Raining Challenges

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Map: Geographic Guide

While there is focus on human security and good governance within the framework of the Central America and Mexico Security Strategy Action Plan, its implementation has been sketchy and the concept of human security applied in a rather limited manner. Human security is a powerful concept and responds remarkably well to the needs of development. So there is a need to continue to push for the adoption of the concept as the guiding principle for development and humanitarian work in the Central America. 

The conceptual framework of human security is wide and yields to various forms of wants and insecurities that people in the region face and therefore is specifically relevant to the region. Some of the common challenges of the region include:

• Organized drug trafficking,
• Trafficking and smuggling in human beings,
• Trans-border organized crime,
• Weaker governance institutions and political polarizations,
• Climate change and natural disasters,
• Poverty and poor health,
• Lack of public services such as education, health, legal-juridical, and security and so on.

These challenges are compounded by:

• The poor economic condition in the countries and extremely weak economic governance institutions, which are unable to support economic growth and stability (except for Costa Rica and Panama which seem to be moving in the right direction);
• Complicity between drug mafias and cartels and the political and governance actors;
• High level of corruption and money laundering;
• Weaker business and consequent extremely poor revenue base; and
• Fluid borders across the countries.

All these problems require wider partnerships among development and humanitarian actors as well as with the political actors and business conglomerates. This is essentially to ensure that the linkages among the above cited wants and insecurities could be better addressed. Such partnership formation would be the basis for addressing human security issues in the region. But it requires the countries and their governments to have the capacity to be stable institutions, policies, and skills to administer reform and development.

Most of the above mentioned human-made challenges have the issues of poor livelihoods, weak human capital and natural disasters at the core. The Central American countries are among the top 20 most vulnerable to natural with little capacity to cope. Hurricanes, floods, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent and contribute to the growth of poverty, malnutrition and poor health. Again, these humongous issues could be addressed only through collaborations because these require improved understanding of how issues of drugs, crimes, poor justice, etc are inter-linked among multiple actors. These call for investment in environment, food, livelihoods, health, education and such other basic needs. This form of response to the challenges will address the issue of youth who have been particularly affected by the lack of economic opportunities, a phenomenon linked to gangs (or the Maras). This would also entail partnering with bi-laterals and donors who have a stake in environmental and livelihoods work, ministries and government institutions dealing with these issues and the wider public media.

Alongside, the issues of organized crime and terrorism, drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling in migrants, and the basic lack of rule of law also need to be looked into. Strengthening capacities of law enforcement agencies, preventing money laundering and promoting capacity to counter terrorism, border security and regulation of migration would go along well with the efforts to address issues of poor livelihoods, weak human capital and natural disasters.

The above-mentioned issues are increasingly becoming trans-regional in character and migration, though irregular, represents about 15% of their GDP.  It is for this reason that joint engagement in policy and programming around the issues of border control and migration by the Central American countries is crucial. Migrant smugglers and human traffickers take advantage of poor economic situation and uneducated and unemployed youth seeking employment abroad and make the issues of security and border control all the more complex.

The political leadership in the region seem to be aware of these issues and have acted jointly every now and then. Formation of Sistema de Integración Centroamericana, the International Commission for Central American Recovery and Development, Central American Parliament, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Central American Common Market are some of the examples. Yet, these bodies have not been effective in the same measure in all the Central American Countries, largely due to the domestic politics and leadership related issues in the member countries. A long way to go!

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Equality in Corruption: A Myth or A Reality?



Photo: The Hindu

I have often heard that corruption:

(1) treats people equally, woman or man,

(2) hits all poor equally, woman or man,

(3) does not discriminate between poor of the minority or the majority,

(4) further marginalizes all poor whether from they are from the marginalized socio-political/ethnic groups or from the dominant/mainstream communities, and

(5) lacks ‘consideration’ for age, that young and old are affected in the same manner

Let’s look at corruption from three different angles: first, as an intention to defraud; second, as it affects individuals and groups; and third, as it affects the larger the society/country/organization:

(1) Corruption, as an effort to do wrong or gain something for personal benefit by means which are illegal or not approved in a transparent manner with the wider public knowledge, is indeed the same for all in its intention to misappropriate.

