fighting corruption needs to be an integral part of their growth strategy, and, ... It would, of course, be wrong and indeed dangerous to draw the conclusion that.
Corruption, Foreign Investment and Growth Johann Graf Lambsdorff, Senior Research Associate, Transparency International Peter Cornelius, Director, World Economic Forum
Africa is often perceived as a continent universally suffering from corruption. In the view of many, corruption in Africa is far more widespread and serious than elsewhere, playing a vital role in the failure of reform and representing a (if not the) key factor behind the region’s multi-dimensional problems. Caught in a vicious circle of nepotism and underdevelopment, there thus appears to be little hope for the continent to improve its competitiveness and achieve sustained economic growth.
As we have already argued in the first edition of the Africa Competitiveness Report two years ago, however, these views are fallacious and misleading. While Africa as a region is reported in business surveys as having on average a high level of corruption, in comparison with other regions of the world it does not deserve to be singled out. Frequently it is overlooked that Africa is as diverse and heterogeneous as any other continent, with the reality in individual countries being far more complex than generally thought.
That Africa does not seem worse than other regions according to international surveys should of course not give rise to complacency. On the contrary, given its relative poverty
and scarce development resources, Africa can least afford the negative effects of corruption. Encouragingly, there appears to be rising awareness in several countries that fighting corruption needs to be an integral part of their growth strategy, and, as a matter of fact, our 1998 Africa Competitiveness Report found a decrease in corruption in a number of countries. Needless to say, we were extremely curious as to whether we would find evidence in this year’s executive surveys suggesting further improvements.
What do the surveys tell us? In preparation of the Africa Competitiveness Report a detailed questionnaire was sent to business executives in 30 countries. With four exceptions, a sufficiently high number of responses was received. As regards corruption, the survey included three basic questions: (1) How problematic is corruption for doing business (1~very strong, 4~no impact)? (2) Are there any irregular, additional payments in connection with various business operations (1~required, 6~rare)? (3) What is the amount of these additional payments as a percentage of the contract value (the categories 1-6 refer to: >25%, 18-25%, 10-17%, 29%,
