The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development: In Uganda

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11/26/2012

The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development: In Uganda

My forthcoming book grew out of a growing awareness of institutional reforms that did not deliver significant results in developing countries. Uganda's anticorruption reforms are an example, and the story of reform limits is in this month's headlines--unfortunately.

Anticorruption reforms in Uganda date back to the 1990s and have absorbed tens of millions of dollars. The full range of donors have been engaged, including the IMF, World Bank, British DFID, Norwegian, Swedish and other bilaterals. The reforms have yielded new laws and a range of organizational changes in offices of the auditor and accountant general, and beyond. The reforms also introduced new mechanisms and practices that stood out as best or first in class for sometime; Uganda was the first country to do a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) for instance, and some key participatory mechanisms were launched here before going on to broader use in international development.

Yet, the impact on corruption seems limited, cogently described in this summary statement supporting the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center Overview of Corruption in Uganda http://www.u4.no/publications/overview-of-corruption-in-uganda/:

Since the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986, Uganda has undertaken an ambitious set of economic and political reforms. These reforms have led to the establishment of a solid legal, administrative and institutional framework to fight corruption. In spite of initial success widely heralded by the international community, corruption remains widespread at all level of society and the country faces major implementation challenges. Recent political developments tend to demonstrate a lack of political backing for anti-corruption efforts. Combined with understaffed and underfinanced anti-corruption bodies, the state faces considerable challenges in its ability to effectively enforce the legislative framework against corruption.

The emphasis in this excerpt is mine. It reflects a general perspective that, whereas reforms have achieved some gains in Uganda, these gains have actually proven quite limited over time. The excerpt reflects on some potential reasons for this, including implementation challenges, lack of political support for reform, and weak staffing and financial capacity to reforms. The excerpt also notes that these constraints were not fully appreciated by international donors who initially saw reforms as a success.

The headlines this month have the same donors pulling money from the country because of corruption charges. Andrea Bohnstedt has an amusing account in Saturday's Nairobi Star http://allafrica.com/stories/201211240609.html. Aljazeera covered the topic last week http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/11/20121117155051480786.html.

Donors have halted aid before on the basis of serious corruption charges. Each time the government works with them to revive anticorruptionreforms. Usually the result is a better law, or better organized auditor's office, or some other change to the formal rules or rule makers in government. Expect the same kind of signal this time as well.

It seems, however, that changing formal institutions like this does not yield the kind of better government many might expect. The question is why? And, what could be done differently in future so that Uganda's anticorruption reforms have a greater impact on corruption?

The example of Uganda is just illustrative of many others I see regularly in development, where institutional reforms create better looking governments that ultimately are not better. My book explores the questions I pose above, in an effort to move towards reform approaches that yield more successes in more countries more often.

For further reading on Uganda and others, see:

Persson, Rothstein and Teorell's paper, 'The failure of Anticorruption-Policies: A Theoretial Mischaracterization of the Problem'

http://www.sida.se/PageFiles/39460/Failure%20Anti_Corruption%20policy%20(2).pdf

DFID's perspective on the issue: The Uganda Anticorruption Fact Sheet.

http://humansecuritygateway.com/documents/DFID_uganda_anti-corruption-factsheet.pdf

Roger Tangri and Andrews Mwenda's 2006 article in the Journal of Modern African Studies on 'Politics, donors and the ineffectiveness of anticorruption institutions in Uganda' http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=399925&jid=MOA&volumeId=44&issueId=01&aid=399924

Global Integrity's article on the 'Implementation Gap' in anti-corruption reforms. The article is wonderfully titled, 'The Doomed Track for Reform'.

http://www.globalintegrity.org/node/550

In reflecting on the Global Integrity article, I would have to say that my book asks why many institutional reforms seem doomed, and what can be done about it. Wish I had their title for my book!

Posted at 09:53 AM in Change rules, change governments, and develop?, Deconstructing the puzzling evidence of reform | Permalink

Tags: anticorruption, global integrity, governance, matt andrews, reform, the limits of institutional reform in development, uganda

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The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development

11/26/2012