| dc.description.abstract | This thesis addresses the risk of corruption in development aid. The study investigates
whether the risk assessments and risk mitigating measures used by Norway’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (MFA) sufficiently prevent Norwegian aid from being wasted in fraud and
corruption. The methodology is a case study of Ukraine where qualitative data collected in
interviews and documents are triangulated by quantitative data collected in aid statistics.
MFA has a zero-tolerance policy for financial irregularities, corruption and misappropriation
of assets, including negligence in the management of aid to foreign countries. With respect to
Ukraine, MFA had solid information from several sources about the risk of corruption,
including the fact that Norwegian development aid to Ukraine could be exposed to the
problem. In this study I find there has been an increased effort to improve governance,
results-based management and anticorruption in MFA between 2014 and 2018, yet the
initiatives do not appear to reach aid-financed projects in Ukraine until 2016-2017.
Despite efforts to improve monitoring of aid, I find that MFA’s routines for risk analysis and
risk mitigation are inadequate. MFA did not request systematic corruption risk assessment
from project partners in grant applications, nor did they monitor how project partners perform
corruption risk mitigation. The most frequent response to how MFA and project partners have
analyzed and navigated corruption risk is some version of gut-feeling. The practices are
inadequate and insufficient given the strict requirements of The Norwegian Penal Code and
MFA’s own anticorruption guidelines. | nb_NO |
