TNRC Event Framing and implementing effective assessments of corruption for conservation interventions

TNRC Learning Series
Anti-corruption insights for conservation and natural resource management

Framing and implementing effective assessments of corruption for conservation interventions

About the event

Various methods and approaches have been used over time to assess corruption risks and determine policy and practice options for anti-corruption. These range from tailored studies to institutionalized Corruption Risk Assessments (CRAs) following common methodologies. All assessments aim to help us better understand situational factors that facilitate corruption, and how these may undermine intended goals. They encourage project partners and aid recipients to adopt and incorporate risk management strategies, including adaptive management and monitoring, evaluation and learning techniques. Structured assessment of corruption risks is an emerging field of practice for conservation organizations and has recently been undertaken by WWF in certain countries under the USAID-funded Targeting Natural Resource Corruption Project. This webinar aims to share research insights and practice experiences on how to get the most out of corruption risk assessment opportunities that arise in the project cycle.

Learning questions

1. What is the range of ways in which corruption risks are typically assessed in development cooperation projects? What do these various methods typically entail?
2. What are the main lessons from research and experience on effective implementation of assessments of corruption risk?
3. What are the challenges in moving from analysis to practice?
4. What actions could NRM practitioners and others take to help improve the effectiveness of corruption risk assessments for conservation interventions?

About the speakers

Achiba Gargule, Senior Advisor, U4-CMI and Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (Presenter):
Achiba Gargule is a human geographer focusing on natural resources governance, specialising in development policy, land-rights inequities, and frontier transformations. Before joining U4, he worked for various organisations in the East African region, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Oxfam GB, ACDIVOCA, and the Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) – a regional economic bloc established by ten northern Kenya counties. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Sustainable Development from the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His dissertation discusses representations of pastoral societies in northern Kenya and the different dynamics in how the state and its network of powerful actors adopt, promote, and recast disruptions in the pastoralism system through ‘new visions’ and reforms expected to deliver growth and advancements. He has published on community land reform and the threats of large-scale land acquisitions for communal land rights and advised governments and international organisations on these subjects.
 

Natalia Muñoz Cassolis, Consultant, World Wildlife Fund (Panelist):
Natalia Muñoz Cassolis is a passionate conservationist focused on policymaking. She has dedicated her work to identify governance weaknesses that facilitate illegal wildlife trade. Natalia graduated from the University of Kent (DICE), where she undertook an MSc in Conservation and International Wildlife Trade, and she is an admitted lawyer both in Colombia and Paris. Natalia has over ten years of experience, and she is currently providing consultancy services for WWF-Colombia and WWF US on illegal wildlife trade and corruption.
 
 
 

Jennifer Lewis, Deputy Director, Anti-Corruption Task Force, USAID (Panelist):
Jennifer Lewis is a senior anti-corruption, democracy and governance expert with over 24 years of experience designing, leading and implementing development programs and policy around the world. She currently serves as Deputy Director of USAID’s Anti-Corruption Task Force, where she provides senior leadership on efforts to elevate, strengthen, and integrate anti-corruption efforts across USAID and to rejuvenate anti-corruption programming and policy engagement. For the past five years, Jennifer has served as USAID/Washington’s anti-corruption lead, providing technical leadership to the Agency, missions, and other USG agencies in transparency and accountability, anti-corruption, good governance, and rule of law, and working closely with inter-agency colleagues at the Departments of State and Treasury and the National Security Council on issues related to anti-corruption. She serves as USAID's representative to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), and the World Bank’s Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), as well as Co-Chair of the OECD/DAC’s Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT). Prior to joining USAID, Jennifer served for over 16 years in senior leadership roles implementing USAID programs, including serving as regional governance director, project director, and Chief of Party for Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) and Chemonics International Inc. An attorney, Jennifer also practiced law for five years, where she focused on international trade, anti-corruption, and business conduct/ethics. She has a JD from American University's Washington College of Law and a BS from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where she serves as adjunct graduate professor.
 

Alina Rocha Menocal, Principal Research Fellow, Politics and Governance Programme, ODI (Panelist):
Originally from Mexico, Alina Rocha Menocal is a Principal Research Fellow in the Politics and Governance Programme at ODI, and Director of the global Thinking and Working Community of Practice (TWP CoP). Alina’s areas of expertise include political settlements, state-society relations, governance and power and the politics of inclusion, corruption, and peace-and-state building processes in comparative perspective. Over the past fifteen years, she has been involved in a series of projects and assignments that seek to bridge the gap between research and policy in thinking about governance, as well as to inform more effective engagement and ways of working among international development actors in developing country settings. Alina has done extensive work on political economy, and on how the international development community can think and work in more politically aware ways, through both the TWP CoP, and other fora, including as Senior Democracy Fellow on Applied Political Economy at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (2016-2020). Alina has also published extensively on all these issues. She holds a BA from Yale University in political science, and a MIA on Economic and Political Development and a MPhil in Political Science/Comparative Politics from Columbia University.
 

Aled Williams, Senior Advisor, U4-CMI and Research Coordinator, Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (Panelist):
Aled Williams is Senior Program Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. Aled focuses on the uneven politics of natural resource-driven development, with a particular interest in issues of corruption, access, legitimation and control. He has a country focus on Indonesia and experience from assignments in Albania, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Macedonia, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, Vietnam, and Zambia. He is co-editor of the books: "Corruption, Grabbing and Development: Real World Challenges" and "Corruption, Natural Resources and Development: From Resource Curse to Political Ecology" He was previously Senior Research Coordinator at the global anti-graft NGO Transparency International based in Berlin. He is currently Research Coordinator for the five-year USAID-funded project Targeting Natural Resource Corruption, working with consortium partners WWF-US, George Mason University and TRAFFIC.
 

Elizabeth Hart, Chief of Party, Targeting Natural Resource Corruption, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (Moderator)
Liz Hart is Chief of Party for the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project at WWF. Liz has more than twenty years of experience in governance and anti-corruption analysis and practice in the international development sphere. In addition to a 14-year career with USAID, she was formerly the director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and an active consultant in governance, anti-corruption and development.