Dani Kaufmann, the mastermind behind the World Bank’s governance indicators and so many other anti-corruption and good governance things, is leaving the World Bank after several decades there to take up a new position at Brookings.
He shared his thoughts on leaving the Bank and the anti-corruption climate in an e-mail sent out colleagues and partners, which is now available on his own blog.
In all, the tone of the letter suggest some frustration (quite justified if you ask many experts in the field) over the lack of real action on the anti-corruption front today. As he puts it:
In many respects, the governance and anticorruption field, and movement, are in a silent crisis nowadays, due to reasons I will expand on elsewhere. Overall, there has been a lack of resolve by many governments and institutions to focus on what really matters, while wasting efforts on sideshows. By contrast, amidst the current crisis it is commendable the way some citizens, smaller indigenous NGOs, and a few leaders are involved in innovative and courageous initiatives in some countries.
Kaufmann generated a lot of knowledge while at the Bank. One of my favorite papers was the one he did on state capture. The whole idea of state capture was not widely recognized as a form of corruption at the time in the academic community and to this day it does not get the attention it deserves.
Another is his piece published in Foreign Affairs in the mid-1990s, when the World Bank just began taking on the anti-corruption issue after decades of side-stepping the issue.
I’m eager to see what new anti-corruption initiative he will launch at Brookings!
Published Date: December 05, 2008