During the last decade’s corruption in developing countries as well as countries under transition from centralist socialist regimes to pluralistic democracies with market economies has grown into one of the most dangerous obstacles for socio-economic development, poverty alleviation and the establishment of rule of law. In the economically developed western democracies corruption, in spite of being increasing too and creating huge losses in economic efficiency and in confidence, up to now has not the power to derail or seriously undermine the political and economic systems. However in many developing countries and countries under transition it seems to eat up most if not all of the progress and benefits achieved in political and socio-economic reforms and development processes and to endanger the stability of the countries by alienating the people from democratic institutions and the structures of rule of law, considered finally only as a facade to cover the uncontrolled enrichment of small powerful groups.

The relation between development cooperation and foreign financial as well as technical assistance for developing countries and the corruption in these countries is complex. On one side development cooperation can contribute to the establishment and strengthening of transparent procedures and institutionalized good governance, limiting by that the fields and the instruments of ongoing corruption. However in many cases the money from development cooperation and foreign assistance is also heavily contributing to the amount and profitability of corruption.

There are numerous studies, publications and conferences, in which the process of corruption in developing countries has been addressed, making us aware also on different cultural elements in various countries and regions in the world in which corruption can be embedded. There is a common understanding today, that the fight against corruption can neither be based only on a strong political will, nor on legal measures and technical instruments but has to adopt a bunch of different tools in order to be successful.

This publication reflects the results of a two days workshop, organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Transparency International in November 2005. It aims to contribute to the discussion and the development of strategies for the limitation and reduction of corruption, focussing on the specific role of development cooperation with regard to this fight.

(1)how to design, implement and monitor development cooperation in order to prevent it becoming itself a source of corruption; which criteria should be followed for to ensure as good as possible this objective;

(2)Which specific instruments do we have in development cooperation programmes to tackle directly and to limit corruption in developing countries?