Corruption undermines the fight against poverty. It hits the poor hardest. One in six of the world's population lives in extreme poverty. This means they live on less than 65p a day. Every year almost 10 million children die before their fifth birthday, most of them from preventable diseases. Some 75 million primary-aged children do not go to school. The poor need our help now.
We cannot wait until countries are free of corruption before helping them to fight poverty. The first thing we can do is to make sure our money is properly used. As well as ensuring that the aid we give is used for its intended purpose, we are working to tackle both the underlying causes of corruption and the international factors that allow it to flourish.