Improving anti‐corruption agencies as organisations

Anti‐corruption Agencies (ACAs) have been seen by donors and commentators as a visible and discrete institutional response to a country's commitment to anti‐corruption work. A number of reports have commented adversely on the general effectiveness and impact of ACAs in practice. Much of the concern relates to the environment in which the ACA works, but over which they have limited control, but often fails to address an ACA as an organisation something over which an ACA does exercise much more control. The purpose of this article is to argue that there are common organisational issues that face any new and small institutions in both public and private sectors, that may assist an ACA's development.