Anticorruption reforms- resistance from all levels

Considerable effort and finances involved, yet, little evidence so far for that they have meaningfully contributed to reduction of corruption levels

Arguments to justify deficiencies in assessing anticorruption interventions

measurement of corruption problemlaying the blame with recipient governments focus on long term objectives of anticorruption makes it difficult to expect immediate effects

To highlight the critical role of impact assessment for implementation of effective anticorruption interventions.

Learning from anticorruption interventions has increasingly become instrumental to fighting corruption

Bulgaria entered the EU on 1 January 2007

Critical for its progress is its ability to remedy certain shortcomings in the fight against corruption

Progress monitoring reports of the EU commission so far, have been critical. Corruption in Bulgaria is characterized as “endemic’

July, 2008 EU monitoring report “institutions and procedures look good on paper but do not produce results in practice; recommendations are made but are not followed up “.

Simultaneously, public perceptions of the importance of tackling corruption- record highs

First phase - early to late 1990s centered largely on awareness raising

Second phase - late 1990s to mid 2000 centered on international conventions, institutional reform and capacity building

Third phase- focused technical assistance projects 2004-2008, interventions with the frame of the OPs- as of 2008- institution strengthening, capacity strengthening

Confronted with high perceptions of corruption as a major policy issue, results are referred to as unsatisfactory by all national and international actors.

Persistently managed to remain outside the focus of concern

Little is known about the effects of anticorruption assistance, more important, little has been asked

Beyond accounting for output indicators there is no effort to capture impact effects.

This of itself has left impact on the anticorruption agenda as a whole.

No longer a technical issue as there is an important strategic aspect related.

Projects have succeeded in raising demand for reform, solutions to respond to this demand have yet to be found

High risk of free riders of the anticorruption rhetoric, taking advantage of it to suit their own political agendas, or to the public’s frustration, increasing voter apathy and disillusionment with equally damaging results for democracy

All these large scale projects indicated reducing corruption among their core objectives; none of them claimed that they had effectively reduced corruption

Indicators or proxies of success—immediate effects of intervention: creation of new structures to fight corruption- coalitions, networks; capacity building of civil society

Focused analysis of the impact of projects, or its broad effects, both intended and unintended, is generally lacking

Coalition 2000- created to influence the political discourse on anticorruption, to push political actors to reflect on the issue of corruption

An increased public awareness of corruption has been generally accepted as a positive good, for lack of evaluation, it is impossible to know whether other objectives have been met, for example: to ensure that a better understanding of corruption is achieved, to create public intolerance to corruption, to pressure the government into accepting reforms

Reported as a successful intervention in the anticorruption agenda, for example, Coalition 2000 is credited for pressing for the implementation of the ombudsman law

practical achievement- to have successfully lobbied government to adopt the law

For lack of evaluation, little is known if the intervention itself has contributed to implementation of anticorruption legislation

The clearest effect of AC interventions

Because of the lack of baseline surveys impact on capacity cannot be really measured

Twofold approach: in-depth institutional reform projects, and efforts to change the interface between government and citizens, usually at the local municipal level

Immediate objective- institutional change, second, long-term objective - to reduce corruptionWith respect to these long term effects, the stakeholders involved generally did not consider them as being anticorruption projects

Administrative reform projects, usually small sized, that intended to change the citizen/government interface using pilot approaches- generally assessed as successful in achieving the immediate objectives set

Beyond feasibility studies on the transfer of EU best practices, no ex post assessment

The case of Regional Public Anticorruption Councils

Institutional changes must be followed with adequate monitoring if they are to be successful

Relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of institutions- recently put on the agenda, within the frame of functional analysis. It is yet to be seen whether and how results will be incorporated into the decision making process

Opportunities for anticorruption initiatives are open to government, judicial system and civil society. All of them list reduction of corruption as their primary objective

It is far too early to assess their impact as none of these projects have been completed

Absence of outcome indicators for most projects- no built-in check up mechanism for the realistic potential of anticorruption measures to meet the major goal of reducing corruption

AC efforts so far no matter the resources and the supporting good will of stakeholders, have not been successful in attaining their major goal- combating corruptionLots of doing- limited learningCritical-to search beyond the concrete faces in the anticorruption chain and associate poor results with concrete individuals/ political parties/ partisan interests, and try to identify whether there is a system problem in managing corruption risk through targeted interventions, i.e. policy, projects, measures.

Need to rethink, reshape and reform the way we design, implement and evaluate anticorruption interventionsWithin this ambitious format, to search for appropriate format to assess impact of anticorruption effortsHear the voice of constituents to see the changeImprove project design to move from accounting to learningBuild knowledge and commitment at various levels improve coordination between various actors to maximize gains and optimize efforts/ costsImprove ownership in the AC reform initiatives- engage the full range of stakeholders in the process, this would require to provide the necessary incentives

Resource impact evaluation as one element of a robust system for monitoring and evaluation; to the extent possible integrate impact assessment in the cycle of managing anticorruption initiatives

The Bulgarian experience so far suggests the need to not only link planning and implementation of anticorruption efforts into a coherent process, but also find ways how to make it in an efficient, effective and sustainable manner.