Anticorruption Efforts in Select MENA Countries
Robert Beschel - May 5, 2024
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Anticorruption and the Middle East & North Africa Region
How Does the MENA Region Compare with
Global Averages and Inter-relationships?
Robert Beschel, Isaac Schaider and Oumayma Chelbi
Key Takeaways
• The MENA region falls in the mid-range on global anticorruption indices. The region is consistent with global trends in that countries with greater government effectiveness and wealthier countries (in terms of per capita GDP) tend to be better at combatting corruption, while countries struggling with war and fragility tend to do worse.
• The region differs from global trends, which tend to find a positive correlation between anticorruption indexes and Voice and Accountability (VOA) metrics. The MENA region suffers from relatively low scores on democratization and political participation, and its VOA scores have not been statistically associated with the control of corruption.
• The broader push towards democratization in the region has largely stalled, so most improvements in the struggle against corruption are likely to be technocratic in nature. They will focus more upon utilizing technology to streamline business processes and digitalize public services, for example than relying upon greater political participation.
• Progress can also be made in a number of important areas that represent low hanging fruit, such as enacting (or improving existing) freedom of information legislation, pursuing enhanced transparency measures such as those advocated by the Open Government Partnership, and better disclosure around the operations of anticorruption agencies.
Introduction
Concerns about corruption have frequently been at the forefront of political unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. They were a major driver of the Arab Spring upheavals and the principal flashpoint for protests in Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan in 2019. In 2022, Transparency International, a leading global anticorruption nongovernmental organization (NGO) argued that corruption was fueling ongoing conflict throughout the MENA region.
Empirically, the MENA region falls in the mid-range on global anticorruption indices. On average, the region performs better than Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern and Central Europe and on par with South Asia. It does not perform as well as Latin America or the Asia and Pacific Region. However, these averages mask a wide variation in individual country performance, ranging from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which comes in at 26th globally in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2023, to Yemen and Syria, which rank near the bottom at 176th and 177th respectively.
To what extent is MENA consistent with the rest of the world with regard to the relationships between selected economic and governance indicators and the control of corruption? Does the region follow global trends or march to a different drummer? Drawing upon the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), this issue brief will explore these questions empirically by examining WGI data from 2000 to 2022.
Overview of MENA’s Performance
This analysis will be grounded upon the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) database. The WGI Control of Corruption metric is a composite indicator that draws upon over thirty different data sources. Many are perception based, such as the Afrobarometer, Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer Survey and the Gallup World Poll. Others are based upon expert rankings, such as Freedom House or the Global Integrity Index.
Some critics argue that the WGI and other global corruption indices, lack transparency and comparability over time, suffer from selection bias, and often do not provide tangible ways in which countries can improve their scores. Yet the WGI indicators have been in existence for over 25 years, and it is widely viewed among scholars and practitioners as one of the most prominent and accepted cross-country comparative databases for monitoring the control of corruption.
Figure 1 provides a regional average for MENA WGI scores over the past decade. It also breaks down the region by oil and non-oil countries, benchmarking them globally against countries in the high, upper middle income, lower middle income and low income range.
Figure 1
WGI Indicators Average Control of Corruption by Country Group
Source: ME Council staff calculations based upon WGI Control of Corruption data.
On average, MENA performs consistently with upper middle-income countries, with the caveat that the latter have slightly improved their rankings over the last 20 years whereas MENA countries have witnessed a decline. Yet with the potential exception of Jordan, which punches above its weight on anticorruption issues, MENA’s anticorruption scores break down neatly into three categories. At the top, oil producers perform significantly better than upper middle-income countries but not nearly as well as high income countries. And MENA’s non-oil countries initially hovered above the mean for lower middle-income countries but have subsequently fallen significantly below, to the point where their WGI Control of Corruption scores are now equal to those of low-income countries. The third bundle, countries in conflict, will be discussed below.
Analysis of Global Correlations
In conducting the analysis, we sought to identify the key correlates of control of corruption in countries worldwide by examining panel data from 2000 to 2020. To determine the best model for predicting control of corruption, we tested four possible combinations of our predictor variables. Three were reliant upon other WGI indicators, including Government Effectiveness (GE), Voice and Accountability (VOA), and Political Stability (PS).
GE is a composite metric that examines multiple dimensions of public sector performance, ranging from assessments of bureaucratic quality to specific sectoral measures such as the coverage area of public schools, basic health services and drinking water and sanitation. VOA is a proxy for democratic governance, and covers topics such as democracy, human rights and civil liberties. It also covers issues such as transparency in financial management and the reliability of financial and economic statistics. PS covers various dimensions of politically motivated violence, including terrorism. A fourth variable—GDP per capita—was also examined, working on the hypothesis that wealthier countries would be able to invest more resources into building the capacity of their public administration (including various accountability institutions), and would therefore be in a better position to combat corruption.
We ran regressions with each variable individually, in pairs and collectively, and the results are presented in Table 1 below. Our regression analysis revealed that, globally, GE and VOA were the strongest correlates of control of corruption, with a relatively robust R2 result of .69 for all countries covered in the WGI sample. This pattern held for all but the wealthiest countries, where GE alone was the strongest predictor.
