Sierra Leone's contentious 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections threatened to spark violent conflicts across a country just recovering from brutal civil war. To promote peace, the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC)-which had a constitutional mandate to regulate and monitor political parties to ensure their compliance with electoral laws-used national and district code-monitoring committees to encourage adherence to the electoral code of conduct and to mediate conflicts. The committees served as a dispute resolution mechanism and as an important early warning system to identify electoral violence. Partly because of those measures, the 2007 national elections and the 2008 local council elections were largely peaceful despite pessimistic early warning reports. As the 2012 elections approached, the PPRC restructured the committees to include traditional leaders in order to strengthen the committees' capacity to mediate local conflicts. The restructuring enabled the committees to address electoral conflicts more effectively across Sierra Leone.

Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Sierra Leone, in February 2013. Case published July 2013.

Associated Interview(s):  Dr. Clever Nyathi, Magnus Öhman

In 2014, Ghana began to implement its National Anti-Corruption Action Plan, adopted a decade after the West African country signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption.  With over 120 goals, the plan’s strategy was wide-ranging and ambitious. The goals included strengthening the public service code of conduct, improving the asset declaration system, and expanding freedom of information, as well as adopting many new laws. About 15 other countries around the globe had announced similar aims, though few included as many goals in their plans or required as many statutory changes. Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, which was responsible for translating the strategy into practical accomplishments, faced stiff challenges, including limited coordination capacity, electoral disruption, reluctant legislators, and a few scandals that drew the government’s credibility into doubt. By the early months of 2017, the commission was still struggling to implement important parts of the strategy, but there were a few signs of progress: more public agencies were beginning to report regularly on the actions they had taken to meet their goals, a memorandum of understanding to improve coordination among parts of the anticorruption system was in place, and the Electoral Commission had stepped in to require asset declaration by candidates—even while bigger changes remained mired in the legislature. Ghana’s experience illuminated the challenge of introducing broad anticorruption policies in the face of embedded opposition and the ways that dedicated citizens and officials could take smaller but still significant steps to improve governance.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted with the assistance of Gordon LaForge in Accra, Ghana, during September 2016, February 2017, and August 2017. The British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Progamme funded the development of this case study. Case published September 2017.

Citizens of the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius worried openly about corruption and petty bribery in government, just after the millennium. Surveys revealed that civil servants often took advantage of archaic and overly bureaucratic procedures, offering to reduce delay in return for cash. In 2009, Anil Kumar Ujoodha, director general of the national government’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, introduced a new prevention program. He proposed a bottom-up strategy to reduce opportunities for bribe taking, nepotism, and conflicts of interest in the public service. Rather than handing down orders, policies, and procedures for fighting corruption, Ujoodha and his top staff shifted responsibility for the revision of practices to government agencies and their employees. Commission staff guided each agency through the process of setting up an anticorruption committee, assessing institution-specific corruption risks, developing solutions, and monitoring implementation. After piloting the new approach with the police and the Civil Status Division, the commission scaled up the initiative; and by 2016, more than 70 of the island nation’s more than 200 agencies had agreed to implement more than 380 different measures to address corruption risks. Although the coordinated strategy purposely sidestepped certain major concerns such as the influence of money on elections, it succeeded in reducing the incidence of highly visible forms of graft that undermined government credibility at the grassroots level. The measures also helped the government meet its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Corruption and other international agreements.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Mauritius in December 2016. The British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published February 2017. ​

In 2001, the Electoral Commission of Zambia faced a tense presidential and parliamentary election. The commission needed a new mechanism to stave off conflict, clarify responsibilities for dispute resolution, and provide complainants with an effective outlet for their concerns. Inspired by the use of a similar system in South Africa, the commission leaders developed conflict management committees at both the national and district levels. The committees—comprising representatives from political parties, law enforcement, civil society, and faith-based organizations—mediated conflicts related to violations of the electoral code of conduct. The electoral commission piloted the committees in the 2001 elections, before fully implementing and strengthening the committees at the national level and in the 74 electoral districts for the 2006 elections. The mediation system helped Zambia navigate an unexpected by-election following the death of President Levy Mwanawasa in 2008 and an opposition victory over the ruling party in 2011. Though some challenges remained, the electoral commission staff and committee members credited the committees with helping the country navigate competitive elections and reduce tensions between competing parties.