Diagnosing Public Sector Corruption & Implementing Anti Corruption Programs: A Framework for Practitioners

Civil society-led anti corruption interventions have scaled up considerably over the last decade, leading to an unprecedented level of proliferation of toolkits and methodologies available for replication. More often than not, there is a tendency to blindly replicate successful models and approaches without paying attention to contextual and institutional factors. This paper responds to the growing need of practitioners to take a step back and consider or even reconsider their approach toward diagnosing and implementing anti corruption programs without prescribing any one “right” solution. Rather, the author introduces an analytical framework consisting of five distinct steps to analyze, diagnose, map and assess ongoing or envisioned projects, encouraging practitioners to consider the overall environment and strategic parameters that underlie a specific instance of corruption so as to logically and specifically tailor their project towards achieving the best impact possible. The paper bridges the divide between theory and practice by laying out what type of tools may best work on what level of intervention, suggesting to not just follow any one toolkit or framework of analysis, but thinking “politically” about how the anti-corruption agenda can be best strengthened and taken forward though soundly construed projects at the grass-root level.