Global Integrity
This entry has been selected as a winner in the
Ending Corruption: Honesty Instituted competition.
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Focus of activity
Institutional Development
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1999
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Lack of Accountability & Transparency
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Reward & Create Honest Leaders & Institutions
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Name Your Project
Describe Your Idea
Description of initiative
Corruption is a cancer. It cannot be cured. It can, however, be successfully contained and treated through good governance. Global Integrity monitors the systems that prevent, deter, and curb corruption. The international anti-corruption community requires objective, trustworthy metrics to improve anti-corruption interventions and advocacy efforts. Global Integrity meets that need by assessing the laws, institutions, and mechanisms designed to promote accountability and curb corruption in any country. Using local in-country journalists and academic researchers, Global Integrity produces a detailed scorecard of anti-corruption systems in nations worldwide, providing an actionable roadmap for reform. We do not attempt to measure “corruption,” which because of its criminal nature is effectively impossible. Global Integrity assesses the existence and effectiveness of key governance institutions. We explore the gap between what is promised in law (de jure) and what is delivered in practice (de facto). Our in-country teams of experts transparently score a set of 290 international best practices (the Integrity Indicators) which determine how well nations adopt and enforce anti-corruption mechanisms. Each indicator score is anchored to unique scoring criteria; backed by expert local commentary, references, and critical peer-review perspectives; and published on our Web site. These data are used to generate the annual Global Integrity Index, an accessible rating designed to spark internal dialogue and debate. Alongside this quantitative data sits a deliberately qualitative “Reporter’s Notebook” which describes, from a local journalist’s perspective, how the average citizen experiences corruption in day-to-day life. This information is a powerful catalyst. Utilized routinely by aid agencies, local activists, journalists and academics, these assessments provide a clear roadmap for improving the institutions and mechanisms that fight corruption.
Innovation
Global Integrity is unique for at least two distinct reasons: 1) we objectively quantify the existence and implementation of anti-corruption mechanisms and institutions, and 2) we collaborate with in-country teams to apply a consistent methodology across an ever-growing range of countries. Existing corruption perception indices rely on aggregating third-party public opinion surveys, often opinions of foreign businessmen and businesswomen working in the country. These survey-based tools are a useful measure of the "output" of national anti-corruption efforts, reflecting how much a population trusts its government and perceives the level of corruption to be. Global Integrity however, examines the "inputs" to that same system: the national anti-corruption framework provided by the laws and institutions designed to fight corruption. The relationship between such governance "inputs" and "outputs" is a complex one. For instance, improving government transparency or media freedom may in practice reveal increasing numbers of scandals, potentially lowering public trust in government, even though the anti-corruption mechanisms themselves are improved. We believe that understanding those "inputs" is essential because they can provide a specific action plan for reform. Governments cannot easily affect the “outputs” – what people perceive the corruption environment to be. But Global Integrity's peer-reviewed expert assessments provide a huge volume of information that can pinpoint specific, actionable points of intervention down to individual institutions, laws and their enforcement. Global Integrity gathers this information from the field through an innovative Web-based collaboration system, successfully deployed in some of the poorest countries in the world. This customized system is redefining the limits of technology in development work and is being replicated by other NGOs in the field.
Delivery Model
Our outreach and dissemination strategy is two-fold: increase public awareness and use of our data through media coverage; and promote increased use of our information by policymakers, including donors, grassroots advocates and reform-minded government officials. Global Integrity publishes via its website (www.globalintegrity.org ). Our research is actively promoted through press conferences, media reports and participation in workshops and conferences around the world. This network-distribution model ensures that in-country experts contributing to Global Integrity Reports themselves become promoters of the research findings. Our work serves as source material to journalists seeking to contextualize reports on corruption and governance, and Global Integrity aggressively cultivates media partners. We also publish print materials, such as The Corruption Notebooks, a paperback companion to the Global Integrity Report. Impact is measured in Web traffic, media citations, and event attendance. Web traffic is used to evaluate the need for individual research areas by comparing specific page loads and length of visits. Media citations are tracked with news alerts and cataloged in a database. To date, Global Integrity research has been cited by 78 newspapers worldwide, as well as numerous wire services, magazines, Internet and broadcast outlets. On the policy side, we conduct roundtable briefings with key stakeholders and policymakers around the world. As an example of this, following our January 2007 release, Global Integrity presented our findings to the World Bank, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the European Commission, a variety of think tanks, and multilateral anti-corruption meetings in Africa and Europe, among others.
