Corruption constitutes a serious barrier to sustainable development. During the last few years, Sida has strengthened its efforts to tackle corruption in partner countries. This report presents a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of Sida’s work to contribute to reduced corruption, based on a literature review, an analysis of Sida’s anti-corruption approach and work and case studies of Sida’s efforts in three partner countries.
The authors find that Sida has come a long way in developing a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to countering corruption as a development obstacle. The incorporation of anti-corruption in government strategies has also increased significantly. The authors find, however, that work remains in translating Sida’s approach and policies into practice. Sida program officers display active engagement in anti-corruption and a deep understanding of local contexts. Yet, their knowledge of Sida’s approach varies and they face challenges in incorporating anti-corruption concerns into their demanding workloads and in conceptualizing theories of anti-corruption change, hindering maximal impact and the attribution of outcomes to interventions.
The recommendation in the report is that Sida intensifies its efforts to combat corruption as an obstacle to development by focusing on the following areas:
1. Strengthen policy: update and refine the policy to incorporate relevant knowledge and the latest insights, enhancing the design and effectiveness of anti-corruption interventions.
2. Leverage policy expertise: deploy Sida’s policy expertise to support country offices in crafting tailored anti-corruption strategies and interventions.
3. Integrate anti-corruption: incorporate anti-corruption objectives into all aspects of Swedish international development cooperation strategies to ensure a unified and comprehensive approach.
4. Prioritize anti-corruption efforts: officially designate anti-corruption as a fundamental perspective in Swedish development cooperation to counteract the deprioritization of anti-corruption efforts and mitigate the domination of the risk perspective.