Remarks of Ambassador Harriet Babbitt USAID Deputy Administrator

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks of Ambassador Harriet Babbitt USAID Deputy Administrator
at the Washington Conference on Corruption
February 23, 1999
[As Delivered]

Thank you for that kind introduction. And my thanks to the OECD’s Development Center for bringing us together today – and to all of you for attending. We at USAID are proud to join the Center for International Private Enterprise in supporting this important conference.
My message this morning is simple. The Clinton Administration believes, and we at USAID believe, that the worldwide war on corruption is an idea whose time has come. And we intend to support it with every means at our disposal.
We meet at an important moment in history. The tide has begun to turn against corruption. In recent years, a remarkable consensus has formed, among governments, the private sector, political leaders, and millions of brave citizens. All agree that we must no longer tolerate this social, economic and moral cancer.
One of the major reasons the issue of corruption has surfaced in the past decade has been economic globalization and a growing determination by multi-national corporations not to support criminal activity. There is also growing agreement among developed and developing nations that ending corruption will advance both sets of national interests and improve both kinds of economies. New leaders, many of them responding to a public demand for honest dealing, are coming to power.
We are not naïve. We know how deeply ingrained corruption is in many countries – and our own is certainly not immune to it. But we also know that honest women and men are struggling in every country, and it is our duty to support those millions of honest citizens who are fed up with being robbed – whether by low-level rent-seekers or by corrupt heads of state who loot their nations of billions.
Many of us believe the recent financial crisis in Asia stemmed in large part from a lack of transparency in public institutions and public decision-making.
In Indonesia, too many people were willing to look past President Suhuarto’s nepotism, greed and autocratic nature when the economy was booming. Corruption was seen as a secondary issue. Good government was to be a product of prosperity, not the other way around. Recent events have shown the fallacy of this approach.
Clearly, international investors are increasingly reluctant to ignore corruption or to see bribery as simply another cost of doing business. Paying bribes is not only bad morality, it is bad business. We salute those of you in the private sector who have created codes of ethics, started training programs for your employees, and in many ways had the courage to stand against this criminality.
There have been a number of milestones in recent years in the rising tide of anti-corruption commitment. Looking back two decades, there was the U.S. government’s pioneering Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. More recently, in the mid-1990s, we saw determined stands by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in cutting off aid to countries that would not take action against corruption.
In 1996, the International Chamber of Commerce adopted its code of conduct. In June of 1997, the Organization of American States adopted its Convention against Corruption – and I’m proud to say that, as U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, I played a role in bringing that about.
In December of 1997, in the very important milestone, in which many of you were engaged, the OECD adopted its Convention on Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.
Let me add another milestone to the list. The Administrator of USAID, Brian Atwood, will be leaving us soon after six years of extraordinary service to his country – and to the world. Part of his remarkable legacy will be the creation, in 1994, of USAID’s Center for Democracy and Governance.
The Center never defined itself as anti-corruption, but rather has spoken in positive terms of supporting democracy, the rule of law, and more transparent government institutions. But if you embrace those goals, it follows as day follows night that you are opposed to corruption.
Everyone who cares about this issue owes a debt of gratitude to Brian Atwood for bringing the U.S. government operationally into a central role in the war against corruption.
I’d like to mention some of USAID’s recent anti-corruption activities, but I don’t mean to suggest that I am proclaiming "victory" anywhere. One of the countries I’ll cite is Armenia, and no informed person would claim that corruption has been defeated there. Far from it.
Still, there and elsewhere, governments and people have made a start, and as President John F. Kennedy liked to say, the longest journey starts with a single step.
Often, when we promote democracy, we are also opposing corruption, even if that is not our primary focus.
For example, in Armenia, as in other republics of the former Soviet Union, the opening up of these countries revealed weak state institutions, combined with a widespread acceptance of corruption. As a result, even as USAID helped Armenia move to a market economy, we were helping committed Armenians reduce corruption. For example:

We have supported some two hundred community development programs throughout the country, each of which stresses the importance of transparency and accountability in the management of funds.

We have backed judicial reform, ethics classes in the schools, and the creation of professional associations in law, business and the media, which endorse anti-corruption codes of ethics.

We have encouraged an independent media. In the recent national elections the media provided the most balanced coverage in the nation’s history.

While helping Armenia privatize its energy sector, we worked with the government to reduce meter tampering and bribery by starting a computerized system that separates the metering and billing collection functions.

Finally, we have worked with local NGOs to help them develop a watchdog role in exposing corruption. For example, a citizen-led environmental group supported by USAID, opposed a mayor’s attempt to illegally transfer protected land.

These local reformers used a combination of petitions, press releases and legal action to convince the mayor to rethink his original decision. For those people, in that community, that was a major victory.
In Latin America, we contributed $7 million to computerized financial management systems that enable governments to identify and eliminate payments to "ghost" employees and vendors; to take action against procurement irregularities; and to better "follow the money" when funds are stolen or misspent.
A major step in USAID’s evolving commitment to the anti-corruption movement came in 1997 when our Center for Democracy provided $2 million to Transparency International, the institutional hero in the global anti-corruption battle. The grant will enable TI to carry out intensive anti-corruption work in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Ghana, Benin, Mozambique, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.
In the past year, USAID has co-sponsored a Latin American integrity workshop in Argentina, and an Eastern European newly independent states workshop in Turkey. An Asia-Near East workshop in the Philippines is scheduled for later this year. And, as you know, we are supporting Vice President Gore’s International Conference on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity Among Justice and Security Officials, also being held in Washington this week.
These are some of our recent anti-corruption activities. We know that we are only at the start of a long, difficult process. We know, as you do, that our funding sources are limited and cannot be taken for granted.
If we are optimistic, it is because we know how many millions of good people, all over the world, share our determination, and are looking to us for leadership and support.
We have learned a great deal in recent years. We think that societies can be changed for the better. We know that each nation requires its own strategy. We must assess the degree of political will, must seek out potential allies, and must look for openings for reform that may exist because of a particular scandal or an election or an opposition movement.
We know, finally, that our efforts must learn from and build upon those of the local reformers who ultimately will win or lose the battle. For some of us, corruption can be an academic issue, but for them it truly is a matter of good and evil, sometimes of life and death.
Let me turn to a remarkable, inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking example of the crusade of ordinary citizens in the remote, mountainous Philippine province of Abra. One day they learned that road projects were officially listed as completed that in fact had hardly been begun. Money that was supposed to make their lives better was instead going to enrich crooked politicians and engineers.
They came together – farmers, teachers, housewives, priests, out-of-school youth – formed the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government, and began gathering evidence and protesting to the national government in Manila.
Sometimes they were ignored, sometimes they were ridiculed, harassed and threatened, and one idealistic young lawyer who helped them was assassinated. And yet they fought on, until they saw some of the culprits punished, discovered that they had allies in their government, and won national and even international recognition.
One of Philippine reformers was Jovito R. Salonga, a former president of the Philippine Senate, who is fond of saying, "The reason evil flourishes in our midst is that good men and good women get sick and tired of doing good before bad men and bad women get tired of doing bad."
We all know exactly what he means. Corrupt governments and officials have a vast capacity to wear down those who seek reform. But we have strength, too, and we think that history is on our side. If we organize, worldwide, the public and private sectors, men and women of good will, coming together, we will be stronger than the bad people – and in time we will wear them down. The battle has been joined, and there can be no turning back.
Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Last Updated on: July 12, 2001