Beyond Commitments

5 ways USAID is supporting bold action against corruption

Jumana Anasweh supports Jordan’s municipalities in archiving zoning maps, human resource records, and procurement information. This initiative is part of USAID efforts to enhance the efficiency and transparency of services at the local levels. / USAID Municipal Support Program

Corruption undermines development in all countries and sectors, and sabotages life saving humanitarian efforts.

From maternal health, to education, to environmental protection, and more, corruption plunders resources that should be used for the public good and hinders countries’ ability to deliver democracy for their people. That is why USAID has placed countering corruption at the top of our development agenda.

“Corruption is development in reverse.” — USAID Administrator Samantha Power

The rise in transnational corruption — and its shady global networks — has deepened these impacts. Today’s corrupt actors and kleptocrats nimbly abuse international financial systems to enrich themselves, launder their dirty money, and stash their graft in real estate and luxury goods around the world.

In addition to posing an existential threat to democracy, this injustice is draining the resources of the developing world.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Economic Development in Africa Report 2020, for example, has found that an estimated $88.6 billion, equivalent to 3.7% of Africa’s GDP, leaves the continent as illicit capital flight every year.

This theft outpaced total annual inflows of official development assistance, valued at $48 billion, and yearly foreign direct investment, pegged at $54 billion, received on average by African countries from 2013 to 2015.

Adding up to an outrageous $836 billion between 2000–2015, transnational illicit flows are draining Africa’s wealth and future.

Over the past two decades, scores of anti-corruption commitments have been made globally across a wide variety of summits and conferences. Last December, thousands of officials and reformers descended on Atlanta, Ga. to participate in the latest of these, the 10th Conference of State Parties for the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) — which also marked the 20th anniversary of the UNCAC, the world’s only legally binding agreement on corruption.

Ironically, less than two months later, Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) marked another 20-year milestone, with the report showing that two-thirds of 180 countries surveyed fall into the “serious corruption” category, a statistic unchanged since its 2003 report.

We can’t keep doing things the same way and expect different results. We need to take resolute, creative, and concerted global action on corruption that translates into real change.

That is why over the past three years — initially through our groundbreaking Anti-Corruption Task Force and now through our first-ever Anti-Corruption Center — USAID has led the way in transforming the fight against corruption, including by elevating it across the Agency’s work and launching a bold suite of new global efforts as part of the first Summit for Democracy. Here are five ways that USAID is driving anti-corruption action.

Participants map out conflicts of interest declaration processes during a workshop held in Jakarta, Indonesia. / USAID Indonesia Integrity Project (Integritas)

Bolstering meaningful implementation of global commitments

1.As the cornerstone of our anti-corruption efforts, USAID launched the Global Accountability Program (GAP) in 2023 to address governance gaps and build resilience to transnational corruption, grand corruption, and kleptocracy by strengthening the systems and actors needed to close loopholes, detect dirty money and follow its movement across borders, and ultimately hold corrupt actors accountable.

This program provides USAID with new capacities to tackle corruption across high-risk sectors — such as real estate, extractives, infrastructure, and pharmaceuticals — and to address high-priority reforms, such as asset recovery, illicit finance, and more. At the country level, it will support implementation of commitments under UNCAC and the Summit for Democracy, and scale uptake of other critical anti-corruption standards under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), and more.

Leveraging open government and transparency platforms to accelerate priority anti-corruption actions

2.Under our Financial Transparency and Integrity (FTI) Accelerator, USAID is partnering with OGP and EITI to support meaningful implementation of global commitments and boost action on anti-corruption priorities. This includes working collaboratively at the country level to drive priority reforms identified by the Summit for Democracy’s FTI Cohort, including enhancing the effective use of beneficial ownership data, promoting integrity in public procurement, and addressing the professional enablers of corruption. Memoranda of Understanding with OGP and EITI will leverage these global platforms to deliver on commitments, enhance citizen engagement, and unleash natural resources for development.

Women agricultural producers from Sanagorán and Huamachuco districts in Peru are trained on tracking the use of royalty/extractives transfers in their province as part of the USAID Greater Transparency in the Extractive Sector Project. / Manuel Anthony Rojas Rodriguez for USAID

Connecting and activating local, regional, and global anti-corruption networks

3.New USAID programs are boosting international cooperation and coalitions — between governments, civil society, and media — to detect, expose, and counter transnational corruption.

Our Empowering the Truth Tellers (ETT) Activities are launching, supporting, and connecting regional media networks — including our first in Southeast Asia — to share strategies, enhance communication and messaging, and facilitate joint anti-corruption investigations. In addition, under GAP, multi-country efforts will support implementation of global standards and commitments, improve collaboration to prevent, detect and track transnational corruption, and boost donor engagement through global platforms.

Empowering and protecting the truth tellers

4.USAID has invested in new tools to protect the critical voices of anti-corruption reformers and journalists, including partnering with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice to create Reporters Shield, an innovative new program to defend investigative reporters and civil society advocates from lawsuits meant to silence them.

Journalists during a practical session on videography at the Media Development Institute in Juba, Sudan. USAID supports the nascent media sector in South Sudan to equip young people with advanced journalistic skills and the ability to advocate for unbiased reporting and security for journalists and media houses. / Duku Wilson for USAID

Expanding partnerships and cultivating anti-corruption stakeholders

5.USAID is expanding our global partnerships to drive more collective, durable, and wide-reaching action. Under new agreements with the Open Government Partnership and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, we are harnessing these platforms to enhance collective, holistic support to anti-corruption reformers.

To tackle corruption from multiple angles — including across sectors — we are addressing corruption across our health, climate, and environment programming and cultivating new anti-corruption stakeholders and champions. Under our Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge, we are partnering with the private sector and local solvers and influencers to leverage innovation to prevent corrupt actors from siphoning off critical resources that should be used for the public good, including in priority areas such as the just energy transition, climate finance, and business integrity.

At the third Summit for Democracy hosted by the Republic of Korea from March 18–20, USAID will again stress the need for concerted and decisive action on corruption.

A key piece of this is our Integrity for Development Campaign, launched at the second Summit, which acknowledges the devastating impacts of corruption and seeks to galvanize bold collective action and marshal donor and funder resources to confront corruption at the scope and scale required.

At the first Summit for Democracy in December 2021, USAID initiated a bold set of initiatives and programs aimed at transforming the fight against corruption, harmonizing anti-corruption assistance, and amplifying coalitions and collective action to safeguard development progress across all sectors.

We stand today at a time of great peril and opportunity in the fight against corruption; a time that requires clear, confident, and coordinated actions against this scourge. USAID calls upon all development actors to join us in moving beyond words to activate against corruption.

About the Author

Jennifer Anderson Lewis is the Senior Anti-Corruption Advisor and Team Lead for Technical Leadership and Global Programming for USAID’s Anti-Corruption Center, within the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance.