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Global Integrity Report: Kazakhstan - 2010

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

HIGHLIghts

Kazakhstan’s anemic performance in Global Integrity’s national assessment persists largely because of the lack of political will in reforming key institutions and accountability mechanisms. Political pressure continues to unduly influence the ombudsman, hobbling the agency’s ability to carry out independent investigations. Conflict of interest regulations for members of the judiciary and executive branches are weakly enforced. Citizens have little legal recourse to accessing public information and are unable to obtain itemized lists of the national budget. Despite these and other significant gaps, there is some good news to report. Even if it is difficult for citizens to form broadcast entities, civil society organizations and the media remain relatively vibrant watchdogs. Regulations governing tax and customs laws are also fairly robust.

From the Reporter's Notebook: When a Kazakh company receives a letter with a request to consider sponsoring the ruling political party, it knows that refusal is fraught with inspections by the financial police and other regulatory authorities. Consent on itself doesn’t guarantee anything, but a large amount allows the company to continue working quietly. Officially there is no violation of the law. Donations are voluntary –you pay if you want to, you don’t pay if you don’t want to. But everyone understands how it works. And the goals of the ruling party are noble: a “prosperous Kazakhstan.” How then not to contribute?

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The Global Integrity Report is an essential guide to anti-corruption institutions and mechanisms around the world, intended to help policymakers, advocates, journalists and citizens identify and anticipate the areas where corruption is more likely to occur.

The Report evaluates both anti-corruption legal frameworks and the practical implementation and enforcement of those frameworks, and takes a close look at whether citizen can effectively access and use anti-corruption safeguards.

The Report is prepared by local researchers, journalists and academics using a double-blind peer review process. More than 1,000 local contributors have participated in preparing the Report since 2004.

Each country assessment contained in the Global Integrity Report comprises two core elements: a qualitative Reporter's Notebook and a quantitative Integrity Indicators scorecard.

An Integrity Indicators scorecard assesses the existence, effectiveness, and citizen access to key governance and anti-corruption mechanisms through 320 actionable indicators.

They are scored by a lead in-country researcher and blindly reviewed by a panel of peer reviewers, a mix of other in-country experts as well as outside experts. Reporter's Notebooks are reported and written by in-country journalists and blindly reviewed by the same peer review panel.

The insights from the close to a million words of text and 10,000 data points of each year’s Report help shape evidence-based policy reforms that can promote open and accountable government.

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