to corruption be found at the, er, grassroots? Corruption-buster Transparency International (TI) seeks to answer that question with its first Global Corruption Report (GCR), which looks at the role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play in promoting everything from wholesale political campaign reform in Nigeria to basic information disclosure in India.

Unlike TI’s groundbreaking Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranks more than 90 countries in terms of perceived corruption (as measured by composite survey data), the GCR provides no scorecards. Instead, the GCR contains user-friendly regional synopses on the strength of anti-corruption efforts by the public and private sectors and broad-brush thematic essays. The goal, writes TI Chairman Peter Eigen, is to "add a new dimension to TI’s efforts to raise awareness of corruption in all its guises."

As a result, some of the countries that usually fare well in the CPI don’t automatically receive a glowing report in the GCR. Japan, which ranks in the top third of CPI 2001 because of its relatively uncorrupt image, is singled out as a country where weak civil society roots have made it difficult for watchdog groups to hold public officials accountable. So even if corruption is perceived to be a greater problem in neighboring South Korea (it is in the middle third of the CPI), pressure groups and collaborative NGO activism in South Korea have earned it more praise than its neighbor across the water.

The report’s star pupil is Peru. Journalists Carolina de Andrea and Gabriel Chávez-Tafur credit healthy civil society activism with helping to root out corrupt public figures from the Fujimori regimes. Those at the bottom of the class receive a sharp ticking off. One of the most criticized is Zimbabwe, where the ruling party Zanu-PF is quashing grass-roots calls for reform with plans to introduce a bill banning any external funding for local civil society organizations.

The report understandably gushes with tributes to "the courage of civil society." Perhaps future editions will take a more nuanced approach. For example, only journalists reporting from central and southeastern Europe and the Baltics tackle the issue of the democratic legitimacy of NGOs, conceding that “… the benefits of diversity and pluralism could be overtaken by flaws of poor coordination, overlapping mandates and, ultimately, the very lack of accountability and transparency that NGOs seek to address.”