The state is impersonal; an Argentinean only understands personalistic relationships. That is why, for him, stealing pubic funds is not a crime,” said Jorge Luis Borges, in an attempt to explain why, in Argentina, corruption is the coin of the realm. If we add to this expressions that promote cronyism, such as that used by…
FPIN member Roberto Laver's "How might faith-based actors play a role in changing values and norms of corruption?" originally published on the Corruption and Fragile States Blog of the Fletcher School on March 29, 2021 Having grown up in Argentina, with its consistently high levels of societal corruption, I am quite familiar with the significant…
Corruption, as an expression of profound injustice, should matter to believers, in relation to our own behaviour and witness and to the social order in which we live. The COVID pandemic crisis is a wake-up call for the church, its leaders and all followers of Jesus, that fighting corruption is central to our integral mission. Corruption matters to God immensely. We need to pay attention to corruption now more than ever.
When I joined the World Bank (the Bank) in 1989, corruption was a taboo subject. For its own lending operations, the Bank had legal safeguards against the misuse of funds. But corruption was not openly recognized or addressed as a major obstacle to development and poverty reduction. This attitude generally characterized other international development agencies…
