Gender and corruption. Transparency International Spain

On the occasion of the celebration of March 8, International Women’s Day, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1977, Transparency International Spain has published the dossier “Gender and corruption”. For his presentation, he will hold a webinar on Tuesday, March 8, at 10:30 a.m. https://transparencia.org.es/8m-dia-internacional-de-la-mujer-inscribete-al-webinar-sobre-genero-y-corrupcion/ Throughout the entire dossier, reference is made to a large number of studies that will allow those most interested in the matter to delve into the issue. Sources, resources and materials, as well as relevant articles from Transparency International (TI) that can be found here. https://transparencia.org.es/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Dossier-Ge%CC%81nero-y-Corrupcio%CC%81n-TI-E.pdf What is the relationship between gender and corruption? Given the first question raised by TI Spain, the complex relationship between gender and corruption can already be glimpsed, and it will be necessary to study it from different points of view. Men and women are affected differently by the phenomenon of corruption, since it produces worse effects on poor and vulnerable groups, and it must be remembered that, according to the UN, it is estimated that 70% of the poor in the world are women. One of the effects produced by corruption is the increase in obstacles to the achievement of equality, in all senses, also in the field of gender equality, by preventing the full development of civil, social and economic rights of the woman. Women, by traditionally developing a caretaker role in the family sphere, have been deprived of the possibility of actively participating in social and political spaces, and leading the direction of many of the transformations that have taken place in society in which last decades. In turn, women, depending on services such as health or education, appear, according to the TI dossier, as more vulnerable to certain types of bribery. It is necessary to advance in the empowerment of women in all senses, also in the assumption of a relevant role in the fight against corruption. “Gender and corruption” by Transparency International Spain specifies that there is no conclusive evidence to confirm that women are less corrupt than men; but the dossier details that the fight for women’s rights and their participation in public life are associated with better governance and lower levels of corruption in many countries around the world. Perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of women towards corruption. Among the studies cited by “Gender and Corruption” of Transparency International, Rivas (2012) or Lambsdorff, Boehme & Frank (2010) specify that women tend to behave more honestly than men and are more concerned about equity in their relationships. decisions. Even more, related to the behavior of women towards corruption, it is pointed out by Swamy et al. (2000) the claim that “women are less involved in bribery and less likely to approve of taking bribes” and conclude that countries that have made the most progress in gender equality generally “experience lower levels of corruption” (Swamy et al. 2000). The reality reflects the underrepresentation of women in decision-making positions in business and politics, these being the environments where the greatest risk of corruption occurs. This does not mean that women would act in a less corrupt manner if they had access to high-level management, if it does not increase the real and effective equality of women and men in society as a whole. Therefore, it is concluded that progress must be made in said equality, and the full participation of women in public life must be achieved, but not as an “anti-corruption strategy”; but because it is a human right. Corruption and bad governance, according to the dossier, have a negative effect on the participation of women in politics, trapping them in the vicious circle of gender inequalities, lack of empowerment and corruption (Sundstrom & Wangnerund 2013). Women as part of the solution: gender approach in the fight against corruption “Gender and Corruption” by Transparency International Spain also focuses on the forms of corruption that most affect women: sexual extortion and human trafficking. The dossier claims that they be recognized as a corruption problem so that resources and efforts can be concentrated to eradicate them. From “Thinking” to “Doing” Transparency International proposes a series of measures to address the issue of gender and corruption: Collect, analyze and disseminate data disaggregated by gender in order to design effective public policies. Recognize and address specific forms of corruption based on gender. As is the case with sexual extortion (sextortion) Support the participation of women in public and political life. Gender quotas and reducing unpaid work with lower wages will facilitate the increase in women’s participation in all areas of society. Include women in decision-making against corruption. Half of the population cannot be left out of the spheres of political, economic, administrative and social decision. Empower women. Being aware of the rights that they have as people is a way to minimize the risk of being greater victims of corruption risks. Gender-sensitive reporting mechanisms. Use existing platforms. The dossier exposes for your knowledge the Feminist Open Government Initiative of the Open Government Partnership, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as examples of existing platforms already working in this field. It is necessary to become aware of the negative effects that corruption produces in society and in the democratic and institutional system that is also directly affecting women, as citizens of right. Their traditional role as caregivers has prevented them from hampering their role as active citizens of society, so it is necessary to advocate for ending the existing imbalances in the exercise of power and decision-making between women and men. The data from “Gender and Corruption” state that they are not conclusive in the statement that, if women who occupy leadership positions would be intrinsically less corrupt than men, and details what they will be in this case, “other factors such as the political context and institutional, culture and gender inequalities to explain the links between female representation and levels of corruption”. Claiming the presence and active role of women in public…

