Politically Smart Support for Anti- Corruption Change Agents
with Soledad Gattoni and Dave Algoso
Thinking and working politically in anti-corruption support is a “hot” topic in many development circles. The Biden-Harris Administration has unveiled a new anti-corruption strategy. USAID created an Anti-Corruption Task Force (ACTF) and is hosting an Anti-Corruption Evidence and Learning Week — all of which touch on politics.
The discussion about “political strategy support” in the last few months, associated with these documents, mirrors the broader “market” of international anti-corruption support for local change agents. In a 2020 study commissioned by the Open Society Foundations, we found that political support may be thinner for many local change agents than the general international commitment to “working politically” might suggest.
In a new draft note, we argue that we can do better anti-corruption work today if we realize that we have much to gain, by working politically with others.
We make four concrete suggestions for improving politically savvy support where it can complement work on transnational kleptocracy and other work that the US, the UK and others should do at home:
- PREPARE in-country work,
- INTEGRATE with non-anti-corruption work (democracy and sectors),
- LAND and CONNECT meaningfully across contexts, and
- COUNT and EVALUATE for patterns of diversity.
In writing each point, we have specific audiences in mind:
- bilateral missions or others working with country portfolios,
- democracy and sectoral teams,
- global, regional and cross-national teams and
- operational support teams and commissioners of evidence, respectively.
Different people need anti-corruption pitches and engagement approaches that speak to their roles and their goals.
We draw on evidence and practitioner experience — our own and from reformers from around the world, including our study on reformers’ needs during windows of opportunities.
