From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERWithholding aid has proven to be a blunt instrument for addressingcorruption. Like attempts to force change by attaching conditionsto loans, or offering technical solutions (legal reform, training, andthe like), cutting off aid frequently ignores the political foundations ofthe problem, which ensure that corruption will persist as long assomeone finds it useful and profitable.Corruption, discussed in more detail in Part 2, is as much a symptomof poverty as a cause, and its prevalence often dwindles as a countrydevelops. Despite the rhetoric emanating of late from the World Bank,corruption will not make or break the long-term struggle to buildeffective governing institutions. Aid can play a role in reducing‘corruption for need’ by raising the low public sector wages that forceteachers, health workers, and civil servants to demand payments frompoor people for services that ought to be free. Donor governments cando much to counter ‘corruption for greed’ by punishing corporationsthat offer bribes and closing tax havens where ill-gotten gains can besafely hidden.In the case of fragile states, where governments abuse or neglecttheir citizens and corruption is rife, Simon Maxwell of the OverseasDevelopment Institute, a London-based think-tank, identifies sixpossible approaches for donors: 157• Engage in dialogue, whether bilateral or multilateral(for example, via the African Union);• Bypass government altogether (for example, by setting uprefugee camps or funding civil society);• Reward governments for progress either on poverty or onfulfilling conditions agreed between donors and recipients;• Invest in state capacity by training civil servants or police;• Invest in non-state capacity by funding human rightsorganisations or the media;• Take over the reins of government, either through apeacekeeping force or a full-scale invasion.There is another option: walk away. The US Millennium ChallengeAccount, for example, practises ‘selectivity,’ by which aid goes togovernments that can demonstrate effective, democratic governanceor progress in reducing poverty. Where imposing conditions on370