Transparency International's UK chief warns that Britain is in danger of losing its new anti-corruption legislation.

1445Britain has a reputation for being relatively free from corruption compared with other countries. But Laurence Cockcroft of Transparency International, the anti-corruption body, warned that Britain was in real danger of losing its new anti-corruption legislation, updated in a recent anti-terrorism Act. The Act may soon be repealed if it found to infringe human rights, he said. Cockcroft, who is chair of TI's UK chapter and a founder member of its international board, was speaking on Corruption and development - a personal Odyssey at a Greencoat Forum in London on February 18.

"Corruption is a dynamic entity," he said. "It is getting better or worse, but it is never static." Much of his experience had been in African countries, and his audience at the forum included people from 12 African countries. A development economist, with more than 35 years of experience in the developing world, Cockcroft said his first experience of Africa had been in Nigeria, where he had worked with Voluntary Services Overseas in his teens, before studying economics at Cambridge University. He had since spent many years in East Africa, where he worked in tropical agriculture for Booker Agriculture International and, since 1985, for the Gatsby Charitable Foundation's micro-finance programme. The foundation also disseminates agricultural research throughout Africa. He became a founder of TI in 1991.

"We have to acknowledge that countries can develop really fast even with some degree of corruption," Cockcroft said. "There are some conditions when corruption and economic development are compatible... But we have to ask the question to what extent corruption prevents the world from becoming inclusive."

In his vivid account of corruption cases in Africa, Cockcroft outlined the main reasons for corruption.

Firstly there was simply the need to survive. "In the African context, with large family units, there is a phenomenal financial burden on people," he said. But corruption grows when need becomes greed, where perceptions of self-worth and how society perceives you are linked to the amount of money and status one has.

On a political level, bribes usually occur as a means of political survival, especially when there is pressure from opposition parties during election campaigns. "When a politician wins an election on an anti-corruption platform, how would he turn pre-election rhetoric into practice?" Cockcroft asked. Kenya was one country trying to do this.

The struggle for natural resources added to corruption, for instance in Angola, which relies heavily on diamonds and oil.

Finally, from the donors' side there had been a lack of accountability. "Up to 10 years ago the World Bank, the European Union and other donors were very lax about checking where the money went," Cockcroft said (though the culture of the World Bank has since changed). This was partly due to "badly planned projects which were badly executed". Some donors had opposed TI's activities, as did the World Bank till 1993.

On the brighter side, there were exceptions in Africa. Botswana has been consistently near the top of the list of least corrupt nations, according to TI's annual Corruption Perception Index. "It proves that corruption is not an inherited problem in Africa," Cockcroft said. "It is a question of leadership."

People often said that to play political games you had to bend the rules, he continued, and therefore there was no way out of corruption. "This is a pattern of behaviour," he said. "The nexus of corruption on a national and on a personal level becomes inseparable. They are not two completely different processes." Apart from education and the media, which play a leading role in tackling corruption, "changes in attitude are essential in this process".

As for the role of religion in the African context, "Islam and Christianity are both antagonistic to corruption, but there is a failure by both institutionally to address the question of corruption," he said.

Cockcroft stressed that TI in the UK "needs to focus more on what is going on in defence and politics". In the private sector changes happen much faster than in the political or public sectors. The day after Cockcroft's forum, the Financial Times reported that there had been no major prosecutions of businesses for corrupt practices. The paper quoted Cockcroft as saying that corporate behaviour would "only change markedly when there are a couple of high-profile prosecutions".

So, what is the basis for hope at a global level? With democracy more widespread than ever before, "it is much harder for a senior politician to be corrupt in front of the public," Cockcroft said. "But on an individual level it depends on how far people take on initiatives to change it." TI's Integrity Awards are given annually to four individuals who stand out against corruption. "One has to recognise the huge courage, effort and energy these individuals put into confronting corruption".

In her vote of thanks, Amina Dikedi from Nigeria spoke about the new all-Africa Clean Africa Campaign (CAC), of which she is one of the founders. This aims to train a new generation of young leaders in values of integrity. The first 10-day training programme had recently taken place in Kenya and there are now plans for CAC programmes in South Africa and Ghana.

Anastasia Stepanova