Corruption perception and sustainable development: Sharing Botswana’s anti-graft agency experiences

Abstract

  Unethical practices and corruption issues have become one of the greatest challenges to Africans and their leaders, threatening to undermine economic growth, democratic stability and sustenance, and general developmental efforts. Against this background, this paper examines corruption perception in Africa using indicators of Transparency International as benchmark. The costs of corruption to the continent’s progress were highlighted. The paper also focuses on Botswana’s efforts to fight corruption through its Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC). The factors that have aided the qualified successes of the anti-corruption efforts as well as lessons that may be learnt by other African countries are discussed.