Sustainability of anti-corruption interventions and reforms

Query

What factors, conditions, and intervention types are associated with the long-term sustainability of anti-corruption interventions and reforms? Are there any good (or bad) examples that illustrate this?

Summary

Impact and institutional survival of anti-corruption interventions do not always go hand in hand. An anti-corruption reform can survive institutionally without sustaining its impact on corruption, just as a reduction in corruption can sometimes outlast the reform that produced it. The sustainability of different anti-corruption interventions and programmes is highly context dependent, as various design and implementation factors can impact sustainability. For example, reforms backed by a broad coalition of actors with actual power to act - courts, legislators, auditors - or that create new constituencies with a material stake in their survival, outlast reforms resting on a single champion or a narrow base of popular support. Funding diversity, legal or constitutional entrenchment, and a pre-planned exit strategy further shape how well that survival holds. External conditions matter for sustainability as well. Baseline state capacity to convert detection into credible enforcement and politically opportune timing, and the strength of the local civil society sector, among others, can determine the sustainability of interventions.

Main points

• This Helpdesk answer identifies several intervention types with documented evidence on sustainability, including auditing and monitoring, transparency initiatives, awareness-raising, capacity building, digital citizen empowerment, procurement reforms, civil service reforms, and the introduction of specialised investigative bodies.
• While most evaluations reviewed treat them interchangeably, sustainability has two dimensions worth tracking separately: whether the institution, law or programme itself survives (policy sustainability), and whether the impact on corruption persists once support ends (impact sustainability). Though they often go together (impact on corruption persists because the institution continues to operate), there are cases where the institution can survive, but its effects do not, and cases in which changes in social values and norms can outlast the institution that created them.
• Evidence on sustainability is mechanism- and context-dependent: in the studies reviewed here, auditing backed by credible enforcement shows the most consistent impact, and creating local ownership is key for donor-funded interventions.
• Design and implementation factors affect sustainability, such as coalition breadth, creating new stakeholders with a material interest in the reform, funding diversity, the mode of institutional change and embedding an exit strategy.
• Baseline state capacity, political support and timing, media coverage and partnerships and staff turnover further determine whether the intervention is sustainable.

Authors

Iva Parvanova

Reviewers

Gabriela Camacho (TI)
Caitlin Maslen (TI)
Vlora Rechica (TI)

Date

26/08/2026