Of the antifraud plans to integrity plans

The new legal framework for public integrity following the Whistleblowers Directive and Order HFP 1030/2021. The role of Anti-Fraud Agencies  On September 29, the Ministry of Finance and Public Function approved Order 1030/2021 configuring the management of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan[1], PRTR in the future, with the aim that The Public Administrations adapt the management procedures and the control model in accordance with the standards required by the European Union both from the formal and operational point of view.  and all this is limited exclusively to the management of European funds. According to the aforementioned Ministerial Order, the procedures to which it refers must contemplate  the requirements established to achieve effective equality between men and women, territorial cohesion, respect for the environment, incentives for digitalization, the fight against fraud and corruption, and must be identified.   the ultimate beneficiaries of the aid, as well as contractors and subcontractors. The Order itself thus recognizes that  the requirements stated are not contemplated in the Spanish public administrations, immersed in their dynamics of “traditional management”, with the scope required by the European Union, and therefore  must  necessarily be introduced in order to achieve the objectives  planned for the implementation of the funds from the NextGeneration Programme (EU).[2] In other words, and as far as the fight against fraud and corruption is concerned, the Order would say: That Spanish Public Administrations lack mechanisms comparable to the minimum standards required by the EU in the fight against fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest. That the area to which the aforementioned Order is addressed is exclusively to the management of the European funds of the PRTR. That the rest of the funds and especially the own funds whose origin is the taxes of all Spaniards, being outside the scope of the Order, do not interest anti-fraud plans and can continue to be managed in the “traditional” way. The Ministry of Finance and Public Function itself recognizes as true that the Spanish State lacks a global strategy to prevent and combat fraud and corruption and it is discouraging that this opportunity to extend anti-fraud plans to all public activity regardless of the origin of the public resources that are managed is missed.  Moreover, the arrival of European funds and the demands for guarantees by the EU for an effective, efficient management free of fraud and corruption, would be a magnificent opportunity for Spain to approach European standards in terms of the fight for integrity and public ethics  and good practices in our public sector. The Ministerial Order, despite being so unambitious, has raised surprises and controversies exacerbated by the very short period granted to the administrations to present their respective anti-fraud plans: 90 days that expire at the end of this month of January. Part of this period has elapsed with the recipients wondering what an anti-fraud plan is, how it is done and who executes it.  For public administrations, the Order creates new functions that must be integrated into a terrible civil service context, of staff decimated by the limitations imposed by the postery budget laws to the great crisis of 2008 that over the years have  created a great gap in the transmission of knowledge and in the generational renewal of the institutional human factor. In this context, any new burden without solving these shortcomings implies further straining public organizations that, lacking selection processes, renewal and training of career officials have had to resort to outsourcing or the figure of interims who have become precarious.  especially the local, regional and to a lesser extent the state administrations. In this context, all those administrations or related public entities that are going to manage or execute PRTR funds must have, within the aforementioned period of 90 days, their corresponding Plan of anti-fraud measures that allows them to guarantee and declare that, in their respective field of action, the funds have been used in accordance with the applicable rules and in particular with regard to prevention,  detection and correction of fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest. For the purposes of defining the concepts of fraud, corruption and conflict of interest, the Ministerial Order refers to the EU’s own rules and in particular to its Directive 2017/1371[3] which limits corruption to the conduct of bribery or bribery of  officials in its broadest sense which includes the authorities themselves; fraud,  referring to the conduct of deception and falsehood carried out by the beneficiaries of the funds in their justifications; and the conflict of interest to the existence of a particular interest that prevails and influences the general interest by diverting the action of officials and authorities from their public objectives.  To these behaviors, we must add the others typified in our criminal code as crimes against the public administration, especially embezzlement, influence peddling, negotiations prohibited to officials or prevarication itself. The Order establishes a methodology based on a test model that starts with the declaration at the highest level of each public administration of its firm commitment to the fight against fraud and corruption; a self-assessment where the specific risks, their impact and probability of occurring in the key processes  of the development and execution of the PRTR are identified. with a follow-up of periodic review; and a structure around four elements of the so-called anti-fraud cycle: prevention, detection, correction of irregular conduct, prosecution and recovery of improperly executed funds. Likewise, it is inferred, although partially, in principles and foundations that are typical of integrity plans such as transparency, the existence of a code of ethics and conduct for the entire organization; the provision of training on public ethics to its employees and authorities;  and the existence of procedures to identify and resolve conflicts of interest.  In this sense, the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency has prepared, published and made available to all Public Administrations basic materials such as the “Guide to develop a Public Integrity Plan: Roadmap and Facilitating Annexes“[4] that together with previous works of the Agency such as “ Reflections on conflicts of interest: their ignorance, the…

Disincentivizing the incentive: What moves us?

