Recent discussions of immigration policy in the United States have an interesting parallel to discussions of bribery and corruption. Some TV news anchors and commentators like CNN's Lou Dobbs and Fox's Bill O'Reilly regularly comment on about the problem of illegal immigrants. By  some reports,  their words are creating an environment so toxic for Latinos in the US that hate crimes against them are on the rise. The striking thing about the reporting and the commentaries is that they almost always focus on the supply side of the equation; that is the people who cross into the US without documentation. The demand side, the employers, are rarely mentioned and when they are, they are never so demonized.

In our anti-corruption training one of the myths that we expose early in the process is the idea that bribery and corruption are confined to the developing world. As in the immigration issue there is a demand side and a supply side, and if you don't have both sides of the equation ready and willing to participate, you don't have a problem. As it happens the sides are reversed in these two areas. Developed nations provide the demand for cheap labor and the supply of money for bribes while developing nations supply people willing to work for low wages and the demand for bribes.  The power differential is, however, the same in both cases. Richer nations havemore leverage.

This is not to say that both sides are not culpable or that developing nations are pure victims and developed nations pure villains.  What is needed in both cases is an honest view that acknowledges the moral responsibility of both sides and then a strategy that addresses both sides at the same time. That's what nomorecorruption.net is all about.

This is from the latest issue of Ethical Corporation on Siemens' ongoing bribery and corruption problems


"The key argument for putting values into anti-corruption is that over-reliance on the rules blunts people’s ability to make their own moral judgements. Bryane Michael argues that inoculating a company against corruption requires enlisting the staff’s support and interest in the issue.

Incorporating anti-corruption into an overall corporate social responsibility programme is a way to achieve this, he argues. Staff who are engaged in their local community are less likely to act recklessly, while local officials are less likely to make threatening demands of a firm that they see as an asset."

Read more: http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=4874

The quotes below come from the TI website. This does as good a job as anything we've seen to provide an argument for the value of training in the fight against bribery and corruption.

Anti-corruption education is a vital and necessary component of any anti-corruption strategy. Corruption can only be addressed if people are equipped to demand accountability from government and from public services, when they expect leaders to act with integrity and are intolerant of corruption in their daily lives.

The goals of anti-corruption education:  First of all, anti-corruption education aims at strengthening public awareness and participation in political life, mobilising the public to stand-up against corruption. Institutions and services are more likely to work in citizens’ interests if they are expected to do so. If, for example, the public expects criminal law to be enforced, culprits to be convicted or audits to be accurate, it is likely that officials will be more vigilant in guarding against corruption. It is public awareness and participation that makes anti-corruption laws and institutions effective: citizens who are informed of their rights and are concerned about the effects of corruption are more likely to report abuse and co-operate with investigations and prosecutions.

Secondly, anti-corruption education aims at strengthening individual capacity for ethical decision-making. This is particularly important where the boundaries between corrupt and non-corrupt behaviour are difficult to define - for example, where family values, such as loyalty, clash with professional work ethics like impartiality. There are many situations in which the letter of the law does not define the proper, ethical course of action. Anti-corruption education can build individual skills to identify and address ethical dilemmas, as well as instil motivation to reach ethically sound decisions.

Anti-corruption education cannot work in isolation. A society that is resistant to corruption needs strong political commitment, an appropriate legal and institutional framework, as well as effective accountability and enforcement mechanisms. Even where an ideal framework does not exist, however, anti-corruption education can contribute to laying the foundations necessary to bring about long-term change.

From the TI Anti Corruption Handbook: http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/ach/introduction