One key question driving innovations in corruption studies is: how can anti-corruption reforms be more impactful and sustainable? It is critical to learn the answer to this question, due to the detrimental impact of corrupt practices on equality, human rights, peace and the rule of law.

Social norms and behaviour change (SNBC) approaches are a promising complement to conventional anti-corruption strategies. Adopting a context-sensitive and nuanced approach is an essential ingredient for success.

We wanted to understand if and how behavioural approaches can promote anti-corruption outcomes, as well as conditions for success.

Citizens and business people may invest significant time and money in building informal networks with public officials to overcome public service delivery shortcomings and access business opportunities. Understanding these networks better can strengthen anti-corruption efforts.

This research case study gives a brief overview of our Public Governance team's research in Uganda and Tanzania. Through interviews, the team explored when, how and why informal networks are built and used to access public services or business opportunities corruptly.

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.

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 Working Paper provides guidance on developing anti-corruption interventions based on a Social Norms and Behaviour Change (SNBC) approach. Still a relatively nascent field, SNBC interventions typically address social norms that make corruption acceptable or expected, and attempt to influence behaviours away from corrupt practices. 

This Problem Analysis is a review of the efficacy and opportunities for using social norm and behaviour change (SNBC) approaches to combat illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and other natural resource-related corruption.