Heather Marquette (occasional contributor to this blog) has started a new newsletter drawing on her work for SOC ACE – the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence programme (and sister programme to SOAS ACE and Global Integrity ACE) and lots more on corruption, organised crime, conflict, security, foreign policy and development.. The first two editions dropped this week, and here are some highlights (minus

Guest post by Mitchell Watkins & Professor Mushtaq Khan (SOAS University of London) Our research in Bangladesh identifies two practical ways to make climate change adaptation funding more effective. First, anti-corruption monitoring is more effective when led by locally influential households; secondly and more importantly, their involvement can be increased by designing adaptation projects to maximize ‘dual use’, ensuring that

Guest post by Katherine Marshall, who will be one of the panelists at tomorrow’s webinar on ‘Emergent Agency in a time of Covid 19’ (register here) Religious actors and transparency/accountability advocates ought to be natural allies, but all too often, they barely communicate, much less work actively together. That is a huge missed opportunity for both sides. In the many

Guest post by Sally Torbert of the International Budget Partnership, who has a very different take on how to tackle Covid Corruption from yesterday’s post by Mushtaq Khan and Pallavi Roy Vast sums of public money are being mobilized and diverted to fund COVID-19 emergency measures. Governments need to identify, approve, and implement emergency funding urgently. While speed does not

Guest post by Mushtaq Khan and Pallavi Roy of the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence Consortium (SOAS-ACE) Why the COVID-19 response is undermined by corruption ‘Flattening the curve’ and lockdowns have sadly become part of our new vocabulary. That this is not just about limiting patient numbers temporarily but primarily about using the opportunity to scale up COVID-19 testing and treatment capacities

Spent a day earlier this week in a posh, but anonymous (Chatham House Rule) Central London location, discussing the state of the global anti-corruption movement with some of its leaders. The meeting took place in a posh, very high ceilinged room, under the stern gaze of giant portraits of assorted kings, aristos and philosophers. I wondered what they would have

Oxfam Intermon use a hidden camera to record the reactions to paying more for your beer (and link it to tax dodging). Simple but effective Update on what I’m up to. Speaking at Manchester (tomorrow) and LSE (25th May). I’m also putting all vlogs up on youtube, and all FP2P posts are now going up on Medium. I presume it’s in

A second post on corruption ahead of tomorrow’s summit. Activists are often more concerned with how they see the world than with understanding how others see it, but understanding what motivates and incentivises others is crucial to building coalitions for change. Transparency campaigner David McNair describes one such example, a wonky-but-important demand for a Global Beneficial Ownership Register to curb

Over at the Center for Global Development, Charles Kenny wants comments on the draft of his book on Aid and Corruption (deadline end of May). Let’s hope this becomes standard practice – it worked brilliantly for me on How Change Happens – more varied voices can chip in good new ideas, spot mistakes or contradictions, and it all helps get a

Went to a seminar on corruption and development on Monday – notable in itself as corruption is something of a taboo topic in aid circles. Aid supporters often cite framing – George Lakoff’s ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant’ or Richard Nixon’s ‘I am not a crook’ (below)- as justification for avoiding the topic; even if you raise it to dismiss

I attended a panel + booklaunch on the theme of ‘Citizens Against Corruption’ at the ODI last week. After all the recent agonizing and self-doubt of the results debate (‘really, do we know anything about the impact of our work? How can we be sure?’), it was refreshing to be carried away on a wave of conviction and passion. The author