I have a new article out with @DrCarynPeiffer, @PakRosi & Pius Gumisiriza on ‘Lessons from reducing bribery in Uganda’s health services’. The case is a 'sort of success' raising important questions about anti-corruption interventions as ends or as means. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/dpr.12533

Our research shows how almost half of all people who made contact with the health sector in Uganda in 2010 paid a bribe, but by 2015 this rate was just 25% - an unprecedented reduction in such a short time frame.

Much of the credit for this decrease goes to the Health Monitoring Unit, launched in 2009. Among other things, the HMU carried out unannounced investigations in health facilities, including public ‘naming and shaming’ of frontline health workers for engaging in corruption/bribery

While the approach clearly worked in terms of reducing bribery, there are serious questions about sustainability & unintended consequences. For one, the aggressive nature of the intervention led to a huge nation-wide strike and loss of staff morale and public trust.

The HMU also didn’t deal with the everyday reality that bribery supplements very low public health sector wages. Despite humiliation and fear, health workers simply couldn’t survive on their wages & bribery re-emerged with different patterns. See also...
https://baselgovernance.org/publications/informal-governance-comparative-perspectives-co-optation-control-and-camouflage-rwanda

This raises questions about what the HMU’s actual goal was: Was it reducing bribery, or was it improving service delivery and health outcomes?

In other words, should we be thinking about anti-corruption interventions as ends in themselves, or as means to other important ends?

@DrCarynPeiffer & I draw on this case, and others, in our forthcoming 'Corruption Functionality Framework', funded by @GCRF, @bIGIdeas_UoB & @UoBrisSPS & out soon with @GlobalIntegrity #GI_ACE.

We've also been working with @GI_TOC on an initial test of the framework. More soon!