Good Governance + Anti-Corruption

When fraud, waste, or abuse is identified, and addressing it is prioritized, our tools help people identify legislative, systemic, and programmatic reforms that are suitable for ending (or at least curtailing) the fraud, waste, or abuse by going to its causes.

We reduce the likelihood of wasted resources by clarifying objectives, ensuring that a proposed solution is logically fit for purpose and locally suitable, and devising monitoring systems to reveal the degree to which the policy, program, or law is working as expected.

We design systems for law assessment and reform where performance or outcomes expectations are not realized.

Our good governance + anti-corruption programs address key areas:

Improving Performance Monitoring: We have experience developing quality and process standards (for use in institutional assessment and performance audits); training law and program developers to clarify roles, responsibilities, indicators and targets; and developing relevant and socio-politically viable monitoring and evaluation systems. We approach performance monitoring from an institutional assessment, intervention design, and systems reform perspective. We have experience backstopping field staff, conducting mid-term reviews, and recommending programmatic adaptations for the purpose of improving institutional and programmatic performance.

Developing Anti-Corruption Initiatives Across Sectors: When working to address a specific substantive problem, we take steps to increase the likelihood that the given project or program will be implemented without fraud, waste, or abuse. Sector-wide anti-corruption initiatives in past programs have included laws-on-laws, procurement laws, and administrative procedure laws.

Basic Legislation Drafting Techniques to Combat Corruption: Our drafting course teaches participants to (1) clarify who shall/may/shall not do what under the law, and (2) legislatively establish a monitoring and evaluation system to gather and act upon information revealing implementation failures, resource wastage, and abuse of power.

Advanced Legislation Drafting Strategies to Combat Corruption: We have taught techniques for drafting defensively to combat corruption online and in workshops around the world. We have also included legislative assessment checklists to identify the likelihood that corruption would occur pursuant to a given bill in our manuals and training materials. We have supervised, and substantially contributed to, the drafting of anti-corruption laws, procedures to make biased implementation less likely, and hiring criteria to reduce nepotism and cronyism.

Strengthening Cooperation by Structuring Input Processes: We have strengthened the ability of civil society to meaningfully contribute to national and local decision-making processes by training civil servants and parliamentary staff members to restructure input and consultative processes around the Participatory Problem Solving approach. Past program participants have indicated that sharing what decision-makers think they know about the problem, need to know in order to solve it, and are currently considering doing to address the causes of the problem has resulted in more efficient and constructive input processes. We also offer courses to help members of civil society prepare to constructively participate in input and consultation processes. Focusing on a concrete problem to solve and offering a simple and effective process for identifying implementable solutions has proven successful in helping participants from civil society and the government hear one another’s concerns and acknowledge their legitimacy.

Establishing Monitoring + Evaluation Systems Legislatively: Often the design of monitoring and evaluation systems is carried out after a law is already in implementation. Legis assists lawmakers and civil society groups in thinking proactively about the design of monitoring and evaluation indicators and processes as part of the legislation design and drafting process.

Incentivizing Legitimate Alternatives to Corruption: Legislative gaps can cause corruption. One law required that livestock receive vaccinations before they could be exported, but did not establish a legal system for vaccinating livestock. Since there was no system for vaccinating livestock and proving their vaccination status, there was no longer a legal way to export livestock. As a result, exporters paid customs agents to allow them to smuggle their livestock across the border. In accord with Legis programs, a civil society stakeholder set up a vaccination service and worked with the government to authorize the service’s notices of vaccination accepted for export purposes. Now people could comply with the law and export livestock legally, rather than paying bribes to customs agents, and our colleague was respected for launching a legitimate, profitable business. Publicizing implementation gaps and service inequities increases the number of people who can devise ways to solve the problem.

Enhancing Government Capacity to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): The SDGs outline a series of broadly defined problems and aspirational objectives. Our services, courses, implementation tools, and programs help people define the form of the identified problem they encounter, identify whose and what behaviors need to change in order to solve the problem, explain why those problematic behaviors are occurring, and devise a solution that addresses the causes of the problematic behaviors. The approach is simple, and it works. This strategy is useful in achieving the SDGs, or for realizing constitutionally protected human rights, or for developing locally-suitable strategies for meeting national performance standards (within countries with diverse sub-national jurisdictions).