Corruption is threat to fight against poverty (Page 50)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
TRANSPARENCY International (TI) has warned that corruption would continue to undermine poverty reduction efforts if there are no immediate actions on accountability and citizen participation by both aid recipients and donor countries.
Materials made available to journalists prior to the opening of the third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF) being held in Accra, quoted the Managing Director of TI, Mr Cobus de Swardt, as accusing countries for doing little to prevent corruption.
“At the last Forum in 2005, countries signed the Paris Declaration which pledged to boost aid effectiveness through citizen participation, greater government accountability and transparency in the development process,” “but three years on, progress remains wanting as evidenced by the continued lack of democratic accountability to citizens in recipient countries,” he said.
He added that, “We see this as a major corruption risk and serious threat to the global fight against poverty”.
The 2005 Paris Declaration laid out the principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability to make aid more effective.
Mr de Swardt pointed out that with 2010 set as the deadline for full implementation of those principles, evidence showed that progress was lagging dangerously.
He explained that the meeting in Accra, under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Development Assistance Committee (DAC), must shift the process into high gear if it was to be salvaged.
He observed that although a statement which was endorsed by the representatives of more than 100 developed and developing countries, as well as multilateral development banks and agencies clearly mentioned fighting corruption as a condition for greater aid effectiveness but did not provide any framework for action.
“The persistent levels of poverty and corruption across the globe amount to an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe,” continued Mr de Swardt. “We need to see a targeted and global strategy to tackle corruption in the development process, or we will continue to see lives spent in misery and preventable deaths because public institutions and the provision of health and education services simply do not work. We need to see greater local ownership of aid programmes, a clear voice for civil society in the process and an end to purely donor-driven aid policies,” Mr de Swardt pointed out.
He was emphatic that with the fight against corruption as a pre-condition to achieving greater aid effectiveness and reaching the goals of the Paris Declaration, TI advocated improving access to and the disclosure of public information, enabling citizens, legislatures, journalists and investigators to ‘follow the money’ and cleaning up public procurement and sanctioning violators.
He also touched on maximising development resources and ensuring better public services; strengthening oversight institutions and engaging civil society, enabling parliament, auditors and civil society to demand accountability; harmonising donor activity to prevent abuse as well as harmonised aid programmes – and transparency practices which meant fewer opportunities for theft, corruption and abuse.