Ideas for joint European anti-corruption projects were discussed in Bucharest
The meeting of the EPAC International Working Group “Educational and Values Management Measures” was held on October 14-15, 2019, in Bucharest, Romania. The purpose of the meeting was to exchange ideas and experience in implementing raising awareness campaigns, to develop common standards and strategies, to promote best practices for integrity.
The representatives of the anti-corruption authorities from Romania, Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Spain and Ukraine worked on effective ways to engage the public to achieve abovementioned goals.
The representatives of the External Communication Department of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine Svitlana Olifira and Viktoriia Ivashyniuta shared the Ukrainian experience of making raising awareness campaigns, in particular: an anti-corruption opinion festival “DumkoFest” and the “Corruption Park”, which were implemented with the support of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine, campaign “Students Against Corruption”.
“The NABU has been actively engaging the public in the fight against corruption since its foundation. We demonstrate, by our own example, that it is possible to build an efficient law enforcement agency from the scratch on the principles of transparency and integrity. We appreciate the support of the society and international partners, because only through joint efforts we can fight corruption”, said Svitlana Olifira, the Head of the NABU's External Communication Department.
Latvian colleagues have presented the mobile application “Ziņo KNAB!” that was released this year. With the help of this application, citizens can notify the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau of Latvia (KNAB) about possible election violations.
The representatives of Freedom House Romania presented a project “School for Democracy”. These are trainings for Romanian teachers to teach pupils anti-corruption values.
The officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Romania demonstrated the main achievements of a raising awareness campaign named “You Can Bring The Light”, which urges citizens to report corruption.
The best of participants' ideas formed the basis of possible joint projects for corruption prevention, educating civil servants and youth on integrity, and to promotion common anti-corruption values.
For reference
The European Partners against Corruption (EPAC) and European contact-point network against corruption (EACN) within the framework of the “EU Integrity” initiated the creation of four sub-working groups on the following areas: “Supporting and protecting of whistle-blowers”, “Interagency cooperation and common of standards for its improvement”, “Educational and values management measures” and “Integrity and anti-corruption standards”.