(2) Beyond this intention and in so far corruption is practiced at various levels and in various proportions, its impact on different genders, economic groups, socio-political and ethnic groups, and age-groups is different.

(3) The overall impact for the larger country or an organization may be the same, ie, public resources generated through public contributions, direct and in-direct taxes and public sector profit, being siphoned off for the personal interests of an individual or a group through extraction of bribes, exchange of benefits, undue favour, national or transnational deals by duping the regulatory and oversight mechanisms. Sometimes, the regulatory and oversight mechanisms also become a party to such misuse or fraud.

It’s the second point which is of concern to this discussion. Let me focus on how corruption affects the broader category of women (however, it is to be remembered that the effect is different based on economic status, family background, culture, religion, political and legal system, age, community of origin, etc).



Photo: Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry



In most parts of the world, women are responsible for taking care of the household – procuring food, fuel, and other consumables, education of children, care of elderly and the sick, getting utilities like electricity and water for the family, and so on. In this role, many women, especially those who lack support of men in meeting the role and poor women come across corruption. They face overt or covert demands for bribes for being able to get food-ration or subsidy, school admission or fee exemption, accessing utilities and public services like health facilities and medicines. Since women constitute 66 percent of the world’s poor, it is not difficult to imagine who is affected the most by this kind of corruption. This estimate is often considered dodgy but it can’t be far from the reality as even in the supposedly egalitarian part of Europe, almost 55% of the poor are women. It is not surprising that in context of acute poverty induced by harsh economic conditions, inequitable social order, conflict, displacement, natural or human-made disaster, etc the level of sexual exploitation and abuse grows very high. In such circumstances, women are forced to provide sex in order to meet their household’s basic needs and rights.



Women are still not considered equal in terms of their professional abilities and employability. Studies and assessments in different countries suggest that women continue to earn 17 to 19 percent less than men in similar/same work. Women access to the white collar, technical and security jobs are restricted and where they do get access, they meet with what is termed as the ‘glass-ceiling’ or the invisible limit beyond which organizations/companies do not promote or hire women. By and large women are concentrated in low-wage, low-skill fields or in jobs which are poorly paid like, school-teaching and nursing. This implies that women not only suffer gender-based exclusion from participation in various jobs, which are considered the ‘man’s job’ (for example, employment with the armed forces, policy, mining, etc), they are also not present around the tables and hang-out joints where decisions about employment and career growth are made. So in a nepotistic system, women are more likely to lose out on the employment and career advancement opportunities. Since women earn less their ability to pay bribes needed for either staying in the job or for growth is also limited. Therefore, without affirmative action, they are more likely to continue to suffer from the gender-wage gap and segmentation into low paid jobs/positions.

Photo: Insaf

Similarly, many of the economic and business support sub-sectors continue to treat women as dependents, rather than economically capable individual citizens. In many instances, women do not get a loan or insurance till they have a male family member to provide collateral. This form of discrimination is specific to certain countries but where it prevails, it affects women’s ability to be economically self-sufficient. When this type of gender-based discrimination is twined with higher poverty, exclusion from decision-making and corruption, women’s inability to meet the demands for bribes or exchange of favours worsens. This is one of the reasons why so few women owned businesses get selected as contractors/vendors at the end of public and private sector procurement processes.

Today, with so much noise about quotas for women in representative politics and growing openness of the political systems, women continue to be far under represented, and by and large, ordinary women face tremendous barriers to participation. In politics, men are regarded as politically savvier than women. In countries, where political parties are not subject to strict oversight and regulatory mechanisms and financing of election campaigns are not open to public scrutiny, black money or unaccounted-for and untaxed cash generated by dealings in a under-cover economy, black market or organized crime, is used to fund them. In other words, candidates receive money from businesses, which are corrupt or potentially corrupt or from money generated from under-cover deals. Since politics is a male-stronghold, most beneficiaries of such party or campaign funding also happen to be men. This sort of corruption is usually coupled by nepotism and nepotistic access to the government resources. In countries where the practice of political patronage is not checked, the politicians, most of whom are men, have allies in the public/civil services. The civil servants often serve their political patrons by abusing the public infrastructure, resources and control authority, like, government buildings, stationary and utilities, giving undue favour in allocation of public spaces like parks, etc. In this kind of covert and convoluted system, women are more likely to be left out when party nominations take place or when they contest elections as independent candidates. They are more likely to lose elections because often they do not have money and access to power to fund their campaigns or bribe/buy [and more than often, threaten] voters.



