After the United Nations Convention against Corruption went into effect in 2005, pressure grew on private firms as well as governments to prevent their agents and employees—high officials as well as the rank and file—from offering or receiving money or other gifts as illicit inducements in the conduct of business. But in the years that followed, it became apparent that leaders were hard-pressed to identify and establish ways to address those problems. Drawing on his experience in the international construction sector, British lawyer Neill Stansbury recognized the need for operational standards that would enable organizations of all types to reduce or eliminate the structures and behaviors that contributed to bribery risk. In 2013, Stansbury and experts representing 37 countries and eight international organizations came together under the umbrella of the International Organization for Standardization to craft ISO 37001—the first international antibribery management system standard, which laid out specific policies and procedures firms and governments could use to identify and address vulnerabilities before problems occurred. Initially, adoption was slow for three main reasons: companies were focusing their attention on compliance with applicable national laws; introduction of the new standard would demand significant amounts of management time; and final certification would require costly review by an independent third party. A high-profile bribery scandal at one of the first certified companies also raised credibility concerns. As efforts to implement ISO 37001 continued, experience revealed both the advantages and the limitations of adhering to an international management standard to change inappropriate behaviors and create a level playing field in global commerce.

Tyler McBrien drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in April and May 2020. Case published July 2020.

As Vietnam gradually became a middle-income country during the early 2000s, its tax agency struggled to keep up. In the decade and a half following the Communist Party–led government’s 1986 decision to establish a market-based economy, local entrepreneurs launched businesses, foreign investors poured into the country, and the average annual rate of economic growth soared to 7.5%. But during the same period, tax revenues declined as the General Department of Taxation (GDT), which previously collected almost all of the country’s taxes from a small group of state-owned enterprises, strove to keep pace with the economic dynamism. In 2004, the department established an internal reform team and adopted a strategy to make sure those who could pay covered their fair share of the cost of government services. The GDT worked with the finance ministry’s tax policy department and the parliament to implement a raft of legal changes. The department then reorganized each of its 758 tax offices along functional lines, rolled out a new IT system, improved staff training, and created a unit to bolster taxpayer compliance. It later adopted a personal income tax and tried—sometimes unsuccessfully—to close exemptions created earlier to attract foreign investors. Although its collection levels began to plateau after 2010, in the decade or so from 2004 to 2015 the GDT increased the number of registered taxpayers in the country to 15 million from 2 million and tripled the amount of taxes it collected annually, maintaining one of the highest tax-to-GDP ratios in East Asia.

Leon Schreiber drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Hanoi, Vietnam in May 2018. Case published in August 2018. 

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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, governments and activist organizations around the world set their sights on ending the business of human trafficking. Many groups emerged to assist victims of the crime, but few made progress toward eliminating the roots of the problem. Duncan Jepson, a lawyer for a Hong Kong–based bank, said he believed too little was being done to spotlight the shadowy criminal networks that typically crossed government jurisdictions and sometimes included otherwise legitimate businesses. Jepson decided that disrupting the trade in human beings required new types of collaboration to unravel criminal networks and confront the organizations that abetted their activities. In 2012, he founded a nongovernmental organization called Liberty Asia, which aimed to bridge institutional gaps and approach human trafficking from an economic perspective by using increasingly robust anti-money-laundering tools that were at the disposal of banks and bank regulators. This case profiles Liberty Asia’s efforts and focuses on the challenges associated with coordinating many different types of organizations to confront a common challenge.

Ann Toews drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in March 2017 and January 2018. Case published March 2018.

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.

In 2010, Indonesia planning agency official Diani Sadiawati acquired a mandate to expand the government’s anticorruption measures. Sadiawati sought to bring the country in line with its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The country’s powerful anticorruption agency already had a full agenda and there was plenty more to do. With support from top-level officials, especially reform-minded Vice President Boediono, Sadiawati and her colleagues focused on prevention of corruption. With help from the president’s delivery unit, they began to coordinate actions among a large number of government agencies, overcome resistance to reform, and develop a system for monitoring impact and tracking progress. By 2014, the agencies had met 88% of the targets they had committed to. Civil society observers said the program had not treated many of the root problems, however, thereby underscoring the need for further work. In 2017, new President Joko Widodo leant his support but asked for a number of changes as the program moved into its next phase.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Jakarta in May and June 2017. The British Academy-Department for International Development AntiCorruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published August 2017.

When he took office as South Africa’s finance minister in 2009, Pravin Gordhan found that government officials responsible for purchasing goods and services were wasting billions of dollars every year as a result of inefficiency, errors, and corruption. Gordhan wanted to confront all three problems by consolidating and strengthening control over procurement. In February 2013, he tapped longtime finance ministry official Kenneth Brown to serve as the country’s first chief procurement officer. Brown had to restructure systems, tighten procedures and regulations, and build effective oversight. He assembled a skilled team and persuaded skeptical politicians and business interests to support Gordhan’s goals. His office reviewed and renegotiated costly contracts, provided crucial market analysis and advice on procurement strategies for other departments, and took first steps toward creating an online system. Brown strengthened funding, built a staff, and put new systems in place. By the time he retired in December 2016, his efforts had sharply reduced opportunities for corruption, increased transparency in the procurement process, and slashed the time required to process tenders. The new office helped South Africa better comply with some of its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Corruption, even though Brown and Gordhan faced opposition from people at some of the highest levels of government.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, South Africa, in March 2017. The British Academy-Department for International Development AntiCorruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published June 2017.

In 2003, reform-minded civil servants saw an opening to combat pervasive corruption within the government of Brazil. A new president who had promised to end political graft had just come into office. The question was how to secure the right legal instruments, overcome lack of capacity, and create the coordination needed to detect, prosecute, and sanction wrongdoers. The reformers organized an informal, whole-government network to combat money laundering and corruption. They identified shared priorities, coordinated interagency policy making, and tracked progress. Leaders in the judiciary, executive, and prosecutor’s service drafted enabling legislation, strengthened monitoring, improved information sharing, and built institutional capacity and specialization. Gradually, those efforts bore fruit, and by 2016, authorities were prosecuting the biggest corruption case in the country’s history and had disrupted an entrenched political culture.

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