Abstract
The public sector corruption is an impediment to economic growth and advancement and a focal barrier to effective service delivery. This paper will provide the findings of a chronological review on micro level anti-corruption strategies’ effectiveness that receive implementation in some of the developing countries. The narrative synthesis approach will be employed to synthesize the extracted data. The review will focus on the significance between interventions that created a change in the system’s underlying rules and those that utilized incentives and monitoring mechanisms. Incentive based and monitoring interventions either non-financial or financial have a corruption reduction potential, even though it is in short term purposes. The study will research on decentralization which is a strategy that changes rules, and its corruption reduction potential. Strategies that impose changes on rules may be found to be more sustainable in longer terms. However, additional research is in need to comprehend the interventions’ long term effects in an effective manner.
Introduction
In this paper, the corruption definition in use is an incident whereby a bureaucrat violates a law with the aim of private gain. This definition has the inclusion of the most common corruption forms. For instance, this includes a situation whereby a bureaucrat asks a citizen to offer a monetary bribe (Abed 2002). In most of the developing countries, the public sector corruption poses as a primary barrier towards effective service delivery. Corruption can impede the process of equitable appropriation of services and goods to citizens flowing into all the life aspects. This is from the aspect of initiating new business and to earning a passport or even seeing a medical doctor. It may take several forms, from bureaucrats seeking bribes from citizens in order to undertake basic services (ADB-OECD 2008). Moreover, hospital employees also steal medication that is meant for distribution among the poor people. This is also another form of corruption but from another angle. Bureaucrats also receive job salaries that they have not accomplished with their own efforts. On a macro level, majority of the world’s scholars believe that corruption hinders economic development and growth.
Background
Scholars provide empirical evidence that prove on the impediment of economic development and growth due to corruption. Recent studies have also corroborated this particular finding. For instance, there was a research study that offered estimates on the increase of corruption with one point in the International Country Risk Guide records of corruption index (Klitgaard et al. 2000). It decreased the GDP per capita by more than four hundred dollars and GDP growth by 0.13% points. (Cools 2012). Moreover, Transparency International reiterates that the corruption may damage more than a country’s economy. The political institutions and systems, natural environment and civil society also face alterations. As such, most development agencies incorporate anti-corruption policies into their focal strategies. The World Bank is the only supporting government institution that has supported over five hundred anti-corruption networking programs since the year 1996 (Rowley & Schneider 2004).
Basing on underlying theoretical models, the classification of policy prescriptions is into main categories. The first category is the incentives and monitoring programs which will be focused on greatly in the review followed by the programs that change the system’s rules. Incentives and monitoring programs base typically on the principal-agent model. (Deutscher 2010). Here, the principal seen as the top-level policy-maker or in general the population greatly desires to attain a specified purpose. For instance, it could be ensuring that people who get a voter identification card are residents of the district stated on the card. However, the agent may hold a personal agenda, making it is impossible for the principal to deduce if the agent is attaining the goal or doing otherwise. Policy interventions that have a solution purpose of the problem at hand raise the agent’s demeanor monitoring duration and offer incentives so that the agent pursues the main goal.
Aims and Objectives
While laying out the objectives, vital points need to be pointed out. First and foremost, the casual impacts of various anti-corruption programs are not well known. This is due to the problems of measuring accurately the corruption policies’ effectiveness (Great Britain 2012). Nevertheless, this review only includes the high-quality empirical and micro-level studies that provide rigorous support for their change theories. Secondly, the experimental or practical evidence on the topic remains scarce. In simpler terms, the primary purpose and objectives of this research are to conduct a chronological review of the proof based on the effectiveness of various strategies to decreasing corruption. It also aims at the provision of guidance to both practitioners and academics regarding the program types that require more thorough evaluation and testing (UNESCO 2010).
Methodology
There are various methods that will be used in the research review. In the user involvement approach, the aim will be to synthesize the existing research of policy-makers and to supply a rigorous assessment of the proof base (Hough 2013). Thus, the target audience will be the high-level government employees and the international foundations and organizations. In addition, will be the non-profit organizations that concentrate on the increasing the government services’ functioning and transparency. In the description and identification of studies, the exclusion and inclusion criteria will be in use. The studies to be reviewed will have high quantitative and qualitative evidence on specific micro-level anti-corruption approaches in developing countries. (Hough 2013).
