Promoting Democratic Governance In The Middle East

Anti-Corruption

Anti-Corruption Efforts in Yemen

Corruption is recognized in Yemen by the public and government, but it is not dealt with. Weak Institutions whether from the government to the Civil Society have lacked the capacity to deliver any progress on this issue. The petty form of corruption was dealt with as a result of new cultural practices and values in the community. It will be very difficult to achieve the same change with big institutions that do not have any incentive to change.

Establishing parallel government systems for the sake of channelling development aid money has became a useful trend to the donors. Although effective and delivers end objectives, it is not sustainable and it doesn’t help in terms of building or strengthening government’s institutions. This trend was also most diplomatic; it was difficult for the donors to address the issue of corruption directly as they did not know how would this impact their relationship with the government.

In an environment like Yemen, where security prevails among the Yemeni people (to some extent), and feelings of hostility towards foreigners fluctuates according to International pressure, it has been difficult for the donor community to establish a good understanding of the Yemeni context based on their own experience in their programmes, this is simply because they haven’t been long enough to establish this experience, relied on someone else to convey it and because of the lack of development commitment to influence in this field. Most of the literature that tackles corruption and governance is based around the perception of corruption from experiences that may not be programme related. There was little literature on failed programmes, learning from previous mistakes and most importantly, any political literature review around this topic has been focused on broad theories rather than actual evidence.

Major policy documents such as PRSP or the National Development Planning for Poverty Reduction do not prioritise governance nor do they mention corruption. Civil society has a low voice in challenging governance issues as well; most CSOs do not have the capacity or the tools to address this issue. Donor interest in approaching this agenda has been careful; it has been low and unfocused due to its political diplomatic impacts and the limited number of donors who can make a pressure or an influence in this field. The demand from the bottom has not been heard and consequently governance and corruption issues remained unchallenged.

Major impediments to reform

• The governance issues strike the core of all corruption activities. Judicial reform and decentralisation programme is moving at a slow pace
• A fragmented identity and diverse political interest interested in short term gains or solutions. The public are also not keen on engaging in any form of participation to practice their rights and hold the government accountable because there is no solid political unified voice addressing this issue.
• Expectations that poverty reduction strategies should tackle all required reforms in the short term. Reforms and policies should be prioritised and sequenced in line with hand in hand with capacity;
• A country like Yemen with a small wealth of oil and natural resources should apply its resources in economic growth and social development for poverty planning. Increasing transparency and knowledge of revenues will empower citizens and institutions to hold governments to account, thus, mismanagement or diversion of funds away from sustainable development purposes will become more difficult. It should also benefit developing and transition economies by improving the business environment, helping them to attract foreign direct investment. Responsible companies stand to benefit from a more level playing field and a more predictable business environment.
• Low civil society participation and public debates
• There is also an absence of a long term vision on how to address this issue, a low impact of Media and the absence of a communication strategy agenda-

International Cooperation:

Broad definitions of what to do continue to be mainstreamed among the donors, these do not go hand in hand with citizens’ requirements or government’s interest, as they are not present on the table in these sorts of discussions. Civil Society in Yemen has a traditional role in delivering humanitarian services rather than policy influencing and dialogue. There is a huge dilemma that faces the donor community regarding corruption and governance issues, one of them is the lack of capacity that the donors have in confronting this issue, the mere fact that dealing with corruption needs programme specialists in governance, public financial accountability, civil service reform specialists, capacity building specialists and a broad range of actors that are not present to advice on development issues in this sector makes it an extreme challenge.

One important aspect that needs to be considered, is the prioritization issue, corruption has not been broken down to segments that can be dealt with, it has always stood as a big problem that we need to work around rather than break down, analyze and treat. Donors will need to pay close attention to considerations of minimal conditions of governance, which can be influential enough to allow for political, and development reform.

So far, UNDP and the Dutch Embassy seem to be the major experienced donor institutions in this area, UNDP has played a vital role that has always been of a low profile, the key programmes are yet soon to harvest, they are focused on judicial reforms, decentralization and local development as well as strengthening national capacity in human rights. There is no evidence of prioritization of these programmes nor their relevance in tackling corruption, there was also a little of an opportunity for other donors to participate in the process of these projects, either by design or consultation.

