“A young mother in a developing country died in childbirth along with her new born baby. The new road which she and her husband chose to travel to hospital had not been completed. In fact, part of it did not even exist, due to the corruption of a public official by a UK person. And those who blow the whistle on such practices are often persecuted themselves for having the moral fortitude to stand up against an abuse of power.”

 

To answer the question posed in the title of the post – a little bribe can quite literally mean the difference between life and death, as in the case above.

 

That’s why it’s a real relief, and a great step forward to see officials publicly acknowledging our complicity – through our governments, businesses, and citizens – in allowing bribery (and corruption more broadly) to hurt the world’s poorest people.

 

But, acknowledging the problem is just the first step.

 

If we’re serious about fighting bribery, we need to focus on two other things too – having and enforcing laws that punish those who make and accept bribes, and reducing the demand for bribes in the first place.

 

On the first one of these, the OECD – the international club of rich countries – has set the bar with the Anti-Bribery Convention, a set of rules that 38 countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA have signed up to punish bribery. And, right now in the UK, the government have put forward new Anti-Bribery legislation which will increase the punishment for bribery, along with making it an offence for a company to fail to prevent bribery by its officials or agents.

 

Both of these are good steps forward – but they’re still well short of where we need to be.

 

Ultimately, our ability to fight bribery – and corruption more broadly – is about stopping people from asking for bribes in the first place. It’s something that the discussion at Chatham House (you can watch the whole discussion online) was largely missing today, but for a couple of questions from the audience.

 

That’s where the work of grassroots charities and community groups come in, supporting communities to take control of their own affairs – knowing how much things should cost, who is in charge of making decisions, and ensuring that rules against bribery exist and are known by everyone. It’s about having civil society and a media that says that bribery isn’t ok, and who are willing and able to stand up to people who ask for bribes – like this TV station in Kenya, who caught bribe-taking traffic police on film, and made sure they were punished.

 

 

We have a real ability to fight bribery – and the legislation being considered in the UK is a good step in this direction. But, as we tighten our own laws, we need to make sure that we’re supporting the world’s poor to reduce demand for bribery and corruption too. If you’d like to make a contribution in this area, check out the work of Global Witness and Transparency International, two organisations who are working hard to shine a light on corruption.