The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOS) in combating corruption: theory and practice.

AuthorCarr, Indira
  1. INTRODUCTION

    Corruption, in its many guises, is a global phenomenon to be contended with in commerce, politics, and day-to-day life. And in some countries, according to Transparency International (TI), it has become deeply embedded in the very fabric of society. (3) The international lending community, including the World Bank and intergovernmental institutions such as the United Nations (U.N.), the African union (Au), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has sought to combat the problem of corruption through a variety of mechanisms. These mechanisms range from tying loans to conditions that require the borrower (donee) state to adopt better governance mechanisms and pass anti-corruption laws to international treaties and soft law. (4) Of the treaties, the 2005 U.N. Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Anti-Bribery Convention)5 are the most well-known. And of the soft law instruments, the most famous are the U.N. Global Compact (UNGC) (6) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines), (7) which recommend that companies avoid corrupt practices when engaging in business transactions to focus on reducing corruption from the supply side. (8) Despite these efforts, the recent past is replete with numerous bribery allegations such as the BAE case (9) and the Siemens case, (10) to name a few.

    Besides states and businesses, NGOs and civil society are also seen as central to the gargantuan task of fighting corruption. The UNCAC, the only international anti-corruption convention, (11) in its article 13(1) states that:

    Each State Party shall take appropriate measures, within its means and in accordance with fundamental principles of its domestic law, to promote the active participation of individuals and groups outside the public sector, such as civil society, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations, in the prevention of and the fight against corruption and to raise public awareness regarding the existence, causes and gravity of and the threat posed by corruption. (12) Regional anti-corruption conventions are also not far behind. For instance, the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) in a similar vein in its article 12 provides that parties work with civil society at large to popularize the AUCPCC, ensure and provide for the participation of civil society in the monitoring process, and consult civil society in the convention's implementation. (13)

    This reliance on NGOs in the global anti-corruption effort is understandable because of their success in key areas such as environmental protection, healthcare, and human rights through the use of various strategies, including grassroots organization, robust advocacy, and active lobbying. (14) The strategies that NGOs adopt vary, depending on the causes promoted and local conditions, and range from the confrontational to the collaborative. Collaboration, conducted through interactions, dialogues, and partnerships, appears to be a widely adopted technique in persuading companies to include corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and programs related to sustainable development within their business plans. (15) The move towards collaboration is a recent development, and it may be a consequence of the UNGC, which envisions the possibility of partnerships between companies, NGOs, and international institutions. (16) Although the anti-corruption conventions expect NGOs to play an important role in combating corruption, there are no known surveys regarding the strategies various NGOs may have adopted pertaining to the anticorruption drive; the nature of their interaction with other stakeholders such as the public, businesses, and the state; or their contribution to policy-making and drafting codes of conduct. (17) As part of a larger project on corruption in international business pursuing insight into the ways in which NGOs operate, and in order to address this gap, the authors used a mailed questionnaire to study NGOs' strategies and stakeholder engagement and their views on various anti-corruption regulatory approaches. (18)

    This article contains three principal parts, and its primary goal is to provide the findings of the survey. Part II briefly discusses the conceptual differences between civil society and NGOs, the different forms of NGOs, and the roles various anti-corruption toolkits envision for them in order to provide a backdrop for the survey. Part III provides the survey results. Part IV concludes with a discussion and suggestions for future research.

  2. NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

    1. Features and Roles

      Before examining the different roles of NGOs in combating corruption, it is important to describe their main features. While many individuals perceive NGOs as distinct from civil society, some tend to conflate the two. The confusion is perhaps due to the engagement of many NGOs at the grassroots level. The anti-corruption conventions also reflect this divergence in approach. For instance, the UNCAC makes specific references to NGOs and civil society, while the AUCPCC simply uses the phrase "civil society" and fails to draw any further distinctions. (19) The AUCPCC approach is to some extent justifiable because in common parlance no rigid distinction is drawn between NGOs and civil society. The lack of distinction is likely due to the value-creating aspects of NGOs and their objectives of advancing broad and important societal goals. And in this regard, they are no different from civil society, which is comprised of individuals, groups, or associations who come together to advance collective goals. (20) Achieving these goals can be in their own interests, in the interest of others generally, or to advance specific causes. While the viewpoints of other organizations may coincide with those of NGOs such as Amnesty International, World Wildlife Fund, and Oxfam, the latter are formal in structure and may be motivated by political or religious ideologies. (21)

      There is no minimum size requirement for NGOs. They come in various sizes from small to large and are distributed locally, nationally, or internationally. The larger the NGO, the more likely management structures assume a complexity comparable to that of a corporation. Unlike corporations, however, NGOs are nonprofit organizations and largely depend on receiving funds from a variety of sources including international intergovernmental organizations, businesses, donor agencies, philanthropists, governments, and individuals. NGOs are known for their reliance on volunteers, and this is widely evidenced, for example, in the running of charity shops or the distribution of humanitarian relief. But it is not uncommon for NGOs to employ professionals such as fund-raisers, public relations officers, research officers, and chief executive officers to manage and direct their operations and handle their budgets.

      There is no commonly agreed-upon definition of NGOs, and Anna C. Vakil sees the lack of a definition as hindering the understanding of the functioning of NGOs. (22) The U.N., however, provides a workable definition that sets out some of their key characteristics as follows:

      [A] not-for-profit, voluntary citizens' group, which is organized on a local, national or international level to address issues in support of the public good. Task-oriented and made up of people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of services and humanitarian functions, bring citizens' concerns to Governments, monitor policies and programme implementation, and encourage political participation of civil society stakeholders at the community level. They provide analysis and expertise, serve as early warning mechanisms and help monitor and implement international agreements. (23) A. Rani Parker's useful classification of NGOs also reflects these key characteristics. (24) According to this classification, NGOs can be distinguished into three types: the operational NGO (ONGO), the advocacy NGO (ANGO), and the hybrid NGO (HNGO). (25) ONGOs are perhaps the oldest form of NGOs, which provide necessary services at critical times such as humanitarian disasters and conflict situations--the prime example being the Red Cross. (26) Parker compares ONGOs to multinational enterprises (MNEs) as both have expert knowledge on how to enter countries, have knowledge of cultures and conditions on the ground, and manage huge financial budgets and monitor activities. ONGOs are also apolitical. (27) ANGOs, on the other hand, are driven by politics and ideologies (such as democratic participation, freedom of speech, and poverty reduction) and use confrontational techniques by writing scathing reports about a state's record on human rights, the conduct of multinational corporations, and the exploitation of the labor force that help in building support across communities to enable policy changes. (28) They, by and large, take the moral high ground and aim to bring about change through tighter regulation, enforcement, and changes in practices within institutions by naming and shaming them. The HNGOs are hybrids, which exhibit characteristics of both ONGOs and ANGOs but also have a "high degree of sophistication among them with respect to MNEs.... They recognize the vast range of possibilities and the diversity among MNEs, and tend to hold fairly sophisticated perspectives on the complexities associated with NGO-MNE relationships." (29)

      The above suggests that the strategies HNGOs utilize are context-dependent and influenced by the changes sought. HNGOs know that some measures are most likely to make an impact based on the HNGOs' mature understanding of local culture and conditions and the available resources, financial and otherwise, at their disposal.

      Although the anti-corruption conventions envision a role for NGOs in...

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