Digital scouts for honest governance
A new report on corruption finds little to cheer about. While 1 in 6 countries have improved their scores on a global index from Transparency International over the last dozen years, the rest have stagnated or are worse.
One bright spot is a recent trend in a few Arab countries to give people digital access to government actions. This online openness plays to people’s natural desire for honesty in their leaders, thus boosting accountability beyond that of official investigations.
“This trend offers citizens the chance to gain access to more data through digitalisation, enabling them to identify corruption more easily,” states the Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog.
For the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, advances in “e-governance” helped raise their scores on the corruption index last year, putting them ahead of many European nations. Their digitalization has reduced corruption by removing intermediaries.
Based in a United Nations ranking in digital governance, Saudi Arabia has particularly improved, rising 25 places in 2024. All the Gulf countries “have collectively evolved into a hub of digital innovation,” notes the U.N.
Many oil-rich Middle East countries are racing to develop their economies for a post-oil age, thus their need to crack down on graft to woo foreign investors. Another reason may be an effort by the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to address corruption since 2022. “There is clear consensus among the Arab public that financial and administrative corruption is widespread in their countries,” found a survey that year by Arab Center Washington DC.
Many Muslim scholars have lately looked to the Quran for insight. “When an individual is accountable toward himself, then he will be accountable to the entire society,” wrote three Malaysian academics in the Journal of Financial Crime in 2020. Islam points to a “transcendent accountability” that happens through a “spiritual factor,” they stated.
“Nothing is capable of developing internal immunity against evil deeds more than depending on a belief that the Almighty is watching us all times in all places.”
Perhaps that is one purpose in giving citizens access to their government through digital tools.
