Global concerns about corruption have intensified in recent years. There is increasing evidence that corruption undermines development. It also hampers the effectiveness with which domestic savings and external aid are used in many developing countries, and this in turn threatens to undermine grassroots support for foreign assistance. Corruption is of growing concern to donors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and governments and citizens in developing and industrial countries alike. New global standards of behavior are emerging, driven partly by changing attitudes toward transnational bribery in industrial countries and partly by heightened awareness in developing countries of the costs of corruption. Developments in information technology in both developing and industrial countries have also played a role.
Helping Countries Combat Corruption: The Role of the World Bank
This web site presents a comprehensive report on how the World Bank and its partners are tackling corruption. For more information explore the Bank's
Anti-Corruption Knowledge Resource Center site.
Reducing Corruption
Read this article to learn about causes of corruption, combating corruption, strengthening mechanisms for monitoring and punishment, fostering incentives to play by the rules, and strategic options.
Corruption: Barrier to Development
This web page gives a good outline of the World Bank's strategy for dealing with corruption.
Corruption and Good Governance
This web page describes the World Bank's efforts to ensure that the projects it lends to are "clean," how the Bank is working with countries to eliminate corruption, the effect of corruption on the development process, and the challenge to the international business community.
Dealing with the Devil. The Hell of Corruption
Those clever devils who said corruption wasn't all that bad for developing countries were wrong � really wrong.
Read this Impact article to learn how countries deal with corruption. Find out which countries are the lease corrupt.
Corruption Index
Visit this site for data showing how much corruption affects business transactions in each country. For other indicators, click here.
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Tackling the Issues
The problem of corruption is closely associated with other issues that in their turn either encourage or thwart corruption. Explore issues like
Private Sector Development,
Information and Communications, and
Poverty
to see how they are related to corruption.
World Bank Takes Anti-Corruption Stance
In this speech, World Bank President James Wolfensohn calls for greater transparency, accountability and integrity in public affairs.
World Bank President Urges Businesses and Governments to Take Bolder Steps Against Corruption
In this speech, World Bank President James Wolfensohn urges businesses and governments to adopt stricter standards of transparency and civic responsibility.
Governments and Anti-Corruption
This web site describes the content of training materials prepared by the World Bank Institute (WBI) for workshops and seminars targeted to professionals who are combating corruption and trying to build integrity within both businesses and governing systems. The site also lists links to related external web sites and describes case studies and publications on corruption that are available from WBI.
