Tag Archives: International Anticorruption Champions Awards

Guest Post: Is It Worth Recognizing Integrity? Rethinking the Anticorruption Prize Ecosystem

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GAB welcomes this contribution by Blair Glencorse, Co-CEO of Accountability Lab and Co-Founder of Civic Strength Partners and  Shally Baloch, Junior Networks and Partnerships Officer at Accountability Lab. Follow the Lab on Linkedin.

Global corruption costs trillions of dollars a year. Global prizes for anticorruption total just $7.5m.

If you’ve been around the anticorruption field long enough, you’ve probably seen them: the fearless reporters who uncover procurement scandals, the whistleblowers who refuse to stay quiet, the community organizers who stand up to kleptocrats and, every now and then, the spotlight moments when someone hands them a prize and says, “Thank you for your courage.”

At Accountability Lab, we lovingly call this “naming and faming” and it has been part of our DNA for almost 15 years. And honestly? It matters. Awards help bust through cynicism, amplify role models, and remind the world that integrity is alive and kicking. They energize movements and validate the people doing some of the hardest work on the planet.

But here is the thing few people talk about: the anticorruption award ecosystem itself. Who is celebrated? Who isn’t?  And who sets the rules? Is the recognition ecosystem actually aligned with today’s corruption challenges? And crucially, is it investing at a scale that matches the global corruption crisis?

As anticorruption day approaches once again, we mapped more than 40 prizes connected to integrity, transparency, journalism, rule of law, and governance to understand the landscape. (List here.) What we found is both encouraging and deeply revealing.

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The U.S. State Department’s New International Anticorruption Champions Awards Are a Winning Strategy in the Fight Against Corruption

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This past February, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken launched one of the first foreign policy initiatives of the new Biden administration: the inaugural International Anticorruption Champions Awards. After receiving nominations from U.S. embassies around the world, the State Department honored a dozen individuals who made significant contributions to combatting corruption in their home countries. The recipients of the International Anticorruption Champions Awards were diverse in every sense of the word. They spanned six continents, represented national and local governments, state-owned companies, and non-governmental organizations. The awardees came from countries big and small, were young and old, and a third were women.

These awards added to a growing movement to provide formal international recognition to those who are leading the fight against corruption in their home countries. Transparency International has recognized such individuals and organizations through their Anti-Corruption Awards semi-annually since 2013, and the United Nations’ Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Center established the annual International Anti-Corruption Excellence Award in 2016. But, importantly, the International Anticorruption Champions Awards mark the first time that one sovereign country—and a major global power at that—officially recognized and honored anticorruption advocacy in other countries.

While it might be tempting to dismiss these awards as empty symbolism (or worse), this would be a mistake. That the U.S. government has created these awards, and apparently intends to continue to issue them annually, is a significant positive contribution to the global fight against corruption, for several reasons.

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