{"id":2117,"date":"2011-04-28T17:04:56","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T22:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/\/"},"modified":"2016-01-26T17:06:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T22:06:31","slug":"corruption-free-think-tanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/corruption-free-think-tanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption free think tanks"},"content":{"rendered":"
The work of think tanks is never straight forward. Researchers do not exist in an institutional vacuum with no links to the real world. They must access information that is often kept behind closed doors, engage with policy makers whose agendas are controlled by often unscrupulous people, etc.<\/p>\n
This, however, does not mean that think tanks must bend or break the rules to work.\u00a0Jeff Knezovich’s post in this blog last week<\/a>\u00a0made a passing reference to the new UK Bribery Act. I am sure there are similar such laws in other countries so this is equally relevant to organisations working outside DFID’s sphere of influence.<\/p>\n According to the Bribery Act:<\/p>\n What is a bribe?\u00a0<\/strong>All payments of bribes, no matter how small or routine, or expected by local customs, are illegal. You are breaking the law whether you give or receive a bribe. Unlike some anti-bribery laws, the Bribery Act applies to bribes paid both to public officials and within non-public operations. A bribery offence is committed if the intention of the briber is that the person being bribed improperly performs his\/her duties. Improper performance will arise if it is intended that, by paying the bribe, the recipient of the bribe would be expected to act otherwise than in good faith, an impartial manner or in accordance with a position of trust.\u00a0Expectations are judged by UK, not local, standards<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And it is particularly relevant for organisations who claim to be promoting transparency and accountablity.<\/p>\n Here is an anecdote that I have enjoyed telling for quite some time:<\/p>\n I had been invited to a meeting of the new grantees of a programme seeking to promote transparency and accountability in policymaking. I was there to talk about policy influencing. A past grantee had been invited to talk about their own experience in doing so. They used schools monitoring data to make recommendations to improve the quality of education in Guatemala. The process involved working with the school monitors who collected the data that they then used to do the necessary analysis. As he was describing this he was interrupted by one of the participants who asked how much they had paid the monitors. The presenter was a bit confused. Nothing, he said. They were doing their job, we just asked them for the information, which is public anyway. Again, the man who interrupted responded by saying that they should pay them because they were acting as their research assistants.<\/p>\n Before the presenter could say anything a debate started among the participants. Researchers from different parts of Africa intervened saying how it would not be possible for them to do any of this without paying them for the information; some argued that this was right and normal, others that this was not advisable -although the reason given was that these small incentives would translate into large payments once the project got to the top and tried to influence senior policy makers ‘there would not be any money left in the project.’ At this point, the representatives of the donors left the room -they clearly did not want to be part of the conversation. Good timing too because the presenter interrupted to say that he did not want to judge but what they were suggesting was not possible in his country because, to put it bluntly, it was corruption.<\/p>\n No, it is just an incentive, said someone.<\/p>\n So if you choose not to look the other way, Transparency International provides some useful recommendations based on the finding that :<\/p>\n among NGOs anti-bribery procedures are either poor or non-existent. This is often explained by the difficult circumstances in which NGOs are operating on the ground. Paying a bribe is seen as the only way to get things done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n