It is clear that donors do not have the capacity to assess major issues when it comes to the Anti Corruption agenda, working towards establishing effective accountability mechanisms with the government is a big political issue which is not easy to tackle. There is a long menu of what needs to be done in Yemen to deal with corruption but there are no tools to explore what specifically needs to be done. The Government of Yemen does not have the incentives to undergo these reforms for a number of reasons (they are usually harvested on the long term, they need immediate solutions, they deal with far too many complicated problems with tribes, etc), the donors do not have the long term political or development commitment to tackle these issues either.

Donors try to ensure that their aid allocation is not going to individual pockets. This has been fairly easy to achieve and monitor. However, they fail to take any interaction in terms of dealing with empowering government financial institutions to increase accountability, thus, parallel systems have always been produced as the perfect solution to tackling this problem.

While Yemen has participated in international conferences on the topic of fighting corruption, there has not yet been any special government focus on the elimination of widespread corruption. Serious programmes tackling the grand form of corruption have been missing. The parliament has taken up this agenda but it was more of a hit and miss approach based on press or reporters investigation. There hasn’t been a major campaign that targeted or challenged unreasonable expenditures or practices executed by the government.

Major policy documents such as PRSP or the National Development Planning for Poverty Reduction do not prioritise governance nor do they mention corruption. Civil society has a low voice in challenging corruption as well; most CSOs do not have the capacity or the tools to address this issue. Donor interest in approaching this agenda has been careful, it has been low and unfocused due to its political diplomatic impacts and the limited number of donors who can make a pressure or an influence in this field. The demand from the bottom has not been heard and consequently things remained quiet.

Visions for change

Major impediments What can be done

• Unaccounted oil revenues Encouraging the government to be engaged in the EITI agenda (Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative) This will assess whether the government is serious about its plans in promoting accountability and transparency or not.
• Low level of participation from non government actors • Enhancing domestic accountability and building capacity of non state actors to hold government into account
• Governments demands can be very different than citizens demands, voices of the poor is the main document we should embark from
• Lack of appropriate government monitoring systems coupled with governance problems. Improved donors support to build capacity of national systems. Capacity development mainstreamed within the PRS process.
• Weak rule of law Engaging in Judicial reform
• Lack of Information and appropriate systems Strategic role of communication
• Lack of communication Engaging in an effective communication strategy focusing on a bottom up approach
• Weak implementation of PRSP1 due to low government ownership and the low participatory process • Results yet to be seen from the MDG based PRSP 2 coupled with the Millennium project promise for better aid
• Strengthening CSOs and participation from other governments departments
• Ministry of Finance resists demands driven by donors and other government ministries for reform • Engaging MoF in the reform process
• Looking for ways to create? Ownership
• Donors give uncoordinated and prescriptive policy advice, which overloads governments. Cross cutting issues such as governance and corruption are not priorities in PRSPs Harmonisation of donors is crucial- recognising the value of their commitment to serious programmes of governance and reform. Donors need to provide policy dialogue in a fair co-ordinated and selective manner reflecting core principles (MDGs, governance, etc) and new innovative thinking anchored with long term perspective
• Early phases of Decentralisation Help strengthen the process according to the needs of the needs locally without undermining the role of the central ministries

Conclusion:

Yemen is at an early stage concerning in dealing with Governance, Corruption and reform issues. Donors are even at an earlier stage in engaging with these issues as they lack resources, capacity and experience to deal with these issues. No strong political or development commitment has been made to achieve the required reforms.

Donor coordination around such topics will require a serious agenda that needs to be developed by all partners. This agenda needs to be transparent and needs to undergo a process, an assessment of the situation and what needs to be done has to come from the government. If the government has no incentives in doing that, then tackling this issue with the donors present in Yemen is quite crucial before we start jumping to conclusions of political will. Definitions of corruption needs to be agreed, prioritizing the agenda and tacking effective steps in dealing with issues that will strengthen the relationship between the government and people and increase accountability measures.

There are also serious gaps in knowledge about country specific history and political economy that often surround decision making about policy and programmatic interventions, thus choices about what needs to be done has always been poorly targeted on the roots of specific problems. Donors also face a language barrier that they can not get around, and there is little investment in regional experiences and bringing Arab expertise from the region to advice on these issues.