Aid and Development

Corruption represents a major obstacle to sustainable development, as it hampers economic growth and exacerbates existing inequalities in income, access to services and resource distribution. Corruption can occur at every stage of the service delivery chain, from policy design and budgetary allocations to procurement and bribery, thereby undermining the quantity and quality of public services, with a disproportionate impact on the poor.

While development assistance can support good governance measures intended to curb corruption, where accountability and transparency mechanisms are weak, aid flows can be tempting targets for the corrupt.

Over the past two decades, fighting corruption has become a priority for donors. Donors’ anti-corruption efforts can take place on a number of fronts:

• Introducing internal integrity management systems to ensure transparency, integrity and accountability of operations and staff;
• Protecting development projects from fraud and corruption and ensure that aid is used for its intended purpose;
• Supporting aid recipient countries to effectively address and mitigate corruption risks, such as measures to improve developing countries' public financial management systems;
• Participating in global anti-corruption work and international cooperation.