This is the political, judgemental, tactical part of the strategy formulation exercise. It starts with how to shape the overall approach. Would it be most effective to mainstream the anti-corruption improvements within a larger improvement initiative? Or to adopt an incremental approach, keeping the anti-corruption measures below the political radar? Or tackle just one vital aspect of the corruption problem so as to concentrate effort and have a visible result? Would the organisation’s output be better if the overall anti-corruption approach was framed as integrity-building, as confidence-building, or directly as confronting corruption?  The actionable reform approach will be more political, more contextual and more time-bound than individual measures; how to build support, how to spread the benefits, how to bring opponents on board or how to outflank them.

We suggest that you – in collaboration with those who might also own the reforms with you – start out by examining these eight possible approaches: Broad approach; Narrow approach; Low-profile approach; Rapid & radical approach; Signature-issue approach; Bundling approach; Keeping-up-hope approach.

Issues to consider include:

1. Thinking through objectives and what impact you really want to achieve
2. Challenging yourselves by considering strategic opposites and different entry points
3. Flexibility – preparing yourselves to be wrong
4. People, politics and skill – where and how to build support
5. Implementation – setting up a sound programme
6. Maximising supportive structures across government & stakeholders.
7. Choices in very high corruption environments

You can read more guidance on Political & Tactical Approaches here.