Key Operational Partnerships
Partnership is a key element of Global Integrity's success, though we value our status as independent observers. Global Integrity builds networks of individual reporters and journalists, many of whom are well connected to local non-governmental organizations fighting corruption and are able to promote and properly contextualize our results. Our work informs these local anti-corruption efforts, but as an honest broker of information and as an organization that does not engage in advocacy, Global Integrity is not connected to any particular anti-corruption campaign. Instead, our goal is to help fill the information gap for both advocates and governments in order to facilitate honest, fact-based debate. We maintain a number of essential partnerships with dozens of like-minded international NGOs who informally assist in recruiting additional in-country experts each year through their own respective networks. We could not accomplish our work without their assistance and support.
Financial Model
Global Integrity Country Reports are published freely on the Internet and in paper versions. All scores, journalistic reporting, and peer review commentary are available to the public.
What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent?
2
How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute?
Global Integrity is financed by aid agencies, private foundations and individual donors with an interest in promoting good governance worldwide. Our 2006 funders included Legatum Global Development, the Sunrise Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the World Bank. Currently, such donors represent close to 100% of all revenue taken in. Our support from actors such as the World Bank, however, is very much an “investment” in that the Bank (and other donor agencies) are primary “consumers” of our data and thus view their support for Global Integrity’s fieldwork as an investment more than simple charity. Our diversity of funding sources is vital to maintaining our integrity as an independent NGO.
Effectiveness
Global Integrity has been widely embraced by governments, civil society groups, private sector actors, and journalists concerned about governance and corruption issues. For example, Global Integrity country assessments play an important role in shaping the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessments (CPIA). These internal World Bank staff assessments significantly influence the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) loan allocations. Eighty-one countries are currently eligible to borrow from IDA; those countries are home to 2.5 billion people. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. Government corporation which allocates aid based on a country's commitment to governance, has drawn heavily upon Global Integrity data and assessments. Global Integrity's assessments have also proven critical in the design of MCC's Threshold Programs, which support policy reform in developing countries, particularly in anti-corruption programs. Civil society groups at the grassroots level also appreciate the scope and breadth of our work and the leverage it provides them when advocating for reform. G. Jasper Cummeh, program director for the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), observes that, "The depth of Global Integrity's work emboldens CENTAL and other civil society groups to confront our government with compelling evidence on the need for governance reform. Global Integrity's work is a clarion call for urgent action."
Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
Global Integrity is best-known for its Integrity Scorecards (the core data that comprises each country’s quantitative assessment and accompanying commentary). A variety of unique actors – including emerging markets investors, journalists, and grassroots civil society groups – have all gravitated towards those scorecards as an unbiased, consistent source of in-depth country diagnostics on anti-corruption and governance mechanisms.
Number of clients in the last year?
Our Web traffic averages 300,000 hits per month, with several thousand unique users. With respect to outreach to the policy community, in just the past 12 months Global Integrity’s work has been presented at the following forums: • Millennium Challenge Corporation, Washington, USA • World Bank, Washington, USA • EU Conference on Combating Corruption, Lisbon, Portugal • DAI/Carnegie Endowment for International Peace workshop, Washington, USA • World Ethics Forum, Oxford, UK • Global Integrity Alliance, Washington, USA • International Anti-Corruption Conference, Guatemala City, Guatemela • Center for Global Development, Washington, USA • U.N. Conference on the U.N. Convention Against Corruption, Courmeyer, Italy • Africa Forum on Fighting Corruption, Johannesburg, South Africa • Community of Democracies Seminar, Bamako, Mali • Improving Governance and Fighting Corruption:New Frontiers in Public-Private Partnerships, Brussels, Belgium • Global Forum V On Fighting Corruption, Johannesburg, South Africa
What is the potential demand?
The need for Global Integrity’s work is obvious: corruption is one of the key driving dynamics of development in the 21st century. Yet no one is systematically tracking the one issue that everyone agrees has become one of the preeminent challenges facing the global community. While several organizations rank countries in their own specific areas of interest (e.g. Transparency International, Freedom House, the World Bank Institute), all fall short of what Global Integrity offers. First, the no other group has the Integrity Indicators, our detailed, quantifiable scorecard of openness and government accountability. Most rely on third-party surveys based on “perceptions” of corruption, whereas Global Integrity generates empirical research via its network of on-the-ground experts to assess quantifiable facts and practices. Second, no other organization produces the volume of original reporting and analysis that Global Integrity does. Other organizations utilize composite indices – i.e. “poll of polls” – to try and compare disparate countries. We have on-the-ground reporters and analysts who produce original content using identical methodologies. Third, and most importantly, our data quickly detects changes over time, providing an incentive to reform-minded stakeholders. One of the problems with existing perception-based tools is that on-the-ground reforms are rarely reflected in new surveys because of the delay between change in governance and the change in public perceptions. During the past decade, many governments have become disillusioned with existing perception polls, citing the flawed methodology as an excuse to brush aside accusations of corruption. Global Integrity’s data, on the other hand, shows progress (and backsliding) in real time, year-to-year. Global Integrity data creates incentives to strengthen and advance the reform process while simultaneously undercutting specious arguments against reform.