Fed up with abusive husbands and corrupt officials,

India's Gulabi Gang fights back!



When the entire electioneering process is corrupt and fails to have measures to ensure that women voters are able to exercise their right to vote ably and without threat, voter level corruption disfranchises many women. From my childhood, I remember how men would take to burqa and go to the polling stations using the names of their female relatives and cast votes. More than often, women voters are told by their male relatives who to vote for. Women voters, knowing the complicity among the party workers at the polling station, their male relatives, and election officials, comply with the dictate. They know that if they do not for the dictate, the information about who they voted for will be leaked to their male relatives and they may face physical or other forms of violence at home. Another practice, which I witnessed, was faking the age of the young persons so the number of voters could be increased and influencing these voters to cast their votes or casting votes on their behalf for specific candidates. The party workers are found complicit in this or actually they are the ones who plot this. The election officials, if corrupt and know that they can get away with corruption, do nothing to prevent or do not hesitate to become a part of this arrangement at the polling stations. Sometimes, in a political constituency where a dominant politician with huge access to money and power is involved, even the honest election officials fear for their lives and do nothing. This kind of corruption usually involves high profile traditionally dominant leaders from various communities/castes/religions, who, more often than not, are men. The possibility of a woman getting elected in such a situation is remote.

These are just some of the ways, corruption impacts negatively on women and compound their gender-based vulnerabilities. The traditional forms of gender-based discrimination and gender-stereotypes have kept women out from many economic, social and political fields. Corruption prevents women from overcoming those challenges and gaining access to services and opportunities. It hinders and sometimes completely prevents women’s abilities to meet their households’ and their basic needs. Corruption further weakens women’s ability to compete with men on a level ground. This is of major significance because their abilities are already weakened as a result of gender based discriminations in education, empowerment opportunities, skills training, and resource allocations by the families, etc.

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The Opiates Business

UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey 2011

Afghanistan remains a major producer and the hub of drug business extending into Iran, Central Asia and Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s geo-political location, the country has become the hub of drug business as well as a major transit point for drug trafficking in South Asia and Persia. Drug business, however, rarely thrives only on drug trafficking operations. Given the nature of crime, it thrives on supportive criminal practices and a larger crime tolerant environment. The difficult to monitor border with Afghanistan, high movement of people across the North-West Frontier, and vast stretches of desert and barren land across Kashmir to Gujarat and Rajasthan in India facilitates flow of opium and other substances. The economic harshness of the region and the extreme conditions in which people have to live in these parts also makes them easy drug-carriers and traffickers and even the elderly, disabled and women can be found involved in drug related criminal activity for income. The population involved in drug trafficking are fluidly organized across borders and are dependent on weaker border controls, governance and poor administration of justice. The drug trafficking routes and people involved are marked by a degree of violence and corruption unsurpassed by any other criminal activity. It is due to reliance on violence and corruption that the organized crime groups, attempt to build and maintain an environment in the region in which the illicit activities could be sustained.

Drug Trafficking Route from Afghanistan

There is an urgent need to address drug trafficking by bringing priority focus to illicit trafficking and border management, criminal justice, and reduction in drug demand and HIV/AIDS. The issue of illicit trafficking of drugs and humans who either are carriers or organizers of the crime cannot be checked without expanding the border controls measures among Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan. As of now, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran have opened a network of Border Liaison Offices to increase cross-border cooperation between law enforcement agencies. The law enforcement agencies, however, require considerable support, particularly, border police reform and structural and policy reform for enhanced coordination among various police service and to be effective.

Law enforcement agencies in themselves will not be able to address the problem till the criminal justice system of the countries joins hands to end the larger tolerance of drug and other crimes by bringing the criminals under the rule of law and ending the sense of impunity. It would be important to drive the criminal justice system reform agenda with an eye to individual and social reform though. The criminal justice system also needs to be accountable and mechanisms need to be put in place for ensuring civilian oversight and inspection of conduct. This process too requires other supportive features such as improved legislation which are compliant to the international normative instruments. This calls for passage and implementation of new legislation as well as amendment to the relevant laws to end the anomalies.

