corruption prevention in disaster relief /regional projects/asia

Corruption Prevention in Disaster Relief and Reconstruction

Corruption in the delivery of aid undermines the very spirit of humanitarian action: to 'do no harm'. Relief supplies - including food, water, medicines and shelter- can, as a result of corruption, be diverted away from affected communities or distributed inequitably.

Following the Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004, and the Earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, Transparency International (TI) has worked to address the risk of corruption in relief and reconstruction efforts on several levels. Its national chapters in affected countries have sought to strengthen the accountability of relief operations by, for example, advocating proper accountability by all stakeholders, organising coalitions of local NGOs and communities to monitor aid delivery and establishing appropriate management systems for such NGOs.

At the regional level, the TI-Secretariat has helped bring together key stakeholders to identify concrete measures to ensure that aid efforts are not tainted by corruption.

Following work on these disasters in Asia, Transparency International (TI) is seeking to prevent corruption in humanitarian relief and reconstruction activities globally by focusing on the aftermath of natural disasters and civil conflicts. Increasing efforts in this area will enable the documentation, sharing and implementation of good practice through tools for identifying vulnerabilities and minimising the risks of corruption. Anti-corruption initiatives in the wider development field offer many lessons and can encourage learning among agencies from initiatives that until now have remained largely internal.

For more information on these activities, please contact the project administrator.

TI Publications and Reports

Curbing Corruption in Tsunami Relief Operations

Click here to download the publication curbing-corruption-tsunami-relief.pdf 697.55 kB

This important publication contains lessons relevant to humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts concluded at the Expert Meeting on Corruption Prevention in Tsunami Relief (April 2005, Jakarta) jointly convened by the Asian Development Bank (ADB)/ Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia-Pacific, and Transparency International (TI). See the press release.

The publication is also available in Bahasa, Tamil and Sinhala .

For more information on TI’s response to the Tsunami Crisis, please use the below links:

Ensuring the Transparent Use of Earthquake Reconstruction Funds

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This report outlines the recommendations made at the International Workshop on Ensuring the Transparent Utilisation of Earthquake Reconstruction Funds, held in Islamabad in February 2006.

The workshop report is also available in Urdu.

Mapping the Risk of Corruption in Humanitarian Action

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To help define the challenge of preventing corruption in humanitarian action, TI worked on an extensive report that maps and analyses corruption risks in emergency relief operations.

Further information on TI activities in this area can be found here.