While corruption has always been with us, the corrosive effects on development have only been begun to be recognized in the past few years in any consistent way.International agencies like the World Bank, afraid of the word corruption, simply talked about governance. Other agencies like Transparency International sprang up to essentially shame public servants in different countries by providing an annual scorecard of " who is most corrupt".
I remember discussing this issue with senior ministers in Vietnam a decade ago where I argued that there were two levels of corruption in poor countries- one I called "retail" corruption which was the tea money bribes to low level functionaries to move files or get appointments, and the second, "wholesale" corruption which was about large government contracts that were awarded to selected contractors on payment of monies in the swiss bank accounts of politicians. As far as retail corruption was concerned, while it was irritating to deal with and lowered the morale and image of the public sector, it was not something that could be controlled easily if the economic level of the functionary was too low. With economic development, so the argument went, this would actually decline. However it was the wholesale corruption that really harmed the country but which was paradoxically easier to control if the political elite were so inclined through transparency and competitive bidding.
We are now seeing an outpouring of new stategies to tackle this age old problem. Here are some of some interest:
Some of the world's most baffling social problems, says Peter Eigen, can be traced to systematic, pervasive government corruption, hand-in-glove with global companies. At TEDxBerlin, Eigen describes the thrilling counter-attack led by his organization Transparency International.
Here is another approach
In another approach,5th Pillar,has developed a unique initiative to mobilize citizens to fight corruption. 5th Pillar distributes zero rupee notes in the hopes that ordinary Indians can use these notes as a means to protest demands for bribes by public officials. The idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. 5th Pillar took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative.
It seems that a number of factors contribute to the success of the zero rupee notes in fighting corruption in India. First, bribery is a crime in India punishable with jail time. Corrupt officials seldom encounter resistance by ordinary people that they become scared when people have the courage to show their zero rupee notes, effectively making a strong statement condemning bribery. In addition, officials want to keep their jobs and are fearful about setting off disciplinary proceedings, not to mention risking going to jail. More importantly the success of the notes lies in the willingness of the people to use them. People are willing to stand up against the practice that has become so commonplace because they are no longer afraid: first, they have nothing to lose, and secondly, they know that this initiative is being backed up by an organization—that is, they are not alone in this fight.
This last point—people knowing that they are not alone in the fight—seems to be the biggest hurdle when it comes to transforming norms vis-à-vis corruption. For people to speak up against corruption that has become institutionalized within society, they must know that there are others who are just as fed up and frustrated with the system. Once they realize that they are not alone, they also realize that this battle is not unbeatable. Then, a path opens up—a path that can pave the way for relatively simple ideas like the zero rupee notes to turn into a powerful social statement against petty corruption.
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