The Basel Institute has a long-standing working relationship with the government of Bhutan covering a range of joint endeavours on developing anti-corruption policies and asset recovery. For a new project, commissioned by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), researchers from the Basel Institute worked with Bhutanese authorities to introduce social accountability concepts to support efforts to encourage citizen participation in democratic practices at the local government level.

Recently, researchers from the Basel Institute, University College London (UCL), SOAS London and other international institutions met in Basel to take stock of progress made and discuss next steps in their new anti-corruption research project on “Informal Governance and Corruption”. Emerging evidence from the fieldwork, carried out in East Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus, suggests that informal practices are not only essential for regime survival but also associated with the prevalence of high levels of corruption. 

Researchers from the Basel Institute recently delivered a workshop on quantitative and qualitative research methodologies for corruption research at the Protestant University of Rwanda (PUR) in Butare, Rwanda. 

The Basel Institute and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) will work together to provide expert support to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in the framework of SDC's thematic network on democratisation, decentralisation and local government (DDLG).  IDS is a leading global institution for development research, teaching and learning, and impact and communications, based at the University of Sussex. 

Researchers at the Basel Institute have finalised their study on “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa”. Funded by DFID’s East Africa Research Fund and headed by Dr Claudia Baez Camargo from the Basel Institute, this research project was launched in January 2016. 

In March experts of the Basel Institute were among the winners of a competitive call for papers in the context of the 2018 OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum in Paris.

In a poster market setting and through a simultaneous TED-talk style research pitch, they interactively presented their paper on the topic of “Harnessing social networks for anti-corruption” at the event.

The Basel Institute has begun work on a mandate for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to provide support over a period of four years to the SDC DDLG thematic unit on a variety of good governance and related projects.

This work is conducted through a consortium led by the UK’s Institute for Development Studies (IDS) with the Basel Institute, XImpulse and the Hirondelle Foundation as participating members.

With a follow-on grant from the British Academy’s Anti-Corruption Evidence programme (ACE), funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Basel Institute will pursue a “phase two” research project stemming from the original and completed research study on "Informal Governance and Corruption: Transcending the Principal-Agent and Collective Action Paradigms".

This follow-on project will be led by Dr. Scott Newton of SOAS as Principal Investigator and Dr. Claudia Baez-Camargo of the Basel Institute as Co-Investigator.

Dr. Claudia Baez-Camargo, Head of Governance Research at the Basel Institute, presented her team’s findings from its two-year research project on Informal Governance and Corruption: Transcending the Principal-Agent and Collective Action Paradigms at the award holders’ event of the ACE programme at the British Academy in London on 27 February.

Our programme of work in Malawi, led by the International Centre for Asset Recovery with funding support from the UK Department for International Development, has been expanded to complement its original focus on corruption investigations and the recovery of stolen assets with prevention components.

These include assistance with a review of the national anti-corruption strategy, fresh engagements with the private sector and training on research methods and corruption risk assessment strategies.