Prof. Mushtaq Khan of SOAS and the Anti-Corruption Evidence programme describes the ACE approach to anti-corruption.

1. A New Approach to Tackle Corruption:
Lessons from a Decade of Anti-Corruption Programmes
Mushtaq Khan,
SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF London
and
ACE (Anti-Corruption Evidence) Research Programme
HIGH LEVEL MEETING ON ANTI-CORRUPTION REFORMS IN
TANZANIA 22nd – 23rd JUNE 2017, DAR ES SALAM

2. Rule of law and Anti-corruption
• The effective enforcement of a rule of law and the
achievement of low levels of corruption requires two
complementary factors
• a) Effective ‘vertical’ enforcement of rules from above, and
• b) An effective ‘horizontal’ enforcement of rules by the actors
themselves, because they benefit from the enforcement of
rules and are able to pay for enforcement and isolate
individuals and organizations that violate
• Both aspects of enforcement are required if a broad-based rule
of law is to emerge that also binds the agencies of the state to
be rule-following
2

3. Experiences of Anti-Corruption Programmes
• Anti-corruption strategies in developing countries have
typically been based on vertical enforcement, using
prosecutions, transparency and accountability, and
simplifications of rules
• There have been some significant successes in these types of
anti-corruption efforts in some countries but sustainable
progress has been difficult
• These difficulties can be explained by the weakness of
horizontal enforcement at a societal level: developing and
emerging countries have a high level of ‘informality’, which
suggests that large parts of society do not follow formal rules
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4. Types of corruption
• In the short term, enforcing a rule of law that requires all
powerful organizations including the state to abide by rules is a
difficult challenge in these contexts
• Our new approach argues that incremental and targeted anti-
corruption strategies that seek to find areas where some
horizontal support for anti-corruption can be found are
important complements to an anti-corruption strategy
• This approach to pragmatic and politically-feasible governance
reform is also recognized in the World Bank’s WDR 2017 on
Governance and the Law
• In developing countries where informality is the norm, it is
critical to distinguish between different types of corruption to
identify feasible and high-impact anti-corruption priorities
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5. Types of corruption
• In these countries the general enforcement of a rule of law is
difficult in the short run
• Businesses and individuals may sometimes violate official rules
because they are cheating others BUT sometimes they violate
because following official rules is very difficult or impossible
• In the first type of corruption an individual or organization
may have behaved differently but chooses to break the rules
for additional gains
• In the second, individuals or organizations violate rules
because others in society are informally behaving in ways that
make it impossible for them to do otherwise, or because
government policies make it very difficult to comply, and so on.
• When the second type of problem is important, pure
enforcement and punishment strategies (whether vertical or
horizontal) do not work very well 5

6. Evidence: Standard Anti-corruption strategies have not worked well
6
Source:
Johnson,
Taxell and
Zaum (2012)
Mapping
Evidence
Gaps in Anti-
Corruption

7. A New Approach to Anti-Corruption
• To make sequential progress towards a rule-following society, anti-
corruption reform in particular sectors has to be designed to be
implementable and to have a development impact
• When the vertical enforcement capacities of a state are limited and
horizontal enforcement is also weak it is vitally important to identify
activities where anti-corruption is feasible because some powerful
interests can feasibly benefit from anti-corruption
• This is possible if changes in policies and institutions can make it
profitable for at least some powerful players to behave in
developmental and socially desirable ways in these activities
• If we can identify these opportunities and make the changes that
create effective support for anti-corruption of specific types, anti-
corruption strategies can be both feasible and developmental
• This in turn can help to accelerate the creation of a dynamic and
diversified economy with many productive sectors.
• As more and more productive organizations emerge, the social
capability for a horizontal enforcement of a generalized rule of law
becomes stronger and informality declines

8. Incremental sectoral anti-corruption

9. Sectoral Anti-Corruption Strategies
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Effective support for anti-corruption in specific areas can be
created in a number of ways by combinations of anti-corruption
policies that complement standard enforcement strategies
1. Aligning incentives
In some areas, productive rule-following activities can be made
more profitable relative to unproductive corrupt ones. In these
cases potentially productive players may begin to support the
enforcement of anti-corruption in their own interest.
Examples: a) Unproductive collusive behaviour in power
generation contracting in Bangladesh when the cost of capital is
too high.
b) The skills levy and poor performance of skills upgrading in
Tanzania
c) Using embedded power plants to bypass politically connected
power companies in Nigeria

10. Sectoral Anti-Corruption Strategies
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2. Leveraging differences
In some areas there are different types of organizations who may
be violating rules for different reasons. By designing policies to
take account of differences, some potentially compliant
organizations can start behaving differently and supporting anti-
corruption.
Example: Regulatory Compliance by Garments Factories in
Bangladesh
3. Building coalitions
Sometimes the interests hurt by specific types of corruption are
potentially powerful enough to effectively support anti-corruption
activities of government authorities. In these areas, anti-corruption
has to involve organizing and supporting coalitions.
Example: Electronics smuggling in Bangladesh, Rice and Sugar
smuggling in Tanzania.

11. Sectoral Anti-Corruption Strategies
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4. Resolving Rights
Sometimes corruption of some types is driven by conflicts in the
underlying rights of different individuals. This is very often the case
in land disputes in developing countries where the underlying land
rights are often unclear and undergoing changes.
Anti-corruption in these areas requires concerted efforts in
resolving the underlying conflicts through legal clarifications or
informal arbitration.
Examples: Sequential targeting of corruption in land transactions
in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Nigeria

12. Making anti-corruption real
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In developing countries, standard vertical-enforcement anti-
corruption strategies are important in some areas (like tax evasion
by productive mineral companies) but on their own may make
limited progress or antagonize some productive sectors if they find
it more difficult to do business
Our strategy complements this type of anti-corruption with sectoral
strategies that are both effective AND designed to make
immediate development gains that can demonstrate the social
benefits of anti-corruption
The new strategy identifies sectoral opportunities for anti-
corruption where policy changes are likely to be supported by
some powerful players in the sector and achieve immediate
development goals
The aim is to identify opportunities where policy changes can
make some powerful players behave more productively and
support targeted anti-corruption efforts