WUNRN
Huairou Commission
Grassroots Women's Perspectives on Corruption
“Grassroots women
experience corruption as endemic, pervasive, and as a part of everyday life
experience. ”
When grassroots women
organize at the community level to design and implement anti-corruption
strategies, they build gender sensitive governance that leads to improved
service delivery, increased access to justice, and decreasing levels of
corruption and poverty.
Corruption
is a symptom of a larger problem
Grassroots
women focus on improving governance structures to reduce corruption and
increase access to service and justice
Non-confrontational
strategies are more effective at the grassroots level
Partnering
with civil servants, service providers and government authorities to promote
transparency and accountability creates safe and sustainable mechanisms to
reduce corruption
Organizing
is the key to creating incentives to stop corruption
Grassroots
women are more empowered to raise their voices against corruption if they
belong to a grassroots organization. They feel supported and confident to
address misuse of power.
Knowing the budget
is crucial for monitoring public spending and influencing service delivery
Access to
budget information varies from country to country. When this information is
updated in real time and accessible, grassroots organizations can better
monitor and act on misuse of public money
Grassroots
women and youth are affected differently by corruption
In the case of
women, sexual demands and physical abuse are two ways that corruption
manifests; therefore, anti-corruption mechanisms focused on only bribery would
not be able to reduce corruption from the perspective of grassroots
women.
Bottom-up
and top-down approaches are complementary in reducing corruption
Grassroots
women have developed important mechanisms to improve service delivery and
access to justice.
Policy and legal reforms have the potential of creating sustainable and
responsive governance structures to recognize and scale grassroots women-led
initiatives. It is thus important to partner with policy makers.
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GRASSROOTS WOMEN'S PERSPECTIVES ON
CORRUPTION & ANTI-CORRUPTION
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