In low-income and lower-middle income countries, a combination of GE, VOA and PS provided the highest correlations with control of corruption, although curiously this result was significantly stronger in low-income countries (.62) than in lower-middle income countries (.39). This finding could indicate that the absence of political violence in low-income countries pays a higher dividend in the control of corruption than in wealthier countries.
Table 1
Regression Analysis Results
Country Group Best Model Predictor Variables R2
All Countries GE, VOA 0.69
Low Income GE, VOA, PS 0.62
Lower Middle Income GE, VOA, PS 0.39
Upper Middle Income GE, VOA 0.54
Upper Income GE 0.62
MENA GE, GDP per capita, PS 0.89
Oil MENA GE, GDP per capita 0.74
Non-Oil MENA GE, PS 0.77
Our findings revealed a pattern in which poorer countries consistently exhibited low control of corruption, while wealthier countries displayed greater variation in corruption control. The dispersion of control of corruption was greater among wealthier countries, reflecting a higher degree of inconsistency in their corruption control measures.
Thus, in the MENA region, GE and GDP per capita emerged as the best predictors of control of corruption. This was also true for oil-producing MENA countries. However, for non-oil MENA countries, a combination of GE and PS were the most influential predictors. Correlation does not prove causality, but these results do indicate that—for most of the world—GE and VOA tend to be closely associated with higher scores on controlling corruption. It may be that they are indeed influential. Or it could be that governments that are better at controlling corruption are also better at building infrastructure and schools and respecting the rights of their citizenry.
Control of Corruption in MENA: How Does it Differ?
There are two areas where MENA diverges notably from global trends. First, MENA stands out from the rest of the world in the degree to which VOA considerations are not a particularly powerful factor contributing to the control of corruption. The countries in the region that do best on various anticorruption metrics, such as those in the GCC, are classified as authoritarian by the Economist Intelligence Unit or as “Not Free” by Freedom House.
In many respects, this outcome is not surprising, given the region’s historically poor performance on traditional indices of democratic governance—a topic that has been well documented and analyzed extensively over many decades. As the WGI indicators illustrate (see Figure 2 below), the MENA region lags well behind other parts of the world in voice and accountability. Freedom House’s Global Freedom ranking for 2023, lists only four Arab countries as “partially free” (Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia). All other Arab countries are listed as “not free”.
The public in non-democratic countries lack an important veto over their leadership, including the ability to turf them out if perceptions of graft become overwhelming. Without this option, the choices become starker, and frustration can more readily boil over into the streets. Perceptions of corruption were a motive during the Arab Spring protests and a particularly important driver in the unrest that Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan experienced in 2019, which led to the overthrow of Sudan’s long-serving authoritarian leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Figure 2
WGI Voice and Accountability Indicators, 2022
Source: WGI website, Interactive Data Access | Worldwide Governance Indicators (worldbank.org)
Yet even in MENA countries with relatively free and fair elections, the equations are seldom straightforward. Lebanon’s confessional system and its concomitant network of patronage has remained largely intact despite widespread public outrage following the Beirut port explosion and the country’s economic meltdown. The Tishreen (October) protests in Iraq eventually dissipated, forcing the resignation of the prime minister but otherwise leaving that country’s dysfunctional post-invasion political system in place. As the graphic representation of Tunisia’s parliament in 2020 indicates (see Attachment 1), the post-Arab Spring political landscape is often badly fragmented and lacks a clear foundation for stable policymaking. In many countries, confessional, sectarian or tribal affiliations ultimately trump broader concerns about corruption in the minds of the general public. And those who are not so persuaded can quickly find themselves in the crosshairs of powerful state security agencies or other vested interests.
A second conclusion to emerge from this analysis is that MENA is unique in the robust inverse relationship between political instability and control of corruption, as illustrated in Figure 3 below. This relationship exists among low-income countries globally, but the correlation between high levels of political violence and high levels of corruption is significantly stronger in MENA.
Figure 3
Source: ME Council staff analysis based upon WGI data.
Again, this finding is not particularly surprising. Countries in the midst of civil war or facing chronic sectarian violence often find it difficult to invest extensive financial and political capital in developing robust accountability institutions or even to police their ranks. Virtually all of the countries at the bottom of TI’s CPI list (Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen) are also categorized as fragile or conflict-prone states. The ever-present threat of physical violence can make it difficult for civil servants to implement the law fairly and impartially. These problems are exacerbated when countries have weak governments and restive coalition partners, who may look to exact a price for their participation and could bring down the government if they chose to.
What Can be Done?
The broader push towards democratization in the MENA region in the wake of the Arab Spring has stalled. For many who had hoped that the Arab Spring would demonstrate more tangible progress towards public accountability and the rule of law, this conclusion is certainly disappointing. Yet for better or worse, it conforms to the realities on the ground. With democratic norms in retreat throughout the region and polling data showing substantial disillusionment with democratic norms and values within many Arab countries, it is likely that most of the impetus to combat corruption during the next decade will be orientated towards legal and technocratic improvements in administrative capability rather than advances in public or parliamentary accountability.
