Joint Evaluation of Support to Anti-Corruption Efforts 2002-2009

In recent years, donor agencies have increasingly made the fight against corruption part of their larger governance agenda. In many countries, corruption nonetheless remains significant, and internationally there has been strong interest in finding out how support in this area can become more effective. Therefore, in 2008, a group of donor countries and organisations, including Denmark, decided to jointly commission an evaluation of support to efforts aimed at reducing corruption.

The purpose has been to analyse the relevance and effectiveness of the support provided in this area - both that provided for specific anti-corruption efforts and that provided for related efforts in other programs – so as to be able to identify lessons learned regarding what kind of donor support is likely to be effective, and what kinds are likely to be ineffective or even harmful towards national efforts to fight corruption.

In preparation for the evaluation, a pre-study was undertaken, which provided the analytical framework for the evaluation, and a partial mapping of donor support. The actual evaluation was conducted in 2009 and 2010, and covers activities supported over the period 2002-2009 in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Zambia, and Nicaragua. It is based on field visits to all five countries, a review of programme documentation and relevant literature, and interviews with key stakeholders. The main conclusions and recommendations are presented in the synthesis report. However, separate reports with detailed country specific analyses have been prepared for each of the five countries visited.

The evaluation department of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) managed the evaluation, and in addition to Norad and Danida, the commissioning donors were the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Swedish Agency for Development Evaluation (SADEV), the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).