Northumbria
University, Newcastle, has been awarded research funding by an international
partnership led by the UK Government to help tackle global corruption.
The Global
Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (GI-ACE) is a partnership between Washington DC-based anti-corruption and open
governance organisation Global Integrity, and the UK Department for
International Development (DfID). It is funding 14 research partners from
around the world to generate new and operationally relevant evidence aimed at
helping policy makers, practitioners and advocates design and implement more
effective anti-corruption initiatives.
Northumbria has received funding worth
£266,000 over the next two years for a research project entitled: Practical
interventions for uncovering and identifying ‘Beneficial Ownership’ as a
mechanism to recover the proceeds of corruption – A Nigerian case study. It will
be led by Dr Jackie Harvey, Professor of Financial Management and Director of
Business Research at Newcastle Business School. In particular, Northumbria will
investigate whether current international
anti-corruption frameworks can be better targeted to reduce opportunities for
the proceeds of corruption to be moved across the globe.
Professor Harvey said: “GI-ACE is a
research programme of global significance. Awarding an important element of the
work to Newcastle Business School reflects Northumbria’s growing international
reputation for excellence and world-leading research quality.
“Corruption is a major inhibitor
to economic growth, discouraging to domestic and foreign investment and
destabilising of governments. Unsurprisingly, international attention has
intensified in recent years with global initiatives to counter corruption and
money laundering. These have placed requirements upon national governments to
increase transparency, reducing opportunities for the legitimate legal and
financial infrastructure to be used to disguise and move the proceeds of
corruption. Using Nigeria as our case study, this cross-disciplinary and mixed
methods research aims to understand current processes and highlight system
weaknesses for successfully identifying ‘beneficial ownership’ of funds. By
creating a simpler, re- balanced and importantly cost-effective solution, we
aim to contribute to the prevention of laundering of the proceeds of corruption
and to their recovery. An assessment of what works in Nigeria as a means to
prevent corruption will provide valuable empirical evidence of what may be
transferable to other developing countries.”
As well as Professor Harvey, the research
team at Northumbria includes Dr Peter Sproat and Dr Sinan Gonul from Newcastle
Business School, and Sue Turner, Chris Mitford and Professor Tony Ward from
Northumbria Law School. Northumbria
visiting professors Alan Doig and Petrus van Duyne add further depth and bring
with them an international team from Northern Ireland, the Netherlands and
Nigeria.
The combined $7.1m GI-ACE programme will
cover three priority areas: the international architecture that supports
corrupt exchanges; integrity systems in the public and private sectors; and
tackling corruption at sub national and sectoral levels.
