Private sector and corruption

Selected resources

• Center for International Private Enterprise (2008)
  Combating Corruption: A Private Sector Approach .pdf
  This toolkit introduces important concepts, explains how to address the underlying causes of corruption, and suggests concrete areas in which the private sector can lead governance reform. It includes:
  • Costs and causes of corruption
  • Stages in the fight against corruption
  • Demand-side and supply-side ways to fight corruption
  • Case studies of anti-corruption programs in Bulgaria, Colombia, and Serbia
    
    
• CIPE / USAID
  Business Without Corruption: An Action Guide .pdf
  This guide is meant to give small business owners the tools to resist corruption and, at the same time, survive and grow in an extremely aggressive economic climate.  The guide sets out such fundamentals as what corruption is and why it is a problem, and gives specific advice on how to avoid problems when dealing with bureaucrats as well as how civil society institutions can be used to protect businesspeople. A number of case studies demonstrate how businesspeople have defended themselves against illegal inspections and taken successful collective action against corruption. The guide also includes a “lawyer’s commentary” that outlines a legal framework for businesses to defend their rights.
  
  
• Center for International Private Enterprise (2004)
  Combating Corruption: Private Sector Perspectives and Solutions .pdf
  This paper reviews the causes and consequences of corruption and provides a series of anti-corruption private sector strategies that have reduced opportunities for corruption in a number of countries across the globe. It also defines corruption and, by looking at it as an economic issue, explains why combating corruption is essential to members of the public and private sectors and civil society.
  
  
• Presentation by Daniel Kaufmann at the 3rd ICAC Symposium (2006)
  Watch the video:
  The forgotten link between corporate and public sector governance: Evidence on worldwide corruption and integrity and implications for the private sector .wmv
  
  See the Powerpoint presentation .pdf
  
  
• Presentation by Daniel Kaufmann at a workshop on corruption and the private sector (2007)
  On Private-Public Corruption Nexus: From Inconvenient Facts to Questioning .pdf
  This presentation focuses on corruption & economic development; human behavior, trust & corruption; political corruption; and business & corruption, with the objective to identify research gaps in the public-private nexus of corruption and prioritize concrete actions. The target audience are academics, experts, representatives of multilateral development banks (MDBs).
  
  
• Tom Fox and Dave Prescott (2004)
  Exploring the role of development cooperation agencies in corporate responsibility .pdf
  Produced for policy makers in government and business, the report explores how bilateral and multilateral donors can support business activity that contributes to sustainable development, particularly in developing countries. It argues that, by helping to create an 'enabling environment' for responsible business practices, donors can enhance the effectiveness of their aid and increase the contribution of business to poverty eradication.
  
  
• Daniel Kaufmann (2005)
  Click Refresh Button - Investment Climate Reconsidered .pdf
  (Development Outreach, World Bank Institute, March 2005)
  Kaufmann argues that the private sector has an important role to play in shaping the business environment of states, and advocates a move away from traditional public sector reform approaches. Instead, more focus is needed on strategies encompassing effective external accountability, transparency, and prevention in order to mitigate capture and undue influence, and thus to improve the investment climate.
  
  
• United Nations - Global Compact (2007)
  Business fighting corruption. Experiences from Africa .pdf
  The UN Global Compact's tenth principle asks the private sector to play a role in fighting and preventing corruption. Companies are expected to integrate the principle into their day-to-day business operations, and to engage in collective action and multi-stakeholder initiatives against corruption. This publication captures two country case studies and the experiences of five individual organizations in their quest to create an ethical culture with accompanying operational guidelines and processes. The aim is to assist managers in the development of their organization’s approaches to preventing corruption and increasing transparency. The publication also conveys background information on existing concepts and frameworks with a special focus on Africa, and additional knowledge on related topics such as monitoring and measuring the impact of anti-corruption initiatives.
  
  
• UN Global Compact
  Business against corruption. Case stories and examples .pdf
  This publication, which was developed by the Global Compact Office in partnership with UNODC, showcases case stories and examples of implementation efforts by businesses. It also illustrates the dilemmas they faced in this process. As the Global Compact is mainly focused on changing business behaviour in order to create an inclusive global marketplace, this first volume of case stories on the 10th principle focuses predominantly on company actions.
  
  
• Doing Business 2008 .pdf
  (www.doingbusiness.org)
  Doing Business is a guide for evaluating regulations that directly impact economic growth, downloading underlying laws, making cross-country comparisons, and identifying good practice reforms. Refer to this overview for selected country statistics from the 2008 Doing Business data.
  
  
• OECD (2006)
  Promoting Private Investment for Development. The Role of ODA .pdf
  This policy guidance, which builds on DAC work on promoting pro-poor growth, has as its main message that donors should focus on helping lower the costs of investment, reduce risks, improve competition and develop human and institutional capacities. It stresses that economic infrastructure, financial market development and building the capacities of enterprises are priority areas for mobilizing investment in the near term and that reforming the investment climate requires political will, drive and leadership to take on entrenched interests and inertia. Development agencies consequently need to stay the course, but they also need to change the way they do business. For example, their internal incentive and evaluation systems should not work against staff pursuing longer-term, programmatic and possibly higher risk interventions.
  
  
• Simon White (2004)
  Donor approaches to improving the business environment for small enterprises .pdf
  (Committee of Donor Agencies for Small Enterprise Development, Washington)
  While many donor agencies have not officially defined their view of the business environment, this study cites examples that display great variation. This study also examined the approaches donor agencies take to assessing the business environment for small enterprises, as well as the ways donor agencies formulate the outcomes and impact of their projects and what indicators they use to measure these.
  
  
• The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (2005)
  Reforming the Business Environment: Current Thinking and Future Opportunities .doc
  (Committee of Donor Agencies for Small Enterprise Development, Washington)
  This Paper has been written to index some of the learning points arising from the Cairo Conference. The Conference featured about 60 peer-reviewed Papers, presented mostly in break-out sessions. Since most speakers prepared both a presentation and a Paper, there are about 110 documents in all.
  
  
• OECD-DAC (2006)
  Using ODA to promote private investment for development: draft policy guidance for donors .pdf
  This report provides guidance to members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) on using ODA more effectively to mobilise private investment for development (investment-enhancing ODA). It focuses on how development agencies can help influence the conditions that lead to increased levels of private investment and on how investment can better contribute to the achievement of broader societal goals, including poverty reduction. A fundamental objective is to help staff in development agencies, both in headquarters and the field, to pursue a more strategic and co-ordinated approach when they design and deliver investment-enhancing ODA.
  
  
• Anders Danielson (2005)
  Support for Private Sector Development .pdf
  (Sida Studies in Evaluation 03/05)
  This report is an interpretation of three three evaluations of SIDA’s approach to PSD. The report summarizes and synthesizes findings of the evaluations and aims to extract lessons learned. Concepts such as enabling environment and market obstacles as well as their sequencing are discussed.
  
  
• DFID (2003)
  How to assess and improve the investment climate .doc
  (DFID, How to note 2, Dec 2003)
  This document provides an introductory overview of investment, and investment climate, as well as an intervention overview. In specific, the possible roles for DFID are explored.
  

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