Citation

Lewis J. Jamba 2017; 9(1): e391.

Affiliation

Datum International, South Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, African Centre for Disaster Studies, North-West University)

DOI

10.4102/jamba.v9i1.391

PMID

29955342

PMCID

PMC6014157

Abstract

Corruption at all levels of all societies is a behavioural consequence of power and greed. With no rulebook, corruption is covert, opportunistic, repetitive and powerful, reliant upon dominance, fear and unspoken codes: a significant component of the 'quiet violence'. Descriptions of financial corruption in China, Italy and Africa lead into a discussion of 'grand', 'political' and 'petty' corruption. Social consequences are given emphasis but elude analysis; those in Bangladesh and the Philippines are considered against prerequisites for resilience. People most dependent upon self-reliance are most prone to its erosion by exploitation, ubiquitous impediments to prerequisites of resilience - latent abilities to 'accommodate and recover' and to 'change in order to survive'. Rarely spoken of to those it does not dominate, for long-term effectiveness, sustainability and reliability, eradication of corrupt practices should be prerequisite to initiatives for climate change, poverty reduction, disaster risk reduction and resilience.

Language: en