The Challenge

Corruption undermines global development and biodiversity conservation. It distorts good governance, undermines the sound management of natural resources, facilitates environmental crime and illegal trade, and drives resources away from the public good and into private hands. TNRC addresses this challenge through three strategic approaches:

Build Knowledge

Distill existing anti-corruption knowledge to make it relevant for NRM practitioners

Research and strengthen evidence on how anti-corruption efforts can help improve biodiversity outcomes

Communicate for Change

Engage networks and partnerships to exchange knowledge and amplify the reach of anti-corruption information

Empower others to implement context-appropriate anti-corruption initiatives in NRM

Apply Knowledge and Test Hypotheses

Pilot and learn from new approaches

Apply broader anti-corruption interventions under Associate Awards

The Award

TNRC is a Leader with Associates (LWA) award. The Leader Award is managed out of WWF-US, and supports research, knowledge dissemination, networking, and piloting new approaches. Up to $35 million for Associate Awards may be mobilized by USAID country offices and other operating units, at their discretion, to support analysis and/or implementation of context-specific anti-corruption programming. The Associate Awards will leverage and contribute to TNRC's knowledge agenda, while responding to specific programming priorities agreed between USAID missions/operating units and TNRC.

For more information, visit the TNRC website.

TNRC eCourse:

Introduction to Corruption, Anti-Corruption and Natural Resource Management

Improving understanding of corruption, its drivers and facilitators, and the range of possible approaches (that include, but also extend beyond detection and enforcement) is the first step to targeting natural resource corruption. This course introduces basic learning from anti-corruption research and practice to help break down the concept of corruption and expand understanding of the ways that it can be addressed in conservation programming. Case studies are included from the wildlife, forests, and fisheries sectors, based on real-world experiences.

Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC)

Featured Resources

More Featured Resources

TNRC Blog

What Shapes Anti-Corruption Success and Failure in Renewable Resource Sectors?

This blog post shares key learning from new evidence research conducted by the U4 research team focused on three different country cases.
Transparency, Open Data, and Participation: Tools for Environmentally Responsible Infrastructure

Infrastructure planning is a complex and costly process involving diverse stakeholders with competing interests.
Can Strengthening Internal Controls Prevent Corruption Behind Natural Resource Crimes?

This blog post captures insights from a TNRC Learning Series webinar on the use of internal controls to prevent the corruption that often accompanies natural resource crimes.
Harnessing Big Data to Uncover Corruption in the Forestry Sector

How can big data help address corruption in the forestry sector? New research undertaken by data analysts and financial flows experts at TRAFFIC and the Basel Institute on Governance under the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project is testing new methods for automating data collection and analysis techniques used in other sectors to identify corrupt actors from the point of allocation of forest access rights.
Trade Discrepancy Analysis: A Tool to Identify Environmental Corruption and Associated Illicit Financial Flows

This virtual panel hosted by the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) presented new research findings from an examination of trade data on timber from Vietnam, and discussed the implications and potential applications of this and similar research.
Lessons from the field: Assessing corruption risks that undermine law enforcement action against natural resource crimes

This blog post captures expert insights and responses to practitioner questions raised in a webinar on assessing corruption risks that undermine law enforcement action against natural resource crimes.