Drug Trafficking Route Into and From Pakistan

Being tough on drug trafficking and crime alone, however, will not end the demand for drugs or minimize the impact of these on socio-economic life, including family life and individual health. The above will require programmes and project which address issues of people’s livelihoods and which provide the policymakers and implementer with viable options and demonstrative models that can be put to practice. An environment of drug-trafficking and abuse is accompanied by wider socio-economic disparities and psycho-social and gender based vulnerabilities, which make exploitation of the poor, women, children and other vulnerable groups possible.

The countries in the region have low annual rates of economic growth and economic inequality is ever increasing. Weak leadership at the central/national and local levels and pervasive corruption are realities that have inhibit economic progress and further marginalize certain groups of people, while reinforcing an atmosphere of political instability throughout the region. These call for close collaboration among the government and private sector institutions to address persistent food insecurity, empowerment of groups of women and men who provide the deterrence to crime from family to community levels. Each country’s engagement in periodic recurrence of food emergencies that often befall on the countries in the region, will also help minimize the potential groups vulnerable to become involved in human trafficking or both drug and human trafficking.



While action is needed to address the priority issues of insufficient and weak transportation and communication infrastructures, major policy and bureaucratic obstacles would need to be addressed so traditional intra-regional trade and other forms of livelihoods are not affected adversely and poorer people left without any means to survive.

However, in the absence of policies & implementation mechanisms, an environment of distrust among the neighbouring countries, it is easily said than done. Vested interests within the governance structures, elite of the society and businesses more than often hinder progress of the interventions targeted to end drug trafficking and related crimes. These issues would be addressed better if small models can be established through regional cooperation. Such models can be built around better and greater investment in rural economies and collaboration among multiple actors, including the governments, private sector, and civil society organizations by giving them efficient tools to design targeted security policies and interventions for the most vulnerable. Small successes that show the link between a reduction in drug trafficking and crime, with social and economic and gender development and reduction in AIDS will go a long way in building a case for scale up interventions for reducing and preventing crime and violence.

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We Live in a World of Ineffective Efforts; Well, Most of the Time!

Union Carbide Gas Leak on the night of
the 2nd and 3rd of Dec 1984 in Bhopal,
was perhaps, the worst industrial disaster
in the human history. 25 years on, the
survivors are still denied justice.
 Image: India Protest

Nobody denies that established and efficient justice systems are essential for getting justice. The ‘established’ part is not the problem. Using the development and humanitarian world jargons, there exist all sorts of ‘formal’ [implying a state run system] and ‘informal’ [implying a plethora of systems that exist and operate based on tradition, customs, religions, a mix of some or all of these]. The significant difference being the appointment of the judges in the case of the former is by a state authority and in the case of the latter, by community elders/elite/religious heads or even by heredity.

‘Established’ does not mean an ‘efficient’ justice system. Both the formal and informal justice systems are fraught with not only the most serious disturbing practices, corruption being one of them, abuse of authority to harass the petitioners being another.

A mother and child left dead by
the Union Carbide Gas Leak in Bhopal.
Image: Avaaz

Neither ‘established’ nor ‘efficient’ mean ‘effective’ in terms of upholding and standing for fairness and equality in the application of rights. One of fundamental flaws of both the systems has been their damaging role in the unjust distribution of rights, responsibilities and power to those who seek their intervention as well as those who are subjects of the implementation of the judgments delivered by them. Don’t we remember the Bhanwari Devi case and denial of justice to her and many more injustices that she had to suffer because of the failure of the state justice system? We do. The increasingly notorious Khap Panchayats or the traditional caste councils, which rule on who can and cannot marry and who should be penalized for what and how, stare into our faces. No woman can afford to forget the Imrana Rape case the misogynist roles played by the local Muslim Panchayat and the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband.

Notwithstanding some good examples of how the formal or informal justice systems can deliver public services fairly and uphold rights applying the principle of equality in rights and equality before law, by and large they have failed to evoke a degree of trust among those who need the justice systems the most. The groups which need the justice systems the most are the dalit, poor, children, women, religious marginalized and others who continue to be discriminated, exploited and abused.