In 2007, a young consultant was enjoying his job promotions thanks to his great computer skills. In May 2013, he decided to leave his own country to alert what would later become one of the biggest irregularities committed by one of the world’s leading economic and military powers: the United States was illegally monitoring many citizens and authorities of other countries. countries, under the guarantee of State secrecy. His action, denouncing publicly and facing accusations and persecution, was carried out solely on “principles” [1], without any incentives. To increase the probability that these complaints will occur, a series of incentives are used that can facilitate the perception that, through this action, the individual will receive something in return. “Incentives must be used to favor or facilitate particular actions” [2]. Under this motto, the intervened economies have delegated to the incentives the function that they can hardly reach due to a lack of resources in certain environments. If the State cannot, the citizens that make it up can be in charge of bringing those who have broken the rules to justice. On this basis, bounty hunters were born, mostly American private agents who roamed the territory recovering fugitives or executing finances, without the same guarantees and responsibilities as the official authorities. Dr. King Schultz accompanied by Django, touring the territory of Texas in search of the most wanted criminals in the southern United States, reminds us how for a time it was the most “effective” method of dispensing justice. It seems like a matter of procedural streamlining, but it has become a psychological and social issue: our social design has been transformed by our political and economic system, so incentives have a greater or lesser effect depending on where we are. Can these economic incentives be a persuasion to the citizens?: they could be. The danger of prizes has materialized throughout our history: from the tips during the Third Reich, to our own history, in which wealth arose over landowners and thousands of citizens lost their farms due to anonymous complaints about the contrary political ideology. of others. Along these lines, what was initially conceived as an element of persuasion to attract information ended up becoming an element of State coercion, through which the State exerted violence on a few, with the collaboration of as many others. However, a reasonable amount of time has passed over which the incentives have evolved and have ceased to have that meaning (at least for now). For what concerns us, the incentive that provides efficiency to the detection and correction of administrative irregularities or criminal offenses is confused with economic rewards for ethical work. In an ideal world, all citizens motu proprio denounce irregularities they witness: a national police officer tries to bribe me to remove a fine, a mayor hires his sister-in-law, or my neighbor on the sixth floor does not register his assistant. This seems to be the example that they try to transmit to us from the Nordic region, which sweeps well their trench of immoral attitudes about their own territory. However, on the other side of the scale, the northern region of the American continent tells us that the best method to try to reach an ideal world is to grant economic amounts to citizens, because, and following Ruth W. Grant, these incentives “they are the threads that move us”. Observing the numbers, in the United States exorbitant amounts are granted for denouncing corrupt plots, making many denouncers of corruption multimillionaires. Are those the threads that move them? In our territory, taking into account that we lack a strict regulation at the national level on these points that we have discussed, the whistleblowers of corruption declare that there is no prize that makes up for their shortcomings: the problem is not in the prize, it is in the justice system. Our incentives are not similar to those of our neighbors, because our society is not the same as American society, we are separated by the Atlantic Ocean and various historical processes that have influenced our evolution as a society. For this reason and many others, part of the current doctrine rejects economic incentives as a way of motivating society, but without providing an answer to the problem. It is rejected “just because”, without contributing with possible recommendations to grant incentives to complainants, when reality demands elements that encourage these complaints. Several studies not only focus on justice, but also on the social difference that affects this conception: in territories where the cost of reporting is much higher, economic rewards are the key to developing an adequate criminal policy against corruption. That citizen’s “civic” obligation to report corruption becomes something that hinders the citizen himself, because he does not know the repercussion that corruption has on his day to day life, and it supposes a difficult burden for him to face, mitigating that negative aspect with economic rewards. attractive to the lower classes. This is how Soares and Tenshin [3] explain it when they justify the importance of economic incentives in countries with a wide class border, but their uselessness in those societies where there is no marked inequality. Greater protection, guarantee of the anonymity of complaints, third-party facilitators of information, protection of the family environment, free legal advice, psychological assistance and guarantee that the process will not entail any cost for the complainant. These could be the logical measures to take into account – especially considering that many of them are requests from those who denounce corruption – but today they are not considered because their figure is not under debate, but rather what is expected of their complaints, beyond the inclusion of complaint channels. But, in order for these complaint channels to be used effectively and not be left over to what Concepción Campos properly identifies as “blah blah blah”, we must give certain incentives to their potential users, giving them greater confidence in their usefulness and a perception of protection.  María Cristina Fernández González Researcher at the Global…