Rethinking anti-corruption in the Western Balkans
In the Western Balkans, corruption remains deeply embedded, and continues to shape debates and actions around transparency, accountability and governance. Recently, corruption concerns have been tied to broader questions of state capture, public oversight and high-value investments. In Albania, the 2026 “Flamingo Revolution” began over a proposed luxury development near protected wetlands before expanding into wider calls for investigations into alleged corruption. In Serbia the controversial Generalštab redevelopment sparked public protests over lack of transparency about the removal of historical buildings from the protected list and its intended destruction.
These two cases are among many that reflect a trend registered in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index that showed limited or negative movement across much of the Western Balkans: e.g. Serbia fell from 35 to 33 points and Albania from 42 to 39.
Anti-corruption efforts in the region are typically focused on institutional approaches and, increasingly, on promoting public integrity as a cornerstone of effective anti-corruption policy. Reforms implemented as part of the EU accession process also contribute to building the formal anti-corruption architecture with continuously evolving standards on combating corruption.
Yet, experience across the Western Balkans shows that existing measures alone cannot address the ways in which corruption is sustained through informal practices, unequal access to power, weak public trust in institutions. In many settings, informality has become normalised as a way of navigating barriers to services or job opportunities, turning corruption into a negotiated exchange of access and favours rather than simply a monetary transaction.
This is why anti-corruption and protection of public integrity needs to become everyone’s business.
A “Whole-of -society” approach
To engage with this issue in a holistic way, responsibility for preventing corruption cannot rest solely with public institutions, but lasting change requires broader action. A change how anti-corruption is understood entails moving beyond seeing citizens primarily as sources of complaints, civil society as watchdogs and businesses as subjects of regulation. Instead, they should be part of bringing lasting change. Each of these actors possesses knowledge, influence and resources that can contribute to changing the conditions in which corruption becomes possible, tolerated and often endorsed.
“Whole-of-society” approach does not simply entail involving more stakeholders or adding civil society to state-led anti-corruption efforts. It is about recognising that corruption is embedded in relationships of power and requires changes in decision-making processes, building cooperation and connections between different actors who have agency to influence the process.
It is already put in practice by UNDP with focus on strengthening anti-corruption networks that include governments, businesses, civil society and academia to promote this approach.
OECD takes a broader view that focusses on public integrity as an issue where an entire society carries responsibility: individuals, civil society and businesses that interact with officials and institutions. These actors have a choice on how to act in these engagements that can damage or foster integrity in their communities, with a view of preventing corruption.
A “whole-of-society” approach to anti-corruption must be positioned at the intersection of the formal and informal: public institutions’ role is to uphold laws and rules, while other actors need to ensure that their engagement with the public sector is also guided by respects for shared norms, societal values and public interest.
Helvetas in action
Helvetas understands power as the ability of individuals, organisations and institutions to shape decisions, access resources, set agendas and influence formal and informal rules that govern society. Power can be used to maintain the status quo or to drive change.
Effective anti-corruption efforts require understanding these power relations and creating opportunities for a broader range of actors, particularly citizens and civil society. Across the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe, Helvetas supports governance programmes that create opportunities for diverse actors to participate in decision-making, monitor public performance, advocate for reforms and contribute to the development of more accountable institutions.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the PRAGG (Proactive Citizens) project facilitated cooperation between civil society and public institutions and contributed to the adoption of the country's first Strategy for an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development (2025-2029). Similarly, ACT project team in Serbia creates spaces for collaborative processes, evidence-based advocacy and dialogue that enable local stakeholders to shape public discussions, influence policy processes and strengthen accountability mechanisms in their communities.
In Kosovo, within the DEMOS project, citizens and civil society organisations started to monitor municipal investments through social audits and other participatory mechanisms, which strengthen local accountability and oversight. In Albania, the Bashki të Forta project team has created structured opportunities for thousands of citizens, including women and vulnerable groups, to participate in local decision-making processes and influence how resources are allocated and services delivered.
At the same time, Helvetas increasingly works with the private sector to strengthen integrity standards and responsible business practices. In Eastern Europe, OPTIM project in Moldova demonstrates the importance of engaging businesses as partners in integrity promotion, fostering ethical conduct, reducing corruption risks and creating a more transparent and predictable environment for economic development.
Through these interventions aimed at supporting local-democracy share the anti-corruption “whole-of-society” vision Helvetas contributes to building ecosystems of accountability in which public institutions, citizens, civil society and businesses all play a role in preventing corruption and promoting public integrity.
Next steps
The countries in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe do not need another anti-corruption architecture. Over the past two decades, governments and international partners, including Helvetas, have invested heavily in specialised institutions, legislation, regional cooperation, organised-crime responses, EU accession driven reforms and strengthening civil society. Instead, the efforts should focus on building connections between these actors and supporting coordinated efforts in an innovative and more effective ways.
A “whole-of-society” approach should bring together existing capacities to tackle corruption risks, creating two-way routes through which actions can move from citizens and professionals to public scrutiny, institutional response and, where necessary, investigation and sanction.
The efforts should be aligned with the European Commission’s new EU Strategy to Prevent and Fight Corruption 2027–2030, the first overarching anti-corruption policy, due to be adopted in the final quarter of 2026. It is intended to bring promotion of a culture of integrity and transparency into a single framework, while establishing “whole-of-society” approach as one of its key pillars.
For the EU candidate countries, the strategy in combination with other efforts will offer an opportunity to think about anti-corruption not only as meeting accession benchmarks, but changing norms, practices and mindset of all societal actors.