Bhanwari Devi and Her Spouse: Inspirational.
Image: Tehelka

There is no dearth of knowledge about how to mediate conflict, whether at the family, social, economic or political levels to establish equality and justice. The challenge continues to be with the lack of the governance system’s will to facilitate institutional change and to take action against those in the justice systems who are rotting the justice systems.

The engagement with the informal justice systems is turning into a fad in the international development and cooperation sphere. This growth is without much attention to how un-equitable the foundations of the traditional or religious justice structures are and how growth in their strength would promote the powers of the traditional and religious elites. The idea to establish context specific justice systems is laudable but the efforts to apply the idea are too simplistic and shallow. Often this results not in development of equitable and accessible justice systems rather in making of a bigger monster out of the traditional and religious justice structures.



Imrana, the victim branded as a sinner.
Image: Outlook

 The overarching governance structure of a country needs to recognize that the formulation, application and adjudication of laws and delivery of justice in plural socio-religious contexts is far more complex and personal biases of judges, lawyers and others in the justice systems is more likely to damage not just the individual rights-holders but also the social harmony and development. This implies that the reform of the justice system structures without a reform of the people who work in those structures will not make these structures contribute to democratization and improved governance in the country. Any effort to reform the people in the justice systems needs to further recognize that the knowledge of law per se is not adequate that these people need to learn to analyze their own internalized beliefs and behaviours, how the laws came about and what kind of thinking promoted formulation of the law, what was the political climate and what imperatives left to the particular laws, and so on. This is needed for them to have the intellectual capacity to understand the laws from various angles and apply them in a manner that delivers on equality in justice.

The other efforts of researching justice system, analyzing the role they play and of engaging them in a dialogue for reform, need to be strengthened by intensive public oversight, especially oversight by the citizens groups who need the justice systems the most. There is need to understand where these investments in the informal justice systems are leading and what type of trends with regard to long-term consequences are emerging so lessons can be learned and applied in the current and future reform related engagements.

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Which is Bigger Evil, Corruption or Communalism?



1) Which one needs to
be addressed first?
2) Do they have
any overlaps?
3) What do you think?

Corruption affects common people on a daily basis. It affects the poor in the worse possible ways and closes the opportunities that legally may be there but practically are not available unless a bribe is paid, a favour done or there is some nepotistic connection exists. It disallows inclusive growth.  It affect's an ordinary citizen's abilities to maintain basic living standards, access public services like health and education and social benefits among several other things. It leads to misuse of the available public resources, and therefore, economic growth does not reach all sections of a society.

Communalism destroy the fabric of a society and destroys social cohesion and harmony and take destoys peace and stability which are pre-conditions for development. Communalism increases poverty by preventing movement of labour, capital and other public resources by restricting these within a particular community. It takes social trust away and creates a sense of instability for those who are not part of that community. It affects people's ability to generate more resouces using the current resources because it creates and environment in which property and other liquid resources can be acquired, owned or transacted for benefit only by a certain community based on their claim of a traditional precedence.

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Are you listening, respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji?

Don't be a Spooked Buck, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji.

Let me start afresh as if born again; erase memory as if nothing ever existed; and grow up right as if there are no strictures. These have been occasional thoughts in the last one year. A friend called it a mid-life crisis. As for being born again, it’s scary; it took years of whip-whap before arriving somewhere close to autonomy. Would it be wise to undo what has taken almost half the life? Life experiences say no. As for memory, there are moments when the life has been full of light, positive energy and joy. Would it be worth erasing all that for a memory of the future that may not even have even a speck of light? The brain says no. And as for growing up all over again, there’s no indication of a human being ever being fully autonomous because we learn depending on where we come from, where we are, what we see and how we have been oriented to see, ie, growing up without strictures is a notion. The biological clock, too, says no because there is only decay in the future, protect all the learning and keep exercising the gray cells. An acquaintance called it a mid-life wisdom.

This is, and will continue to be, my personal dilemma. The issue of starting afresh, however is not limited to private lives. Striking a balance between the past, present and future, and issues in acknowledging the rights and wrongs are a common dilemma in the public life too.

So respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji, if you do not rise today we will fall, not just you. We will allow achievements of the last six decades to go waste because you want to negotiate afresh as if the corrupt past never existed and today is not tainted. We cannot start afresh or hope for a corruption free future when we know that we stand on a corrupt ground. Use your imagination to gain from the experiences of the past and apply them for the betterment of the future just as you use your financial acumen when you deal with the statistics of the industrial growth rate or monetary and fiscal policies. Own everything; take possession of all things, right or wrong, in the full faith that they are actually yours because the governance institutions under you created them or practice them. If you would do that we would able be to draw inspiration from the positives of the past, learn from the mistakes of the past and stand with the strength of the past to visualize a future in which we would be able to deal with corruption.

The notion of starting afresh evokes beginning, the right formation … there’s a freshness about this notion. It indicates a learning based on a particular experience, a new way that would set the future right. It smells so spring-like that the exact troubling events get obscured by the idea of ‘the new’ and the problems, abuses and misuses, humiliations, embarrassments, conflicts, and all that is wrong get buried under the layers of ‘the new’. We forget that the past is like fossil fuel, which with one match-stick, goes on fire and with that goes that artificially created ‘the new’. These are the fears of starting afresh. Right or wrong but it cannot be denied that starting afresh without recognizing and addressing the problematic issues we cannot go far. The stench of yesterday always catches up with the fragrance of tomorrow.

So respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji, no doubt you are one of the few political leaders to have achieved almost universal respect for your integrity but it’s not just about you, it is about the conduct of the institutions you deal with, and you know that what rots needs to be parted with.

I felt for you the day you had to sit with the media and say that you are not corrupt. You don’t have to do this. We know you are not. But you need to open your eyes. Please have the courage to take the responsibility of the wrongs and deal with them. Move from token actions, make amends. Reparation is a forward looking basis when the loss is reparable. When it is as it is now, indemnify, make amends, be good, restitute trust, .... and look forward, take up the past, own the present and the future, start again, start afresh!

There are many other issues on which I would like you to lend an ear, like, the naxal movement and the state violence, development induced displacement, the quota for women in the legislative bodies and public services, education and child labour, violence against women and girl children, and so on. But today, I will be content if you would show some humility to accept your mistakes and limitations related to the issue of corruption.

Are you listening, respectable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji?

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A Matter of Opportunity and Access … ?



Would corruption ever become a thing of museums?
Quite unlikely ...



I believed and though somewhat cynical now, still tend to believe that corruption and women have some distance between them. Women’s rights advocates have often argued that women are trained to be carers and givers and therefore more likely to bring these characteristics to the governance and political systems. Experiences from Panchayati Raj (the local governance system) in India also proved that women have a higher sense of responsibility and care about the community well-being more than their male counterparts. Several case-studies also exist to show that women are less self-oriented and more likely to put community interests before their personal interests. 



My experiences involving women in decision-making positions, however, tell me not to hold binary opinion about women and men vis-à-vis corruption. While it is true that I have found more women than men willing to stick to ethical conduct, which is especially critical for transparent and fair decision-making, women and ethical behaviour are not synonymous. The assumption is that a governance system with gender equality and leadership of women will lead to a reduction in corruption, in my opinion, is farfetched. Whether rural or urban, or lower, middle or upper class, given the opportunity and similar sort of support network, women – not all as not all men – demonstrate similar tendencies and practice of corruption. Corruption among men is more visible, perhaps because they are in majority in most of the institutions, and because they have greater access to decision-making opportunities as well as decision-making networks. Men are also more active in the social networks and at the informal decision-making venues, which are largely male dominant. Some of the women, who I know as having opportunities and access to networks that tolerate or promote corruption, are no different.



Individual confidence, too, I feel, is a factor that influences gender differential in corruption. Women and men are brought up differently. Even when they are taught the same or similar public morality, the social or family’s tolerance of digression is gendered. That is, societies and families are more tolerant of corrupt men than corrupt women. This guides the girl-child/women’s level of confidence with regard to being a wrong-doer. I believe that with equalization of responses towards corrupt women or men, there’s likely to be equalization of dishonest or opportunistic behaviour.



