Corruption and fraud in agricultural and energy subsidies: identifying the key issues

The policy brief highlights a systemic gap where governments provide billions in subsidies but under-invest in the monitoring required to prevent fraud and corruption. It notes that the actual scale of these issues is obscured by government reluctance to publicize failures. The brief advocates for using high-profile fraud cases as opportunities to reform poorly designed subsidy programs and discusses the challenges and benefits of establishing a global estimate of the financial impact of such corruption.

• Governments allocate billions of dollars to subsidy programs but fail to provide sufficient resources for the effective monitoring needed to prevent corruption and fraud.
• Determining the precise impact of fraud and corruption on subsidy policy is challenging because governments often avoid publicizing these occurrences to prevent negative publicity or public concern over oversight failures.
• Public cases of fraud and corruption present a unique opportunity for policymakers to implement reforms on subsidy programs that are poorly designed or ineffective.

APA

Charles,, C. (2010). Corruption and fraud in agricultural and energy subsidies: identifying the key issues. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/corruption-and-fraud-agricultural-and-energy-subsidies-identifying-key-issues

Chicago

Charles,, Chris. Corruption and fraud in agricultural and energy subsidies: identifying the key issues. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2010. https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/corruption-and-fraud-agricultural-and-energy-subsidies-identifying-key-issues.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Charles, |first1=Chris |title=Corruption and fraud in agricultural and energy subsidies: identifying the key issues |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=23 December 2010 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/corruption-and-fraud-agricultural-and-energy-subsidies-identifying-key-issues |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{charles2010corruption, author = {Charles,, Chris}, title = {{Corruption and fraud in agricultural and energy subsidies: identifying the key issues}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2010}, month = dec, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/corruption-and-fraud-agricultural-and-energy-subsidies-identifying-key-issues}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }