Combating corruption

The water industry is second only to the arms trade as the investment sector suffering most from corruption.

The United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice recommends that effective ways be found of coordinating, at the international level, all efforts to tackle corruption and any other form of malfeasance by public officials, particularly the illegal appropriation of public resources, the embezzlement of funds and the bribery of public officials, especially by organized crime groups.

Transparency International (TI) aims to curb corruption through international and national coalitions encouraging governments to establish and implement effective laws, policies and anti-corruption programmes; strengthen public support and understanding for anti-corruption programmes and enhance public transparency and accountability in international business transactions and in the administration of public procurement; encourage all parties to international business transactions to operate at the highest levels of integrity, guided in particular by TI's Standards of Conduct.

At the international level, TI focuses on the elimination of serious corruption in international business transactions, concentrating on transactions that are partly financed from public funds. In the short-term, TI is reaching agreements with a small number of governments in the South and the East to assist them in evolving national strategies to curb corruption in international transactions. TI is bringing its Standards of Conduct to the attention of the parties engaged in international business; it encourages these parties to voice support for the concepts underpinning these Standards and to make constructive contributions to encourage more partners to take similar actions. Studies and research in the field; provision of specialist advice to governments and other interested parties. TI maintains 2 electronic services accessible to all via Internet: TI-Forum: a public forum dedicated to the discussion of corruption and the role TI is to play; TI-Press: a read-only service providing TI press releases, bulletins and other related papers and publications.

When the NASA organization was preparing its moon programme, it set up complex tiers of 3 main review boards to ensure complete accountability and to forestall the corruption that was seen as an inevitable hazard for such a multi-billion dollar undertaking.