Mapping Corruption in Community-Driven Development Projects, a Case Study in Kenya

Featuring
Jean Ensminger
Edie and Lew Wasserman Professor of Social Science
California Institute of Technology

Hosted by
William Savedoff
Senior Fellow
Center for Global Development

Jean Ensminger will present her research on a long-term, intensive case study of corruption in a large World Bank project in Kenya. By following the money, she illustrates how the corruption network functioned, and explains some of its impact upon poor, rural communities, as well as national politics. Mapping the incentives generated by the project's design, Ensminger gleans insights that should generalize to other contexts, including other projects based upon the widely employed mechanism of community-driven development. This case study provides insights into the magnitude of the corruption problem with implications for the level and appropriateness of institutional responses.