By Umar Yakubu

The world’s largest forum for combating corruption just concluded a gathering of almost two thousand participants from all over the world in Vilnius, Lithuania, to discuss what it has been talking about since 1983 – global corruption and related matters. Every two years, industry leaders converge to advance the anti-corruption agenda through mechanisms of engagements, discussions and exchange of ideas.

From the quality of organization and presence of global anti-corruption leaders such as Peter Eigen, Transparency International founder, Raymond Baker, Global Financial Integrity founding president, to dozens of academics from several countries, hundreds of investigative journalists that have been on the field combating corruption, global institutions like the IMF and UNODC, members of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) Coalition with over 350 CSOs, there was abundance of opinions and solutions to corruption related problems.

There is a consensus on how corruption has led to global instability, widened inequality, deepened poverty, organized crime, conflict and threats to democracies. But where is the world on combating corruption today? Prof Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez of the Japan Network of Anti-Corruption Researchers runs a forum of academics across the world on studying the different measurements of corruption – procurement fraud, abuse of power, access to public information, clientelism, conflict of interests, nepotism, due diligence, electoral fraud, regulatory capture – to assess its reduction or lack thereof.

In the last 29 series, the 30th next week, dozens of scholars have discussed several mechanisms such as the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI), the Index of Public Integrity (IPI), the Control of Corruption Indicator of the World Bank Governance Indicators, the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Sustainable Government Indicators, PRS Group’s International Country Risk Guide and UNODCs measurement of bribery and other forms of corruption.

The International Anti-Corruption Academy also has a Global Programme on Measuring Corruption where senior academics like Professor Liz David-Barrett of the Centre for the Study of Corruption, University of Sussex and Daniel Kaufmann of the Brooking Institute. There are local mechanisms such as the Transparency and Integrity Index in Africa by the Center for Fiscal Transparency, Nigeria.

Bottomline, these measurements ranging from official statistics and perception surveys to experience-based surveys are tools to guide action in corruption reduction. The data from most of these measurements are mostly not promising. Like climate change, the world is talking more than doing. So, the question remains, how many governments are listening?

Even though most speakers use countries in the Global South when giving examples of the bad and ugly, the data from different types of measurement, indexes and ranking shows that even though the Global North may have lower incidences of some types of corruption, it’s the major beneficiary of laundered funds and illicit financial flows.

Peek into Raymond Baker’s book ‘Invisible Trillions – How Financial Secrecy is Imperilling Capitalism and Democracy’, he explained how governments, banks, corporations, lawyers, accountants and international institutions enable and accelerate global disorder and economic inequality. I am sure there are dozens of research and books in tune with that argument.

For example, the biggest bribe payers are often multinational companies coming from the top ranked countries. As of 2019 top cases that resulted in settlements and fines under the USA’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) involved companies based in the least corrupt countries, according to the CPI. What is evident is that international politics and the global financial system driven by technology and national interests are moving faster than the solutions to corruption proffered by analysts and mechanisms.

Until the impact of corruption outweighs national interest concerns, countries are unlikely to take serious measures. So, what do we do? The UNCAC mechanism needs to have teeth, taking some queue from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – by setting standards and penalizing countries that don’t take measures in implementing an integrated set of provisions.

All the previous mentioned mechanisms should be considered in designing measurable standards in technical compliance, monitoring and effectiveness. A Monitoring Committee, reflective of equal numbers from the Global North and Global South, with countries rotating on a two to five-year basis should be formed to monitor implementation of the new measurable standards. The rotation could boost competition for compliance.

There should also be a Sanctions Committee composed of an equal number of countries and other members like the Basel Institute of Governance and Global Financial Integrity. Both committees should reflect strong representatives from civil society, academia, and investigative journalists. Just like how the world acted for global security in 1945, it’s time to act on a global problem, putting in mind the gaps of 1945, to save humanity from the cancer of corruption.

_Umar Yakubu, a member of the UNCAC Coalition, writes from the Center for Fiscal Transparency, Nigeria_