Open Governance
Increasing the public’s access to information, empowering people with greater say over public decisions, and ensuring rules are followed are key to creating a less welcoming environment for corruption that undermines lasting conservation outcomes.
This page provides information, guidance, and tools for practitioners who seek to advance their programming via open governance. The contents outline how transparency, civic engagement, and social accountability can be leveraged to achieve anti-corruption outcomes and protect nature and people. Featured guidance and tools help practitioners to design and implement appropriate responses in their operating contexts.
Inside the Topic
Read the Guide
- 1. Corruption and governance in conservation and natural resource management
- 2. Leveraging open governance to reduce opportunities for corruption
- 2.1 Transparency
- 2.2 Accountability
- 2.3 Participation
- 3. Enabling environment, context, and safeguards
- 4. Resource organizations for getting started
Resources
Tools for Conservation Programming
- Designing social norms and behavior change interventions: Guidance resources for conservation practitioners
- Transparency and accountability for market-based incentives
- Red flags for conservation: Infrastructure safeguards for nature
- The Open Government Partnership and Anti-corruption in Conservation: Templates for Collective Action
Research Papers & Issue Analysis
- Pathways for targeting renewable resource corruption: A summary of evidence
- Community forestry and reducing corruption: Perspectives from the Peruvian Amazon
- Examining social accountability as an anti-corruption approach in conservation and natural resource management
- The Impacts of Infrastructure Sector Corruption on Conservation
- Corruption in the Fisheries Sector: Import Controls, Transparency, and WWF Practice
Place-Specific Resources
- Case study | The Escazú agreement’s anti-corruption potential in Colombia
- Case study | Enabling youth as good governance champions of community forests in Nepal
- The political economy of a green recovery in Ukraine
- Case Study: Increasing citizen engagement in spatial planning to reduce opportunities for corruption in protected areas
- Case Study: Designing targeted capacity building strategies to improve community forest governance in Nepal
- Manual for Serbian civil society organizations: Processes of development and adoption of spatial and urban plans with special focus on protected areas
- Building Transparency and Accountability in Natural Resource Management (NRM): The Role of Social Accountability and Civic Participation in Addressing Corruption in the NRM Sector
- Anti-corruption and equitable benefit sharing in Kenya’s wildlife and forest sectors: Gaps and lessons
- When anti-corruption innovations meet reality: Electronic payments in remote areas
Expert Insights
- Mainstreaming anti-corruption in conservation: Dispelling myths and charting a path forward
- Line of fire: Supporting Indigenous Peoples at the frontline of anti-corruption and environmental defense
- What shapes anti-corruption success and failure in renewable resource sectors?
- Transparency, open data, and participation: Tools for environmentally responsible infrastructure
- Environmental corruption: Building bridges across conservation and anti-corruption practice to stop environmental corruption from the ground up
- Corruption and the challenge to protect human rights and the environment: What can conservationists do?
- Conservation, Corruption, and Civic Space
- Uncovering corruption: The role of investigative journalism in combatting environmental crime and prompting accountability
- Journey to Self-Reliance 2020: Starting a Conversation about Data, Corruption, and Environmental Policy
- The Role of Open Data in the Fight against Land Corruption
Where to Start
Building Anti-Corruption into Conservation Work
Locate your conservation challenge and follow three steps to understand forms of corruption that impact conservation outcomes, analyze your situation, and identify programming approaches that could improve results.
© WWF
This content is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or individual TNRC consortium members.