On December 9, 2008, the World Bank Institute and the Public Sector Governance Board of the World Bank hosted a farewell lecture by Daniel Kaufmann, outgoing Director of Global Programs at the World Bank Institute. The lecture was held on the international Anti-Corruption Day. [Please note: for those interested in reading the event’s transcript or viewing slides from Dani Kaufmann’s presentation, please see links below under ‘Related Materials’]
Sanjay Pradhan, Vice President of the World Bank Institute, delivered the opening remarks, introducing Kaufmann and his work at the Bank. He highlighted some of Kaufmann’s most important work, including the Worldwide Governance Indicators, the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Surveys, and other innovative operational research.
Daniel Kaufmann started by acknowledging the work of his colleagues and their role in his achievements at the Bank. He then began his lecture, which outlined his professional journey through the changing times at the Bank and in the greater global context. Kaufmann sketched his evolution from a traditional Ivy League economist to understanding the importance of individual voices and people on the ground, illustrating it with one of his first experiences, working on urban poverty the slums of Cartagena, Colombia. His subsequent experiences working on macro, trade and industry in countries in East Africa, and later as the first Bank chief of mission posted in Kiev, Ukraine taught him about the various manifestations and costs of corruption and poor governance, and made clear to him that development was not only about technocratic economic issues.
Faced with a narrow interpretation of the Bank mandate, which considered corruption an internal political issue, outside the scope of development, he focused on producing new type of surveys, data and analysis for reformers in the country. The importance of learning from experience and listening to citizens and multiple stakeholders, including enterprise managers and civil society leaders was important to him, as it was rigorously codifying the information and reports from so many stakeholders, through diagnostics and related tools. This work should be scaled up.
Next, Kaufmann spoke about how transparency came to be a key issue in his career, highlighting the inception of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), and told the story of how they became a fully disclosed World Bank product. Kaufmann then spoke about the importance of participation and country leadership, with the Bank taking a supportive role instead, and his recognition that anti-corruption and governance reforms are part of an organic internal process. He also outlined the important role of human rights and of politics in creating an enabling environment for economic development, areas he also did some research on.
Then, Kaufmann placed the struggles of the anti-corruption and governance movement, which largely defined his career, in the context of today’s economic crisis. He characterized today’s situation as a ‘twin crisis’, because in addition to the visible financial crisis there is also another global but more silent crisis in the governance and anticorruption drive.
The rhetoric of governance and anti-corruption may have been enhanced, but concrete reforms have lost steam in recent years. The financial sector crisis, he stated, is in fact related to failings in governance, capture and corruption, and makes these issues all the more relevant nowadays, partly because there is a new world reality in terms of the role of government. Finally, and related to the overarching themes he covered throughout his farewell lecture, Kaufmann stated that this crisis creates an opportunity for the international donor community and its key institutions to re-evaluate their business model so to enhance aid effectiveness and abet improved governance around the globe. He emphasized the importance of creating more transparency (at the Bank and around the globe), and spurring an open debate about how to address the pending challenges of governance, state capture, corruption, human rights, and freedom of expression and of the media. He called for concrete action and selectivity.
Randi Ryterman, Acting Director, Public Sector Governance, commented on Kaufmann’s presentation. She spoke about her experience working with Kaufmann and pointed out significant accomplishments in the area, particularly in changes of the Bank’s organizational culture. She stated that that the frontier in dealing with state corruption has to do with capture.
Joel Hellman, Sector Manager, Governance and Public Sector Department, South Asia, was the next commentator. He stated that Kaufmann’s work really changed the rhetoric of development and the way we measure what we know, uncertainty, and the degree to which we are transparent. Sadly, he said, the changes in the reality of development are not the same as the progress made with the rhetoric.
The event concluded with a question and answer session. Audience members asked about Kaufmann’s plans for the future and whether highly corrupt countries should be denied aid, among other questions.
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