Yet another factor is that women, by virtue of being the sex that gives birth, have unique needs and responsibilities. This reality makes them prioritize certain collective needs, like health services, education, water and sanitation, safety and security, community recreation, etc. When women get into positions where they can make a decision on the public spending or can influence the decision-making, they tend to prioritize services or actions which have a positive impact on social services and poverty alleviation. This minimizes spending on schemes/projects created, by and large, with an eye to embezzle public funds.



Most women do not have an easy career compared to their male counter-parts. In a male dominant organization, often they have to work much harder to be at the same level as men and often at a lower remuneration. Women, therefore, are more likely to be careful about their conduct no matter what their attitudes are.



In view of the above, it can be said that affirmative action policies to promote gender equality and to increase women’s representation and decision-making in politics, governance, economy and so on, in the short run, are likely to reduce corruption. It would be unwise to argue for affirmative action designed to increase the role and participation of women, and for gender equality on grounds of public morality and individual integrity. More women than men are mindful of their public behaviour practice today but to rely on innate goodness of women will be equal to setting ourselves to fail. The arguments and struggle for increased representation and enhanced participation of women should be made from a rights and equality perspective. It will be wise to strengthen transparency in public/institutional decision-making, and accountability and oversight mechanisms with a belief that increased equality in opportunities, confidence, gender role changes, and access to vested interest networks, women are as likely to be corrupt as men.

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The Institutional Vice

"Do you know corruption?"

Corruption is not new to institutions – national, regional or international – and as the daily exposé in the media reveal, its arms and legs are stretched over the public, private and non-profit/government (NGO) sectors. In recent times, there has been a progressive increase of complaints and also of the redress mechanisms to deal with the complaints. There is a lot more public noise as well as organized actions by the NGOs. On the whole, it seems that there has been an increase in the number of the NGOs which are engaged in anti-corruption activism. I am not quite sure that there is a proportionate increase in the number of activists who challenge corruption in non-institutionalized manner, and mobilize and organize their communities to oppose corruption. We also have a large number of reports and publications from the NGOs which give their success stories towards ending corruption. However, most such stories centre around the number of anti-corruption policy frameworks and laws enacted and the number of institutions or mechanisms set up to take action against corruption. These stories may send a positive message and give hope that those engaging in corruption will be identified, prosecuted and held accountable; but there isn’t much to suggest that there is a reduction in the prevalence of corruption. So despite the noise, it is hard to claim that corruption is less prevalent now than it was, say, a decade back.



"Hmmm ... let's say that it is not an alien"

 This noise, however, has contributed to enhanced sophistication in corruption. In other words, corruption has become subtle and so increasingly becoming more difficult to nail down. This growing subtlety also makes it hard to see corruption as corruption and opens debates about what constitutes corruption.

The institutions created to ensure the implementation of the universal norms and laws or to be guided by the normative international instruments to safeguard rights, protect the vulnerable and hold the duty-bearers accountable are one of those who often indulge in what I am referring as subtle forms of corruption. Take for example hiring of personnel, there are several forms of ‘influentionary’ strategies to keep nepotism alive and healthy in such institutions, like, lobbying with colleagues to hire a consultant pre-chosen so the colleagues involved in the procurement process are influenced; deliberately picking up weaker curriculum vitae compared to the candidate who is pre-chosen; cooking up papers to show that the due process is being undertaken; creating and tailoring the job to pre-chosen person or getting the pre-chosen contractor to write the terms of reference; sidelining those who raise objections so that they don’t even get to know what’s going on till the process is over and the pre-chosen person in position and if they become too troublesome just allow their contract to lapse silently; getting a friendly panel in an interview that would oblige; hiring persons from politically influential families or those from the public institutions for assignments or jobs that is supposed to be ensuring public accountability and thereby giving the pro-establishment elements undue input into the running of the institution, and so on. One of the side effects of this practice is poor quality human resources, which increases the amount of work to be done by those few who do not have patrons in the institution.

"Let's get our own kind to do it."

