Monthly Archives

November 2014

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10-12 Nov 2014 – Empowering the youth to refuse corruption in the Asia Pacific region is a pre-condition for changing attitudes in the wider society and promoting a culture of integrity. The UNDP Resident Coordinator in Thailand Luc Stevens, in his opening remarks of a Regional Symposium on Anti-Corruption Education, organized by the Ubon Ratchathani University in Thailand, highlighted the importance that universities can play in instigating that change. The event, organized with the support of UNDP Global Anti-corruption Initiative and in partnership with Integrity Action, brought together 50 representatives from academia, government, as well as students from the region, to discuss approaches of integrity, anti-corruption education, and an integrity curriculum for universities in Thailand.

Surveys in the region have shown that the youth’s attitude towards corruption can be quite lenient when they are not appropriately sensitized or taught about its risks and impact. According to the 2013 Asian Barometer 4 out of 10 young people in South Korea are not willing to report corruption to authorities (Youth and Democratic Citizenship in East and South East Asia, UNDP, 2014). Also a survey of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study shows that the majority of young Thais believe that corruption is acceptable, as long as they benefit from it. That is why it is essential that young people receive effective training in integrity and anticorruption during their university studies, while also being provided with positive role models that they can learn from. This is a pre-condition to empower them to act as leaders in their communities and workplaces, both in resisting corruption and promoting good governance practices.

A wide variety of integrity education approaches were presented during the symposium – ranging from formal undergraduate or graduate integrity curricula in Australia and Malaysia, drama and play-acting educational programmes in South Korea, to social auditing of public services in the Philippines. The workshop also provided an occasion for Thai and other South-East Asian universities to exchange best practices and lessons learnt on how to create a curriculum for an integrity and anti-corruption university course.

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Awarding Journalists that Expose Corruption Issues in Kosovo

by anticorruption_185cgh18 November 2014no comment

unjournalists

The United Nations Development Programme in Kosovo has been actively involved in the transparency and accountability arena and continues to provide support in the increasingly important area of anti-corruption. To recognize the tireless effort of journalists to publicly expose corruption issues, the UNDP established a media award in 2007. The award in 2014 distinguished important stories addressing rampant corruption and engaging with discussions on transparency and honesty in public life.

Another side of UNDP Kosovo’s activities include promotion of innovation solutions and open data at the local level through boot camps. In October, a boot camp brought together software engineers who, over a period of three weekends, taught young programmers applications which are used to visualize data. This boot camp is especially important since the Municipality of Gjakovë/Djakovica is the first municipality in Kosovo to open up its procurement data, more specifically the databases of 2011, 2012 and 2013.

All references to Kosovo in this report shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999).

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Corruption Explained to Children…and Adults

by anticorruption_185cgh18 November 2014no comment

Corruption explained to children …. and adults

30 Oct 2014

There is nothing giving you more energy, enthusiasm and vision for the future than talking to children. Over the last days, I visited several schools in Bishkek to talk about my work with the United Nations and get their views on important topics. I talked with children from the age of five to seventeen and indeed I have learned so much about this country and about my work.

One of the topics I talked about is corruption and the damages it does to the society. I simply started asking them how they would feel if a classmate was paying the teacher to get higher grades. Almost everybody rose up their hands telling that this wouldn’t be right. Some added that if this was the case, they would stop obeying the teacher. Others added that the bad student would soon become ignorant and eventually fail because you cannot buy all the teachers and sooner or later you will be caught and kicked out from the school.

I then asked how they would prevent this from happening. Many answered that the most important thing is to have good teachers, to pay them well and to be sure that homework and grades are accessible to other peers. Others added that students need to understand that you don’t study to get good grades but to learn. In other words, I got the most advanced theories to prevent corruption.

Quite impressive!

Then I asked a surprising question: What would you do with 121 USD or 6,700 Kyrgyz Soms? Teachers seemed more surprised than the children by this question. In most of the classes a real battle started in order to give answers. Each answer invited me for deep reflections. Here are some I managed to jot down:

– I would buy a bike for myself and a doll for my sister.
– I would buy a television for my grandmother who gets a pension of only 20 dollars per month.
– I would buy a sofa only for myself so I don’t have to squeeze with my brother.
– I would buy toys for the kids of my neighbor.
– I would invite my parents for dinner and pay the bill.
– I would buy some black boots for my mother.
– I would fill the refrigerator of ice-cream and eat them all year long.
– I would give them to charity to an old lady I see down the street every day.
– I would go with my family to the Issyk-Kul Lake.
– I would put them in a bank and get them when I am 18. I would be rich then!

Once I managed to calm down the storm of proposals I arrived to the point I wanted to make. According to a study done by the Ministry of Economy, corruption costs to the Kyrgyz citizens the staggering amount of 700 million dollars per year, or 40 percent of all the money that the State collects from taxes. Divided by the number of population, this makes exactly 121 dollars each. So corruption doesn’t make you smarter, foxier or richer. Actually, it makes you much poorer. It destroys (corrupts) the society and creates a game where there are only losers with some temporary winners or better cheaters….

Upon leaving the school, a nine year old boy approached me telling me that he would tell this story to his grandmother hoping that she will not get upset once she find out that somebody has stolen her the money for her TV.

Lucio Valerio Sarandrea
Chief Technical Adviser on Rule of Law
UNDP in Kyrgyzstan

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Be Responsible. Zero Grey Economy

by anticorruption_185cgh14 November 2014no comment

Istanbul 4 edited

The public engagement campaign “Be Responsible. Zero Grey Economy” of Montenegro won Open Government Partnership’s second prize, competing with the best projects from 33 other countries which promote citizen involvement in implementing public policy. The Montenegrin campaign won the prestigious award for its contribution to boosting cooperation between civil and public sectors, and active involvement of citizens in implementing public policy.

The award ceremony took place during the “OGP High-Level Event: Citizen Action, Government Responsiveness,” at the level of heads of state and government on September 25th 2014, during the 69th UN General Assembly, in New York. Montenegro’s President Filip Vujanović presented the award to Vuk Vujnović, Coordinator of the campaign from the Public Relations Bureau of the Government of Montenegro and Professor Slobodan Đukanović, Coordinator of the Creative Programmers Team from the Faculty for Electrical Engineering in Podgorica.The Montenegrin campaign was supported by the UNDP – Global Anti-Corruption Initiative. For more information, click here.

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Call for Proposals: Thematic Policy Research

by anticorruption_185cgh12 November 2014no comment

UNDP Vietnam seeks proposals from qualified international and national firms/institutes for Thematic Policy Research on Governance and Public Administration in Vietnam (six policy research papers).

This research series will analyse situations in and provide concrete policy options for Vietnam focusing on:

– Citizen participation in policymaking processes and in the political life

– Transparency at the central and local government

– Vertical accountability for improved government responsiveness

– Control of corruption in the public sector

– Public administrative procedures and services

– Public service delivery for equal access for all

For more information, please visit https://www.ungm.org/Public/Notice/30369

Deadline for proposals: Monday, December 08, 2014 (Hanoi time)