Working at sector level allows the detailed corruption issues and the political dynamics to be unpacked, so that remedial work can be focused at an appropriate scale and level of detail. Our experience – and belief – is that the differences between sectors are large and significant. First, many of the particular corruption types in a sector are specific to that sector (e.g. the various pharmaceutical-related corruption types within health). Second, even when a corruption type is common across sectors, such as diversion of salaries from the ministry to the worker, the ways that this happens and the ways that it can be stopped, can be very different from one sector to another. These sector differences are often bigger than the corruption differences between one country and another. Sector corruption issues also share much similarity internationally, to the point where there are now sector-specific international collaborations and sources of expertise: in mining, in defence, in education and in other sectors. There is much to be learnt from comparing the corruption experiences in one sector in one country with the same sector in another country.

SECTOR DEFINITION

When we talk of sectors, we mean the separate structures and functions through which national life operates. ‘Structures’ includes the legislature, the judiciary and the civil service. ‘Functions’ includes public sector functions(the health sector, the education sector, police services, public financial management, public procurement, state-owned enterprises, etc.), economic functions(telecommunications, mining, construction industry, shipping, etc.) and the multiple public-private systems that span both public and private (sport, infrastructure projects, national heritage, land & property, etc). Our classification of economic sectors comes, with adaptation, from the Industrial Classification Benchmark.

We consider private industry as a sector, in addition to considering its role within each of the functional sectors. We also pragmatically consider sub-national governmentas if it were a sector, though it shares the multi-sector responsibilities of a national government. This is because the specificities of tackling corruption in local governments, especially in cities, often have more in common with other cities and local governments around the world than within their country.