The inclusion criteria will be in use in terms of language and the time of study conduction. Due to constraints of language and time skills of the researchers, written language will be effective. Additionally, due to the recent corruption literature advances, and changes in government types in the developing countries, studies conducted after the year 1995 will in inclusion. As the research team reviews and analyses each study, both positive and negative intervention outcomes will be recorded (Loughman & Sibery 2012). The data that will be considered will be in terms of narrative, categorical and numerical in order to determine accurate results. The econometric evaluations will be in records from the best specified model. A brief narrative summary will be in inclusion for each of the study’s empirical conclusions and evidences.
Brief Summary
However, corruption elimination is a challenging task on most levels. Comprehending its extent and its effects on service delivery is complex due to the illegal and hidden nature of corruption (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development 2011). Most essentially, nobody desires to mention it or even admit to its participation, due to reasons that range from fear of punishment and embarrassment. This proves to be problematic since if researchers are unable to measure corruption and its features then it will be difficult to find solutions of combating it. Second, most people benefit from corruption on a personal level, and often the large amounts of money involved may be quite substantial (Pohl & Green 2006).Therefore, it is often possible that the potential financial gains that are at stake will diminish any positive impacts that a policy intervention might otherwise have on decreasing corruption. Finally, whatever works in a single setting may not apply to another necessarily. The failure or success of a certain anti-corruption approach relies largely on the specific context that it receives implementation.
Project Plan
Chapter 1 Introduction
This chapter will provide a lengthy and detailed description of the reasons of conducting the research. In addition, it will provide a brief background of the corruption situations and definitions.
Chapter 2 Literature Review/ Background
This chapter will analyze the theoretical frameworks regarding the topic. It will further run an examination on the reviews of various literatures on corruption policies. It will make a comparison of previous research made in the past about the interventions and incentives implementation.
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
This chapter will describe the research methods utilized in the research review. The description will be in terms of data and other samples. It will also point out on the data analyses process after collection.
Chapter 4 Conclusion
The final part will conclude on the findings of the research, create a summary of the solution of research problems and analyze the research limitations.
Timescale
References
ABED, G. T. (2002). Governance, Corruption & Economic Performance. Washington, D.C.,
Internat. Monetary Fund.
ADB-OECD ANTI-CORRUPTION INITIATIVE FOR ASIA-PACIFIC. (2008). Asset recovery
and mutual legal assistance in Asia and the Pacific proceedings of the 6th regional
seminar on making international anti-corruption standards operational held in Bali, Indonesia, on 5-7 September 2007 and hosted by the Corruption Eradication Commission, Indonesia. [Mandaluyong City], Asian Development Bank.
COOLS, M. (2012). Social Conflicts, Citizens and Policing. Antwerp, Maklu.
DEUTSCHER, E. (2010). Development Co-Operation Report 2010. Paris, OECD.
http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=555304.
GREAT BRITAIN. (2012). The Economic Impact and Effectiveness of Development Aid: 6th
Report Of Session 2010-12 : report. London, Stationery Office.
HOUGH, D. (2013). Corruption, Anti-Corruption and Governance. Basingstoke, Palgrave
Macmillan. http://esc-web.lib.cbs.dk/login?url=http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9781137268716.
HOUGH, D. (2013). Comparing Political Corruption and Clientelism. Aldershot [u.a.], Ashgate.
KLITGAARD, R. E., MACLEAN-ABAROA, R., & PARRIS, H. L. (2000). Corrupt Cities: A
Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention. Oakland, Calif, ICS Press [u.a.].
LOUGHMAN, B. P., & SIBERY, R. A. (2012). Bribery and Corruption Navigating the Global
Risks. Hoboken, N.J., Wiley. http://www.contentreserve.com/TitleInfo.asp?ID={6D2BB647-5A30-4C63-8714-CFA2A90D861F}&Format=410.
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT.
(2011).United Kingdom 2010. Paris, OECD. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264098329-en.
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT. (2013).Anti-
Corruption Reforms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Progress And Challenges, 2009-2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264201903-en.
POHL, J., & GREEN, H. (2006). Knowledge, Commitment, Action against Corruption In Asia
And The Pacific: papers. Manila [etc.], [Asian development bank (ADB) [etc.].
ROWLEY, C. K., & SCHNEIDER, F. (2004). The Encyclopedia of Public Choice. New York,
NY, Springer Science + Business Media LLC.
UNESCO. (2010). Engineering: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities For Development. [Paris],
UNESCO Publishing.