Then there are some other ways of influencing a decision regarding a project/programme which cannot be taken directly unless the institutional check-points clear or approve the process. In such instances, those who have a say in or have a way to influence the institutional check-points, use the check-points to slow-down or halt the clearance or approval and simultaneously accuse the manager of non-delivery till the manager agrees to do it the way the higher-ups or those with vested interest want it done. In a bureaucratic set up with several layers between the manager or the unit that wants the work to start and the institutional check-point, which can give the clearance, this is all the more easily done because the case cannot be presented directly for approval rather has to be presented by one of the layers. If the layer responsible for presenting a case has a vested interest, which can be served by either delaying or killing the project/programme, the presentation before the institutional check-point is such that the project/programme will never get clearance/approval.

"We can make monkey business possible."

With another twist, this strategy is used to get rid of the ‘non-compliant’ or troublesome managers who cannot see why the contract must be awarded to ‘so and so’ and/or fail to hire the pre-chosen. The harassment through the process and delays usually see the troublesome manager bidding farewell soon because this type of allegation of corruption is near impossible to corroborate, after all, each layer has a right to demand information and review the process till it is satisfied. If this happens repeatedly, the manager has to go on abandoning projects/programmes requiring clearance/approvals and leave not because the work doesn't have merit, but because the manager cannot afford to be left without work to deliver and eventually be accused of poor performance.

"Party-time?"

Then there are strategies which can be called ‘create an emergency situation and get away’. This strategy creates a scenario of poor capacity and lack of understanding of the institutional rules and regulations in which planning and reporting and in general compliance is not possible. In the public or multilateral institutions, usually, there is a lot of sympathy for poor capacity/understanding. In these institutions, poor performance is never an individual’s performance issue because no amount of capacity building or the opportunities to learn at work are ever regarded as adequate to improve capacity. In an environment of the so-called poor capacity and understanding, every work/project/programme comes up suddenly and requires rushed approval without proper review. If the rushed approval is denied, it would lead to non-delivery, and of course, annoy the stakeholders. The higher ups are usually complicit in operationalization of this strategy; often by applying pressure to managers to approve in a fast-track mode. Even when they are not, like any good management concerned about the public relations, they would not have either non-delivery because they need to show utilization of the resources or annoyed stakeholders because they need the goodwill of the stakeholders either for the institution or themselves.

"Nah, let's just swim as long as we can."

Add one more twist to this strategy called ‘create an emergency situation and get away’. This twist involves deliberate persistent under/ill-staffing or keeping only the non-performers in the job and persistent complaints about under-staffing, which creates an environment in which temporary but expensive contracts must be given out to manage assignments in an emergency mode. In such situations, higher ups usually respond with what can be thought as a positive and supportive gesture to waive off the due process of hiring, but how supportive are such gestures and to whom are matters to be debated. One of the justifications for the prevalence of such states of affair is on grounds of the long time required for getting the positions approved or the lack of the predicable fund. Judging from the amount of time spent in numerous procurements and the total sum of money that is paid out in consultancies, the logic of either time or fiscal prudence does not stand much ground. A sound audit or cost benefit analysis can easily show that reducing staffing below a particular level actually costs the institution more due to the number of consultants that need to be hired and the overtime pay that need to be paid to inefficient staff who cannot deliver in the time that it should take to deliver a particular job.

"Smart!"

Subtle or not, corruption affects utilization of the public funds by keeping the inefficient and scaring off the serious workers, causing marginalization of the politically un-influential from jobs in such institutions, curtailing benefits that could have been realized if resources were to be used appropriately and efficiently, increasing the transaction costs, slippage of resources through payments to unnecessary or inflated consultancies, undermining mission and vision of the institution and weakening management of the institution.

 There is no one society, community, race or country that is more corrupt than the other. I see this as a universal practice that thrives in an environment of weak governance, tolerance for non-performance and culture of patronage.

"You said it, and so well!"

There is no ready-made method to check corruption. Unless violations are identified actively, violators penalized publically, and the layers which hardly have any value addition to make to a process, removed, nothing much will come out of the increasing number of mechanisms to check corruption. Regular and frequent public audits and institutional transparency can go a long way in enforcing accountability. The extent to which structural and practice changes in the institutions can be made to minimize the room for corruption depends on the mobilization of wider political powers, civil society and individual activists at the national and international levels. Corruption is not an evil that will ever disappear for good because it sits in the human mind so it is essential that the strategies to check it are also dynamic, and context and time specific.

Artwork Courtesy: GTalk

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