Sheet n°259 - February 2007
Reliability of corruption indicators
in relation to development aid
© IRD/ Xavier Le Roy
G
lobal corruption indicators and, on a broader
front, global governance
indicators, based principally on experts’ perception,
are currently widely used
for determining the allocation of public aid for development. However, IRD
economists from research
unit UR 047 (DIAL) compared results of household surveys conducted
simultaneously in 8 African
countries with corresponding expert surveys and
showed that the latter
reveal an inaccurate appreciation of the true level of
corruption. They advocate
a more reasoned use of
these global indicators and
the setting-up of complementary surveys taking
into account the points
of view and experiences
of the people and actors
involved.
Bureaucratic corruption, which citizens can suffer when they have to deal with administrative bodies, is the
main subject of this survey conducted by IRD research unit DIAL.
September 2000 saw the signing of the
Millennium Declaration, initiated by UNO, committing States to work to reduce poverty and
favour world economic growth in the years to
come. Acknowledgment of failure of adjustment
structural plans (1) has led to a certain rehabilitation of the role of the State. With that comes the
adoption of new strategies for fighting poverty,
that place factors other than just classical economic considerations at the heart of development programmes: governance (2), adherence
of people to policies or their involvement in public
life. To measure the impact of governance, and
especially corruption, global indicators have been
created and international databases have proliferated. These indicators, devised initially by private
agencies for their clients (banks, investors and so
on) or by researchers for their studies, gradually
became institutionalized. They allow a mark to
be assigned to each country, which then serve to
rank them according to their more or less good
performance relating to the criterion considered.
They are now widely used, notably for allocating
aid for development to countries of the South.
At the IRD, researchers of the DIAL research
unit (3) focused on the pertinence and limitations
of utilizing these global indicators, which are
based essentially on the perception of experts
(business people, researchers, specialists, senior
civil servants, politicians and so on). They put
special emphasis on petty bureaucratic corruption
that people are subjected to in their dealings with
administrative bodies (4). The analysis rests on
an original system, involving comparison of two
types of survey, conducted between 2001 and
2003, simultaneously in 8 African countries on
the same theme. The first involves household
>>
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Sheet n°259 - February 2007
For futher information
CONTACTS:
FRANÇOIS ROUBAUD
IRD UR 047 Dial,
IRD Vietnam, Hanoi.
Tél. : (84 4) 972 06 29
roubaud@dial.prd.fr
Mireille Razafindrakoto
– same address.
razafindrakoto@dial.prd.fr
PRESS OFFICE :
+33 (0)1 48 03 75 19 ;
presse.ird@ird.fr
INDIGO BASE, IRD PICTURE LIBRARY
+33 (0)1 48 03 78 99 ;
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www.ird.fr/indigo
IRD AUDIOVISUEL
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audiovisuel@bondy.ird.fr
www.audiovisuel.ird.fr/
REFERENCES :
HERRERA J., RAZAFINDRAKOTO
M., ROUBAUD F. (2007),
"Governance, Democracy
and Poverty Reduction:
Lessons drawn from household surveys in sub-Saharan
Africa and Latin America",
International Statistical
Review, 70(1).
Gouvernance, démocratie
et lutte contre la pauvreté.
Rapport d’étude pour la
Direction générale de la
Coopération internationale et du Développement.
Ministère des Affaires
Etrangères.
http://www.dial.prd.fr/
dial_publications/dial_publi_
ouvrages.htm#gouvernance
RAZAFINDRAKOTO MIREILLE ET
ROUBAUD FRANÇOIS – Peut-on
se fier aux bases de données internationales sur la
corruption ? Une confrontation entre enquêtes experts
et enquêtes-ménages en
Afrique subsaharienne,
DIAL.
http://www.dial.prd.fr/dial_
publications/PDF/Doc_travail/2006-17.pdf
KEY-WORDS :
ECONOMY, DEVELOPMENT,
CORRUPTION INDICATORS,
SURVEYS,
AFRICA.
surveys (5) and the second consists of surveys
conducted by experts, both from North and South
– the “mirror surveys”. The household surveys,
concerning 35 000 people, provide an objective
measure of petty bureaucratic corruption and of its
characteristics, whereas the expert survey drew
upon the perceptions of 350 experts interviewed
on the subject. Examination of these two sources
of information side-by-side led to an accurate
assessment of the error of appreciation made by
these experts about the extent and nature of this
form of corruption.