Scaling up Strategy
Our priorities for the next three years include: • Scaling up the number of countries covered. In 2006 we covered 43 countries; in 2007 we expect to cover 55; ideally we would like to cover the entire world on a bi-annual basis (80 countries a year on a two-year rotation). • Applying our approach of using in-country expert teams with a consistent scoring methodology to specific sectors in countries, as well as at the local level. With the continued push to decentralize and push governance down to the local level, credible data and metrics and the local level, as well as for specific key sectors (procurement, taxes, judiciary, etc) will become even more crucial. Today, hardly any comprehensive, regularly updated data exists in this space for the vast majority of countries in the world.
Stage of the initiative
1
Expansion plan
Global Integrity plans to publish Global Integrity Country Reports in nearly every country within three years, while developing new local and sector assessment tools. In 2001 Global Integrity tested its methodology in three countries; a more robust field test covering 25 countries was carried out in 2004 and published (the 2004 Global Integrity Report); and in 2006 we covered 43 countries. With the Global Integrity Report becoming an annual exercise in 2006, we plan to expand the number of countries covered year by year until we reach global coverage, at least on a bi-annual basis (perhaps 80 countries a year on a two-year rotation), resources permitting. In 2007 we expect to cover 55 countries and also launch pilot, experimental projects on quantitatively assessing governance at the local level, as well as in some specific sectors, per the above description (“Scaling Up Strategy”).
Origin of the Initiative
Global Integrity began as a project of the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), an international investigative journalism group founded by veteran journalist Charles Lewis. At the time, aid agencies were suggesting a grand bargain: “more aid for improved governance.” Yet there was little information on corruption and governance produced by an entity without partisan, ideological, or financial agendas. Global Integrity was created to fill that void. Beginning in 1999, Lewis worked with Nathaniel Heller, a CPI research fellow, and Marianne Camerer, a South African academic and anti-corruption expert, to create the first Integrity Indicators, designed to provide context to corruption scandals which appear spontaneous, yet are rooted in failures of the governance framework. Global Integrity incorporated as an independent NGO in September 2005.
Issue Selector
Main Obstacles to Scaling Up
Expansion is happening rapidly. Our key challenges are: 1) Effectively communicating the depth and variety of information produced by our researchs and journalists. 2) Managing a rapidly expanding network of people spread across the world, often in poor and remote regions.
Main Financial Challenges
Because our research model is modular, we can scale in a direct relationship to our funding, allowing flexiblity. Core infrastructure is extremely lean, with nearly all funding spent on the ground with research teams, or with contractors providing services. However, there are risks: 1) Due to our annual funding cycle, a delay in funding could threaten research and production schedules. 2) We cannot become dependent on a few major donors, as this could threaten our independence and credibility.
Main Partnership Challenges
Partnerships must be handled in a way that protects our credibility as independent information providers. We generally engage with local in-country researchers and journalists as individuals, rather than through the organizations they represent. However, informal partnerships with other international groups has been a key enabler to our expansion.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
We heard about the contest from another entrant. Our objectives are to increase the exposure of the organization with Ashoka site users, and to benefit from the insights provided by the community critiques of our work.
 | Anonymous said: Corruption relies upon 3 common ingredients Lack of knowledge of its existence Superior Power, influence and collective ... about this idea. - 813 days ago read more > |
| Jeremy Edwards said: Having grown up in Africa, I've seen the terrible impact of corruption on those simply trying to earn a living. Traffic fines become ... about this idea. - 870 days ago read more > |
| Jonathan Werve said: I would like to thank everyone who voted in the Changemakers anti-corruption competition. It is an honor to be chosen as a winner, ... about this idea. - 870 days ago read more > |
 | Global Integrity has been chosen as a winner in Ending Corruption: Honesty Instituted. - 871 days ago |
 | Global Integrity has been chosen as a finalist in Ending Corruption: Honesty Instituted. - 886 days ago |
| Richard Gottbreht said: Hello, My name is Rich Gottbreht from Global Insights and I am one of the entrants in the competition. Our work centers on helping ... about this idea. - 900 days ago read more > |
| Jonathan Werve said: Thanks for your note! We are cited frequently by journalists seeking to provide context to corruption scandals that break. Our reports ... about this idea. - 907 days ago read more > |
| Dave Sanders said: I've heard great things about Global Integrity through word-of-mouth from various local workers in Africa. I work in rural Congo so am ... about this idea. - 918 days ago read more > |
| Jonathan Werve said: Patrick, Thank you for your attention to our proposal. I'm happy to provide additional information and address two of your concerns ... about this idea. - 929 days ago read more > |
| Patrick Meagher said: Lots of rhetoric in this proposal, but not much objective evidence of impact, not enough information on methodology, and not sufficient ... about this idea. - 938 days ago read more > |