Information You Can Use: A Bi-monthly Service for the UN and Civil Society
Volume 2, Issue 4, July-August 2005
Corruption Control :
Role Of Civil Society
9 June 2005
By Pranav Bhattarai
Source: The
Rising Nepal
Corruption is deep seated not only in Nepal but across the globe. But its magnitude and presence can significantly vary between the developed and developing countries. Corruption has been spreading its roots far and wide, eating into the very polity of societies especially in fledging democracies. Nepal, too, has not remained immune to the damage corruption causes. With corruption and malpractice on the rise over the years, different anti-corruption mechanisms, laws and instruments have been promoted to curb this dreaded phenomenon.
Discourse With corruption raising its ugly head, a new wave of discourse has emerged to identify sundry roles for the different stakeholders in corruption control. And this discourse has also drawn the attention of the state and other quarters in Nepal to identify the role of the civil society in the anti-corruption efforts in recent years. It is also increasingly being realised that the state, regardless of whatever strict laws it frames, cannot stamp out corruption all alone. As corruption is illusive by its very nature, anti-corruption campaigns ought to be sustained and durable to make a long-term difference.
Among the many other possible stakeholders, the civil society can and has become one of the most effective allies of the state in forging an anti-corruption coalition in many countries. Even in India, the governments at different points of time have tried to integrate and deploy the civil society. Thus, it is widely being recognised that lasting changes can be effected in attitude and practice by harnessing the energies of all the actors - private sector, media and the civil society, among others. With this sort of holistic approach to mobilise all key actors in the anti-corruption drive, a state can augment its capability to contain corruption to manageable levels. Thus, the level of empowerment of the civil society in any country can be taken as a yardstick in measuring the impact of state policies in mitigating corruption.
Attempts have been made to explore varied possible roles for the civil society in different sectors, and much activism has been shown in one way or the other by the civil society in the anti-corruption drive in the years following democracy in 1990 in Nepal. And it is also being felt that besides committed and determined political leadership, a motivated, well-led and vibrant civil society is also the backbone of the state. Any campaign without it will come to no avail - be it corruption control or other.
Civil society maintains association between the state and the people. Such association performs certain functions, like voicing social interests, grievances and other genuine popular concerns. Through these functions, the civil society can mount pressure for policy reform and improved governance, while at the same time monitoring state actions for fighting corruption and abuse of power. Such civil supervision helps the state to operate in an accountable, transparent and responsive manner.
In a country where there is active media, informed and vibrant civil society organisations, the hallmarks of good governance like administrative accountability, transparency, prompt service delivery and procedural simplification can be achieved more quickly because the civil society can directly mount pressure on the government institutions. And at the same time, it can monitor the quality and level of state-provided services. But the activism of the civil society depends on the responsiveness and cooperation of the state mechanism towards civil society institutions. Therefore, the utmost need is that state policies toward the civil society ought to be supportive and hospitable to bring in conspicuous reforms.
But in Nepal, it seems to be getting less attention and concern from the state even if anti-corruption bodies, to some extent, have tried to exploit the support of the people by keeping a complaint box at their offices. But this is quite inadequate. To be blunt, the creative role of the civil society needs to be explored on a larger scale even at the level of forming and implementing anti-corruption strategies, which is not yet the case in point.
Realising the capacity of the civil society, the Central Vigilance Commission in India in 2000 developed an interactive website, which proved a highly positive step in keeping people informed and involved in framing and implementing anti-corruption strategies. Such techniques speak volumes about the effectiveness of civil participation. So, any government desperate to combat corruption requires evolving a participatory approach that directly involves civil society in the formulation and monitoring of anti-corruption strategies.
Participatory method is so effective that it can’t be ruled out in an anti-corruption fight. Even India has experimented with various civil society participatory models, which helped trigger noticeable impact on corruption control and improvement of governance in India. With aims to expedite service delivery, the Indian government formed a core group with civil society representatives to formulate and monitor citizen charters and had successful results in their implementation. But, in our context they are less effective due to lack of monitoring mechanisms. Therefore, for effective execution of citizen charters, a monitoring group can be devised with civil society representatives to ensure that they are getting executed in full blast. Civil society can be used in various other ways in reducing corruption. In order to enhance administrative efficacy and service delivery, a periodic scorecard evaluation system can be implemented. A mechanism has to be formed that deploys the citizenry to evaluate public services with scores on a card. It also involves public reporting on bribery and other forms of extortion by civil servants. The other method could be a report card methodology in which the service recipients will write reports about corruption and bribery that they encounter in public offices so that the government can take action against those as reported by the people. Similar instruments done in support with civil society can help the government track down and expose corruption in public services. Otherwise, cases of corruption are least likely to draw focus.
Transparency The universal reality is that countries with a vigilant and vibrant civil society have developed merit-based bureaucratic values, institutionalised competitive politics and a transparent government process because the civil society makes such hue and cry over bad governance, corruption and mal-practices. As it is a staunch defender of public interests and a watchdog of government policies and activities, the civil society needs to be encouraged, strengthened and involved in the formulation and implementation of anti-corruption policies and strategies. Such participatory and collective approach can really make a splash in pulling down the juggernauts of corruption significantly.