The proportion of people stating that they had
been direct victims of corruption during the year
preceding the survey varied depending on the
country: between 8% in Benin and more than
16% in the Ivory Coast and Madagascar, the latter
countries having also suffered severe political and
economic crisis. This proportion is 13% averaged
over the eight countries concerned. Comparison
of this figure with the one declared by the experts
showed that almost all of these (94%) overestimated the degree of corruption local people
suffered. Their assessment put the proportion at
52%, four times greater. This discrepancy was
found again when each country was considered
individually. Although they recognized the extent
of small-scale corruption, the experts showed
themselves to be scarcely able to quantify the real
size of the phenomenon. Furthermore, countries’
ranking founded on their perception does not correlate with reality. This can be explained by patchy
knowledge of the daily life of ordinary citizens and
of poor people in particular.
The experts’ judgment of the “mirror survey” proved to be closely associated with global indicators
of the perception of corruption originating from the
major international databases. This result, which
validates the “mirror-enquiry” sample does not,
however, provide knowledge as to whether or
not this correlation comes from prior knowledge
of international ranking or a vision shared by
experts as a whole. Moreover, experts’ error of
appreciation appears all the more significant in
that the countries have been given poor rankings
on the international level. In this way, the poorest
countries, poorly governed, would be penalized
and deprived of the aid they need. Added to that
is an ideological bias, some experts tending to
overestimate the degree of corruption of countries
that do not follow their own personal opinions on
economic policy.
These results, by putting the opinion of experts
in perspective, emphasize some weaknesses in
the system of global corruption indicators, some of
which are recognized by the originators of the indicators themselves. However, they do not call into
question the overall validity of these indicators: the
study concerns only 8 countries. An examination
conducted on a larger number of cases could add
refinements to the conclusions. Another point is
that these indicators embrace the various forms
of corruption and not just bureaucratic corruption. The researchers therefore advocate a more
reasoned utilization of these global indicators,
both in research work and in determining economic policy and development aid allocation. They
recommend the setting up of complementary
surveys that take into account the point of view of
the people concerned and the experiences they
have in their daily lives.
(1) These plans have been applied in most developing
countries since the 1980s, on the initiative of the IMF and
the World Bank. The measures advocated (devaluation
of national currency, public spending cuts, privatization,
opening up to the market, etc.) were presumed to encourage growth.
(2) The concept of governance has no internationally recognized definition. According to the OECD Development Aid
Committee, it is “the use of political authority and exercise of
control in relation to the management of the resources of a
society in view of economic and social development”
(3) The research unit 047 DIAL “Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme” is engaged in an international programme which groups together the Observatoire
statistique et economic d’Afrique sub-saharienne, the general secretariat of the Andean Community and 13 national
statistics institutes from Africa and Latin America. See
scientific builletin n° 128 www.ird.fr/fr/actualites/fiches/2005/
fiche218.htm
(4) “Grand corruption” (attribution of public-sector contracts,
budget fraud, etc.) and political corruption (financing of
political parties, vote buying, etc.) are not considered here
because they are not directly accessible through representative surveys.
(5) Surveys 1-2-3, elaborated by DIAL on employment, the
informal sector and poverty, to which specific modules on
governance and democracy have been added.
Marie Guillaume-Signoret – IRD
Translation : Nicholas Flay
Marie Guillaume-Signoret, coordinatrice
Délégation à l’information et à la communication
Tél. : +33(0)1 48 03 76 07 - fax : +33(0)1 40 36 24 55 - fichesactu@paris.ird.fr