October 18, 2006 Are multi-stakeholder partnerships an effective means to helping combat corruption? What are their benefits? What challenges do they face? How can we scale up or replicate successful experiences? These were some of the critical questions considered by leading anti-corruption practitioners during the September 17, 2006 plenary session, “Partnerships to Combat Corruption: Rising to the Challenge,” at the Program of Seminars of the 2006 International Monetary Fund/World Bank Group/Board of Governors Annual Meetings held September 16-18, 2006 in Singapore. _6R_1.jpg) | | Paul Wolfowitz opens the Plenary session |
Organized jointly by the World Bank Institute and the International Finance Corporation, the plenary session was opened by World Bank President Wolfowitz who stressed the importance of good governance to the effectiveness and success of poverty reduction efforts. Engagement of all stakeholders through dialogue and partnership is key to this good governance and anti-corruption agenda, “Even in the most challenging environments, we are working to seek and engage with the champions of good governance and anti-corruption efforts. The most important of those champions may often be inside governments themselves, and we need to work them, but also more broadly, we need to work in partnership with other national stakeholders as well as with other donors, both multilateral and bilateral.” The event brought together a high-level panel of global public and private sector leaders who have taken action against corruption. Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman and former head of an independent corruption inquiry into the U.N. oil-for-food program, Paul Volcker, emphasized leadership among all stakeholders as a critical component to changing the culture of corruption, at both the organizational and country levels. This sentiment was echoed by Nuhu Ribadu, who has seen two of his staff murdered for their anti-corruption work. As head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria, Mr. Ribadu stressed that establishing rule of law is first and foremost in combating corrupt behavior, but, to do this, collaboration across countries and sectors is necessary in gathering information, monitoring cross-border transactions, and fostering transparency. Mohamed Ibrahim, CEO of African cellular communications giant, Celtel, also spoke of the importance of establishing and fostering a culture of transparency. He stated that, as it takes at least two parties to engage in corruption, it will take all those parties to eradicate it as well.  | | (left to right) The Panel: John Githongo, Mohamed Ibrahim, Huguette Labelle, Dele Olojede, Nuhu Ribadu, Paul Volcker |
Getting to the root of corruption is another challenge best tackled through partnership and engagement, according to Huguette Labelle, chairperson of Transparency International. Ms. Labelle, using the example of the health system in Senegal, stressed the importance of engaging civil society and local actors to really infiltrate the embedded systems and channels of corrupt activity and get the “real data.” John Githongo, Kenya’s former anti-corruption chief, corroborated this by emphasizing the importance of tracking anti-corruption networks to root out the sources of graft and to fix governance and legal institutions from the inside out. The session was expertly moderated by Dele Olojede, the first African to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. World Bank Vice President and Chief Economist of the International Finance Corporation, Michael Klein, along with World Bank Institute Vice President Frannie Léautier, kicked off the lively question and answer period with several provocative questions to the panelists.  | | WBI Vice President Frannie Léautier poses questions to the panel |
Mr. Olojede ended with an eloquent summary, which captured the essence of the session, “…collaboration is essential to fighting corruption. We need the World Bank to help us fight corruption. We need the international financial institutions, the international organizations. We need Transparency International. We need the Nuhu Ribadus and John Githongos, and we need businesspeople who say no. We need men of wisdom like Paul Volcker who have seen it all, who bring a certain credibility and perception to the process.” For more information about this event, please see the following: World Bank Press Release: “Distinguished Panelists Say Corruption Fight is Central to Improving Lives of Poor” World Bank Transcript: “IMF/WB Annual Meetings 2006- Partnerships to Combat Corruption: Rising to the Challenge” World Bank News & Broadcast: “For Poverty to be History, Corruption Must be History” World Bank Institute Web Portal: Partnerships to Combat Corruption: Rising to the Challenge
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