Several sets of technocratic improvements hold considerable promise, many of which have a track record of successful implementation in some countries within the region. The first is utilizing information technology and business process reengineering to streamline service delivery procedures. There are multiple ways in which such approaches can both eliminate service delivery bottlenecks as well as reduce the opportunity (and the need) for “speed” or facilitation payments. Consistent with its vision to become a trading hub, the UAE for example has pursued a rigorous program of streamlining customs clearances among other business processes. It now ranks 12th globally in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2023, just behind Sweden and ahead of Japan, Spain and the United States. Countries such as Egypt have set up one stop shops for approving investment, significantly reducing processing delays and eliminating administrative discretion—and with it the opportunity for bribery or favoritism. Jordan’s procedures for passport and internal document administration were fundamentally restructured, streamlined and computerized, drastically reducing wait times and professionalizing the service.
Aligned with such re-engineering efforts has been a significant push to digitize services and place them online, which can enhance both transparency and service delivery. Procedures that are opaque and non-transparent are an invitation for corruption. The UAE, and particularly Dubai, have again been global leaders in the push towards rolling out e-government solutions across the public sector. Dubai embraced e-government early and has tenaciously pursued it over the past twenty years. Its broader goal was to use technology to bridge entrenched administrative silos and build a culture of openness and transparency; it also sought to make government services more accessible by structuring them around citizen “life journeys”. Dubai currently has more than 250 government and private sector services from 35 different entities available through its DubaiNow app. It ranks 5th globally in municipal e-governance efforts according to UNDESA’s 2022 survey of electronic governance, ahead of New York, Paris, Singapore and Zurich.
A third area where technocratic reforms are needed is competition policy. In 2009, the World Bank produced a provocative study, From Privilege to Competition: Unlocking the Keys to Economic Growth in MENA. The report noted that almost 60 percent of public officials interviewed from across the region felt that the private sector in their countries was rent-seeking and corrupt. As a result, MENA experienced stagnating private investment rates compared with other regions, along with lower diversification of exports, older firms, and limited competition. In a finding of particular interest, they noted that MENA governments had undertaken several vital reforms to facilitate private sector-led growth—a trend that continued through the last year of the Bank’s Doing Business report in 2020, when four MENA countries were among the top 10 reformers globally. Yet the Bank study also found that the response was far below what similar reforms have produced in high-growth countries, where private investment was significantly higher. The report concluded that policy uncertainty and the unequal implementation of regulations are leading constraints confronting efforts to strengthen competition and stimulate business development, thereby hampering efforts towards greater economic diversification that is at the core of many regional development strategies. The move towards a more transparent, fair and predictable regulatory framework will be the next great governance challenge for many countries in the region.
A final priority area for technocratic reforms is money laundering and illegal asset transfers—areas that have been a priority for many regional countries for decades partly because of their role in corruption and partly because of concerns surrounding terrorism financing. The region presents a varied picture on global indices, such as the Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index. The Basel Index’s assessment for 2022 reveals a surprising picture that is somewhat at odds with global anticorruption rankings such as WGI and TI’s CPI. Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar all score better than the global average on the index, which tracks 18 metrics lumped under five major categories. The UAE, on the other hand, scores surprisingly poorly, coming in second to last among ranked countries in MENA and in the bottom 40 percent globally. The UAE has recently taken measures to improve its performance through the establishment of the Executive Office of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Finance in 2021, which has been tasked with implementing a national strategy and action plan.
Beyond these technocratic reforms, there remain some areas under the broader VOA rubric where progress remains possible. One important area is transparency, where MENA lags behind many other regions. Only six countries have Right to Information laws (Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen), and the laws that do exist often fall well below global standards. Only three countries—Jordan Morocco and Tunisia—belong to the Open Budget Partnership. Even countries such as the UAE can fail to disclose routine economic, social and fiscal data. Reporting on corruption itself is often patchy throughout the region. Some national anticorruption agencies produce detailed and comprehensive annual reports, such as Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait. Others provide spotty information or none at all. A major push towards better data reporting would generate information that will allow governments and their citizenry to address chronic problems.
Finally, it is imperative to tackle the problem of corruption in fragile states, which has been one of the toughest challenges confronting anticorruption efforts globally. For a long time, scholars and practitioners tended to shy away from tackling corruption in these settings, viewing it as essentially a second order consideration and less important than peace and security. However, there are signs that this view is changing, and there is a growing recognition that it can be difficult to make progress in settling conflicts while corruption remains rampant. Over the past decade, some efforts have been made to develop and curate lessons for combatting corruption in contexts of extreme fragility. This remains a work in progress, and a major push within MENA to understand the unique problems posed by fragile states and where steps have been effective in these contexts would be valuable. There is unlikely to be any “one size fits all” solution, as many of these countries are grappling with their own unique set of institutional and political economy challenges.
Taken collectively, the approaches outlined above provide a realistic way forward that is aligned with the MENA region’s aspirations as well as its underlying political economy dynamics. Implemented carefully and systematically, they will improve country performance and reverse the growing perception that many Arab governments are not serious about combatting corruption.