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Cancer of corruption means

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Curing the Cancer of Corruption

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Vinay Bhargava

Abstract

T he World Bank defines corruption as the abuse of public office for pri-vate gain. In 1996 the then-President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, declared that, for developing countries to achieve growth and poverty reduction, "we need to deal with the cancer of corruption." 1 With that speech at the annual meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Wolfensohn confronted head on a topic that the development com-munity had long studiously ignored. In the decade since then, fighting cor-ruption has moved to the forefront of all national and international development dialogues. Several recent global public opinion polls indicate that corruption is seen as a major issue all around the world, affecting peo-ple's lives everywhere. For example: ■ In a 2003 Global Poll covering 48 countries, corruption ranked third among the most important development issues facing the world—close behind poverty reduction and education. ■ In a 2005 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer survey covering 69 developed and developing countries, 75 percent of respondents said that corruption affects political life in their countries to a moderate or large extent; 65 percent said the same thing about the business sector, and 58 percent said that corruption affects them personally. Corruption occurs in a variety of forms (box 18.1) and in almost all coun-tries, as shown by worldwide research on corruption by Transparency Inter-national as well as other cross-country governance indicators published by the World Bank Institute (figure 18.1).