Over the past 5 years the debate about corruption has focused on:
• Why corruption matters, including the disproportionate effects on the poor, direct in the case of small-scale corruption (nurses, doctors and teachers demanding payment for supposedly free services; bank officials refusing loans for poor farmers unless they are given a cut; payments demanded by policemen and court officials), and indirect in the case of major corruption (ministers and officials looting public assets; politicians buying votes at elections).
• The need for international efforts to tackle bribery in trade and to combat money-laundering.
• The need for better international collaboration on tracking, seizure and return of assets stolen from developing countries and deposited in the financial systems of developed countries.
• The question of which anti-corruption measures should be stand-alone, and which are best mainstreamed into existing processes.
• The role of major new development-assistance initiatives (e.g. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and Sector-Wide Approaches, or SWAPs) in limiting the opportunities for corruption.
• The need to safeguard aid funds from corruption, especially with more aid being channelled through national budgets.