• Introduction
• Final research report: Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Assistance
• Main risk areas
• Mitigation measures
• Recommendations
• The next steps
• Work of TI national chapters
• Selected publications and resources
• News coverage

The stakes are high. Humanitarian budgets have nearly doubled since the beginning of the decade and now account for up to 14 percent of official development assistance, reaching more than US $10 billion in 2006. But financial mismanagement is not the only form of corruption. Power can also be abused in many other ways, causing disastrous and long-term effects on the humanitarian mission. Detecting and preventing corruption in relief processes is an urgent priority in order to maximise relief efforts and truly help those in dire need.

Transparency International’s efforts in the area of humanitarian assistance arise as a follow-up to debates on the need to combat corruption in post-tsunami relief in Asia and in earthquake reconstruction in Pakistan.

In 2008, TI with several leading providers of relief and reconstruction assistance analysed the corruption risks faced by humanitarian agencies and the measures they use to address those risks. A handbook of anti-corruption practices and tools in humanitarian assistance will be published in the spring of 2009.

The research report was carried out by the Feinstein International Center of Tufts University (FIC) in collaboration with the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute in London (ODI) and Transparency International (TI). Seven major international humanitarian NGOs volunteered to be part of the project and allowed researchers access to their headquarters, staff and documentation along with similar access to field programmes in seven crisis-affected countries.

The research seeks to document:

• perceptions of corruption in humanitarian operations
• risks and consequences of corruption
• policies and practices to mitigate or manage these risks
• remaining gaps in addressing corruption

This analysis suggests that, in recent years, humanitarian agencies have become more aware of the risks of corruption and have taken steps to deal with these risks. Agencies have also put in place whistleblower policies and strengthened internal audit functions. Better sharing of good practices could help to further advance this work.

Some areas identified as being particularly prone to corrupt abuse:

• Procurement, human resources, accounting, transport and vehicle management, and supply chain management
• Food aid, shelter, health programs involving drugs, and cash transfers are risky sectors
• The processes of needs assessment, targeting and registration of recipients as well as selection and monitoring of partners
• Sexual exploitation and abuse in return for assistance

Some of the most salient anti-corruption practices found include:

How the humanitarian community might move forward to increase discussion of corruption issues, develop improved systems to mitigate risk and better ensure its detection:

• Provide management leadership in addressing corruption: work to reduce the sensitivity around discussing corruption in humanitarian assistance and promote greater transparency in reporting corrupt abuse of aid
• Clarify to staff that corruption extends beyond fraudulent financial practices to “non-financial corruption”
• Communicate to staff that preventing corruption is an important part of the current focus on program quality and accountability, by incorporating corruption in induction and capacity building
• Incorporate corruption risk analysis into emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction strategies and strengthen surge capacity
• Give greater attention to setting up good financial, administrative, procurement and human resources systems from the start of emergency response
• Improve the transparency of information (resource flows, assessments, targeting criteria, recipient lists, etc)
• Ensure that agency policies and procedures that can mitigate corruption are effectively disseminated and implemented at field level and adapted for emergencies
• Address corruption risks in the selection and monitoring of partners
• Allocate greater resources to program monitoring, especially physical field monitoring
• Strengthen downward accountability to empower aid recipients to prevent and detect corruption
• Deepen the scope of audits beyond ‘the paper trail’ to include forensic objectives and practices
• Increase the use of independent external evaluation, including peer review mechanisms
• Encourage inter-agency coordination at national and international levels for information sharing and for joint action on corruption emanating from the external environment

TI is using the information gathered on agency good practices on combating corruption as well as information from other sources to prepare a Handbook on Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Assistance, to be published in early 2009.

• Click here for further TI publications in this area
• Mapping the Risks of Corruption in Humanitarian Assistance, a corruption risk map tries to identify the points where and how humanitarian assistance is most vulnerable to corruption, developed together with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI)
• ALNAP network
• Emergency Capacity-Building Project (ECB)
• Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International (HAP-International)
• Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
• The Feinstein International Center
• MANGO
• TIRI
• U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center
• Demand for humanitarian assistance will continue to rise worldwide: read here

• Anticorruption measures and awareness increase in aid programmes, report finds
  British Medical Journal, 31 July 2008
• Corruption prevalent In overseas aid work, report finds
  The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 30 July 2008
• How can aid agencies tackle corruption?
  Reuters AlertNet, 18 July 2008
• GLOBAL: Could do better - tackling corruption in humanitarian intervention
  IRIN, 18 July 2008
• Funds misappropriated at 2 nonprofit groups
  The New York Times, 9 July 2008
• Scrutiny of aid cash kept out of public eye
  The Financial Times, 8 July 2008
• China says 43 officials punished over quake relief
  Reuters, 23 June 2008
• Donors to discuss funding Myanmar cyclone relief amid concerns about corruption, access
  The Associated Press, 25 May 2008
• Aid groups say Myanmar food stolen by military
  The New York Times, 15 May 2008
• Should aid agencies be more open about corruption?
  Reuters Alertnet, 19 November 2007
• Report finds dire humanitarian crisis in Iraq
  The New York Times, 30 July 2007