Being in love with a colleague is not a crime, even if you’re their boss. Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, is not the first to find himself in this situation, and he won’t be the last.

Nonetheless, his board is right to be considering his future. Since Mr Wolfowitz took the helm, the World Bank has often repeated its assertion that corruption is ‘the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development’, and so the world’s leading development agency must jealously guard its moral authority.

Having admitted to showing favouritism to a member of staff to whom he is ‘romantically attached’, Mr Wolfowitz’s future is not a private matter. Nor is it an issue just for his aggrieved employees at the Bank – or even its board. It has repercussions for almost half the human race. They are condemned to live on less than $2 a day largely as a consequence of the very corruption the World Bank claims to oppose but with which it has now flirted.

But is the Bank right to make corruption such a priority? After all, it occurs in rich countries, too – only this week, a scandal broke in Britain about prison officers taking bribes from prisoners in return for favours. However, it is rampant in virtually all poor countries and there it strangles the economic growth that could lift people out of poverty.

Without trust, the costs of doing business become prohibitive. The poor are the hardest hit – and the impact on them is compounded by the siphoning-off of resources that could otherwise have gone into the public services on which they especially depend. As the prophets of ancient Israel saw so clearly, corruption inevitably serves the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

Mr Wolfowitz has shown courage in admitting his mistake. He and his board now need wisdom in reaching a decision about his future. But those who in recent years have claimed to speak for the poor in subjecting the World Bank to incessant criticism – and thus undermined its effectiveness – also need to show some courage.

They need to admit that poverty will become history only when we do all we can to ensure that the vices that cause it are overcome by the virtues that foster prosperity. This is what a genuine love for the poor demands. Otherwise, all we have is a romantic attachment.

Peter Heslam

Dr Peter Heslam is associate faculty at LICC and director of Transforming Business at Cambridge University.

additional resources

Much of the World Bank’s thinking and research on corruption is available online at www.worldbank.org.

Multinational companies with high standards of integrity can play a crucial role in tackling corruption. Transparency International’s ‘corruption scale’ indicates that the freer and more open a market, the less corruption there is in it.

The British and US governments are taking an increasingly businesslike approach to international development. The Bush administration’s Millennium Challenge Corporation and CDC Group plc, which is owned outright by the British government, demonstrate this determination that aid should not fall into the hands of corrupt officials.

Mo Ibrahim, the British-based mobile-phone entrepreneur and founder/director of Celtel, has recently launched the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. It will be awarded each year to ‘a former African executive head of state or government who has demonstrated excellence in African leadership’. At well over $5 million, it is thought to be, in monetary terms, the world’s biggest prize. Mr Ibrahim has declared: ‘Nothing, simply nothing, is more important to African development than good governance.’ See www.moibrahimfoundation.org.

The Nobel-prize-winning economist Douglass C North has done most to draw attention to the critical role of good governance in development. His Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance broke new ground when it appeared in 1990.

Crucial to tackling corruption in the fight against poverty is the securing of property rights. The Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto has made an influential study of this issue in his book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.

Partly under the influence of North and De Soto, the British government has put good governance at the heart of its vision for economic development. This is reflected in the report from the Commission for Africa, chaired by Tony Blair, Our Common Interest and in the Government’s latest White Paper on economic development, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor (which can be downloaded from www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs).

Jeffrey Sachs, who is currently giving the 2007 Reith Lectures for the BBC, has attracted criticism from his fellow economists for downplaying the importance of good governance. Instead, he emphasises geographical and demographic conditions as the primary causes of poverty. You can hear his lectures at bbc.co.uk/radio4.

Sachs’s recent book The End of Poverty - in paperback, subtitled ‘How we can make it happen in our lifetime’ - has become a bestseller. In its 400-odd pages, very little space is devoted to the role of institutions such as property rights and the rule of law.

The Bible has a great deal to say about corruption, yet there are remarkably few treatments of this subject amongst the vast number of Christian books on poverty. One notable exception is Sam Gregg’s A Theory of Corruption.