Supporting International Efforts to Reduce Corruption

Corruption has significant international dimensions that complicate any single government’s attempts to bring it under control. Some of these international aspects include:

• Corruption in international business including in international government procurement.    Acts of internal corruption which have cross-border ramifications (e.g. money laundering).
• Acts of internal corruption which have cross-border ramifications (e.g. money laundering).

International efforts play an important role in combating these dimensions of corruption. Numerous international organizations and alliances are collaborating to promote global cooperation in criminalizing international bribery, both in capital-exporting as well as in developing countries; to promote international cooperation in detecting and prosecuting transnational offenses such as international money laundering; and to gather lessons of experience from across countries, providing knowledge and training to governments that have less experience in combating corruption.

The World Bank’s approach has been to support these efforts by:

• helping coordinate both cross-border and in-country anti-corruption efforts,
• focusing the Bank’s efforts on areas of its comparative advantage,
• forming strategic collaborations with other organizations,
• gaining and disseminating knowledge about corruption internationally, and
• explaining and developing Bank policy.

Selected International Initiatives and Partnership Efforts

Prior to 1998, only the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 prohibited national firms from bribing officials of governments overseas. By criminalizing international bribery, the Act also ended the tax-deductibility of bribes paid by U.S. firms to foreign public officials. Significant advances were made in replicating this effort outside the U.S. when, in December 1997, member governments of the OECD agreed on the text of a Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. This convention has been a landmark achievement, reflecting changing sentiments in the international community that efforts to reduce corruption must operate in capital-exporting countries as well as in developing economies. For over two years, the Bank has participated in the OECD’s Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions and contributed to the formulation of this Convention. The Bank supports the OECD’s initiative and disseminates information about the Convention and its implications to borrower countries.