Working Paper 02/2008: Poverty and Corruption

The year 2007 marked a milestone in the fight against poverty and corruption. It represented the midway point on the road to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the ambitious global pledge to end extreme poverty by 2015. It also signalled that ten years had passed since the anti- corruption movement had signed the Lima Declaration, promising to address poverty as part of their efforts. However, actual accomplishments have fallen short of expected progress. In practice, donors and governments still treat poverty and corruption as separate — rather than integral — components of the same strategy. The continued lack of policy integration has undermined efforts to fight both poverty and corruption. Poverty continues to plague more than a half of the world’s citizens, with nearly three billion people living on less than two dollars-a-day. Data on the MDGs show the current development trend not keeping pace with earlier projections. Bottlenecks have developed in certain regions and key countries, creating sizable challenges to meeting the 2015 timeline.