What specific policies have worked to fight corruption in the recent past?
Have there been any success stories in sub-Saharan Africa? Every political system has experienced high levels of corruption at some point in its history. Some societies have been able to gradually establish mechanisms that while not fully eliminating corruption nonetheless help to reduce it to levels that allow a healthy functioning of the economy and the political system. The question is: what are these mechanisms that allowed these societies to overcome debilitating corruption? A key to combating corruption is to the establishment of institutions that permit a balance of power through checks on the discretionary power of the government. The role of such institutions is to enforce transparency in the design and implementation of government operations, accountability on the part of public officials, and fair and systematic application of penalties against violation of the rules of law. It is the failure to establish and consolidate such institutions of restraint in most African countri
