Published in the peer-reviewed journal Governance, this paper interprets informal networks as investments made by citizens and business people to cope with the public sphere. Informal networks often orchestrate corruption, connecting public and private actors. The paper aims to understand their key characteristics, scopes, and functional roles.
Economic crimes are significant obstacles to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and professional accountants can play a pivotal role to clear a path. This guest blog by Kevin Dancey, CEO of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), marks the launch of IFAC’s new Action Plan for Fighting Corruption and Economic Crime.
This case study explains how the Peruvian State used its non-conviction based forfeiture law, extinción de dominio, to recover a Swiss bank account containing illicit kickbacks paid for the purchase of war planes.
This case was the first of a series of cases between Peru and Switzerland involving Peru’s extinción de dominio law, which enables the confiscation of illicit assets in cases where a criminal conviction of an individual is not possible or desirable. It has paved the way for other proceedings, some of which are still pending in the tribunals.
This case study explains how the Ugandan Inspectorate of Governance achieved a landmark prosecution of a former Principal Accountant in the Office of the Price Minister under the country’s illicit enrichment law.
On 28 October 2020, Uganda registered a landmark judgment under its illicit enrichment law in the case of Uganda v Geoffrey Kazinda. Although there have been a couple of other previously prosecuted illicit enrichment cases, the Kazinda case is the most significant because of the vast sum of money involved: a total of UGX 4,630,195,258 (over USD 1,252,600).
This case study explains how Tanzania’s anti-corruption and prosecution authorities worked together and with international partners on a case involving a major bank accused of violating the UK Bribery Act and subject to the UK’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement.
This case study explains how Ugandan prosecutors obtained the first ever convictions under the 2013 Anti-Money Laundering Act, overcoming numerous challenges in relation to the financial investigation, prosecution, international cooperation and asset management.
This short conference report explains and illustrates the main insights emerging from the 4th International Collective Action Conference and Awards, which the Basel Institute on Governance hosted on 30 June and 1 July 2022 in Basel, Switzerland.
The newsletter features our latest news, blogs, quick guides and other publications, as well as joint articles with friends of the Basel Institute. We take this chance to welcome nine new staff members to the team.
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Donors, governments and anti-corruption practitioners seeking alternative tools to address systemic corruption are increasingly turning to behavioural science. Behavioural anti-corruption approaches appear promising because they respond to a growing body of descriptive evidence on how certain social norms and mental models drive corruption, particularly in fragile contexts. Interventions that target social norms and seek to shift people’s behaviours away from corrupt practices could be more effective and long-lasting than ones that, for example, simply add more regulations and controls.
This report relates to the research project Addressing bribery in the Tanzanian health sector: A behavioural approach. As part of the project, a pilot behavioural intervention was implemented at a Tanzanian hospital that aimed to shift hospital users’ and health providers’ attitudes and perceived social norms around gift-giving. It also aimed to reduce actual exchanges of gifts.