Building a social movement against corruption in the WASH sector

Dr Iftekhar Zaman, Executive Director of Transparency International, Bangladesh, had been due to make the keynote address at the IRC 2010 Symposium Pumps Pipes and Promises, in the Hague on 18 November. He was prevented from travelling after breaking his leg in an accident.

In the paper he prepared for the symposium, Dr Zaman paid tribute to the success of Bangladesh in two decades of steady economic growth which saw a substantial increase in its Human Development Index rating, poverty levels that have declined by a third and child mortality down by more than a third.  But he wrote that so much more should have been possible. “It can hardly be disputed that Bangladesh’s performance could have been much better if not for the pervasive corruption and persistent deficit in promoting good governance.”

Dr Zaman described the water sector as “plagued by corruption and failures of integrity” including bribery, abuse of power, negligence of duty, asset stripping, extortion, fraud and misusing influence.

Kathy Shordt, from the Water Integrity Network (WIN), spoke on his behalf and paid tribute to the 3,000 volunteers who have been mobilised in Bangladesh to improve transparency, working through ‘Concerned Citizens Committees’.  They are working in circumstances where for example one in four children have to pay to enter primary school, even though primary education is supposed to be free, and where bribes often have to be paid to get basic services.

However Kathy Shordt pointed out corruption is high on the public agenda in Bangladesh, a major issue in the media and one that is addressed by every politician hoping to get elected. She contrasted this with the situation in Holland and the rest of Western Europe, where there is complacency about corruption and it is hardly mentioned in the public discourse.

Kathy Shordt proposed that the WASH sector consider creating a strong social movement and to apply existing tools that measure corruption in other sectors.

“The bottom line is that we must all come to detest corruption – that is the key element in combatting it. The striking thing about Bangladesh is the extent to which corruption affects the daily lives of common people. I think we all know that a demand from the people must be loudly and consistently voiced and sustained.”

During the open forum, some challenges to including corruption as an agenda item in WASH discourse and its activities were identified as:

• the pervasiveness of corruption in today's society;
• the role of norms and practices in contributing to (or strengthening) corruption; and
• 'corruption' as a sensitive subject that may limit opportunities for partnership building.

Despite the very significant challenges all these pose to the sustainable delivery of WASH services, Shordt claims that what may strike the sector as a hopeless situation at this time -- may not be so hopeless tomorrow.

Citing the successful experience of the people's struggles in demanding for policy change in access to information in India -- Shordt demonstrated how a social movement (whether formal or informal) may serve as a viable vehicle for change in society. She outlined how Bangladesh Transparency International has played a key role in bringing a right to information law into existence.  The group has recently begun to work on water issues – seeing its strengths as being its strong network of local activists and the fact that it is independent of sector bodies.

Transparency International Bangladesh has used a number of tools to open up public information and bring people’s concerns to public attention. These include citizen’s report cards, participatory budgeting and tracking and persuading government and education bodies to sign integrity pledges.

These are now being brought into the water sector where the integrity pledge at service delivery level aims “to bring the stakeholders to a social contract to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity so that its service recipients are not harassed or become victims of irregularities or corruption”.

Shordt ended her keynote by challenging the participants of the symposium to develop innovative forms of communication that advocate and signal anti-corruption messages learning from the work of other developmental actors such as UNICEF.

Dr Iftekhar Zaman’s paper – Integrity Pledge: Fight corruption through social accountability – is also available on this page.