16 June 2014

ETICO, a unique new portal aimed at fighting corruption in education systems around the world, was launched 16 June 2014 by UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO).
Corruption is often hard to track and measure, but is found at different levels in countries’ education systems and is hampering access to education and children’s learning. It results in children being denied a good-quality education. Examples of corruption in education range from ghost schools and fake diplomas, to missing textbooks, stolen school supplies, absent teachers and misallocation of school grants.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSE IBARRA ANGELES.

For example, surveys carried out by IIEP partners tackling corruption estimate that the salaries of absent or ghost teachers may account for 15-20% of payroll costs in some countries; in some cases this is equal to half of the funds allocated to improving school buildings, providing better class equipment and buying school textbooks, etc.
The ETICO database, which houses the latest cutting-edge research tracking ethics and corruption, is a gateway for accessing expert training materials on transparency, accountability and anti-corruption issues in education and for support in implementing anti-corruption tools and strategies.
The global online platform will serve as a key interactive discussion hub for national and international partners who are promoting transparency. It will provide them with the opportunity to upload and share research on this crucial topic to help create a stronger united front against corruption in education.
“It is estimated that corruption is sucking millions of dollars out of the system, and as a result many children are missing out on an education due to malpractices and a serious lack of ethics in the system. The ETICO platform aims to help prevent this by bringing all of the key stakeholders together to fight against the problem and offer expert advice,” IIEP’s Senior Researcher on anti-corruption and ethics in education, Muriel Poisson, said.
Through its blog, the ETICO platform will host in-depth discussions on tackling corruption by sharing news and information, as well as highlighting best practices in countries where interventions against corruption in education have proved successful.
The launch of ETICO coincides with the release of an important new IIEP publication, Achieving Transparency in Pro-Poor Education Incentives. The book outlines the best ways to ensure that scholarships, conditional cash transfers, free school meals, etc., actually reach children from poor backgrounds and families who need it most.
For example, in South Africa, the quintile ranking system was designed to provide enhanced funding to schools serving the poorest students. To ensure that funds are reaching the right schools, several measures have been introduced, such as the use of objective, transparent and publicly known targeting tables. This system is recognised as an important effort towards ensuring greater equity in education by cutting school fees for the poorest children in South Africa, thereby giving them access to education.
In Brazil, the creation of food school councils has reduced the risks of misappropriation of food or fraud in food procurement – both problems in the past – by institutionalising the process of continuous programme monitoring and accountability. Relying on the participation of the school community and civil society, these councils scrutinise school menus and their related expenses. They help reduce delay in the transfer of resources, cut down operational costs and improve the quality of goods. The Brazilian school lunch programme reaches over 45 million people, and provides stability to the lives of poor families and students.
In the Indian state of Rajasthan, 28% of schools have introduced display boards that are available for public scrutiny. Usually painted on the school building, they display key information related to the daily functioning of the school, e.g. all financial investments made by the school; teacher attendance, etc. Publicly displayed transparency boards are now regarded as an important feature of community-based monitoring and public hearings are held where people are invited to give testimonies of corrupt practices and government officials are called upon to take action.
Presenting research comparing seven projects implemented worldwide, Achieving Transparency in Pro-Poor Education Incentives shows that measures taken to confront corruption risks – such as school display boards, local transparency mechanisms, appeal mechanisms, social audits, and informal whistleblowing, among actions taken is key in the battle against corruption in education. These measures are seen as crucial tools for achieving the Education for All goals. They are presented in detail on ETICO, together with hundreds of other such cases.
Visit the ETICO portal: http://etico.iiep.unesco.org/

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Bangkok, 13 Jun 2014 – Six innovations to tackle anti-corruption in Asia and the Pacific have won awards in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s first-ever social innovation initiative in the region launched in Thailand this week.

The countries with winning ideas that will now be funded by UNDP for a pilot-phase are Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and China. The proposals were judged on their ability to integrate anti-corruption efforts with development solutions, with a specific focus on women, youth, and marginalized communities.

The challenge drew proposals from 14 countries ranging from UNDP country offices to partner non-government organizations. A high-level panel of governance and innovation experts judged them on their applicability and their ability to sustain themselves beyond seed funding.

A joint effort of UNDP’s Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN) and the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre (APRC), the Social Innovation Initiative announced the awardees at a regional dialogue on “Transparency, Accountability and Voices against Corruption” that ended on June 13.

“Signing conventions is not enough, and we’ve also seen that having singular approaches to addressing anti-corruption is not enough: we have to take a much more innovative and integrated approach,” said Caitlin Wiesen, who heads UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Regional Centre.

Corruption disproportionately impacts at-risk groups of the poor, especially women, Wiesen pointed out at the launch of the two-day dialogue that brought together over 70 participants from 27 countries.

“At the moment, citizens in my country, especially marginalised groups, have no access to information on public expenditures in their districts. Through our project, they will have access to this information – and for the first time they will be able to judge how well and representatively they are being governed,” said Syed Hashim Zaidi, Project Officer, UNDP Pakistan, who co-developed one of the winning projects.

Each of the awarded projects will now receive funding of US$25,000 to US$50,000 to roll out their projects in a pilot phase, the results of which will determine whether UNDP goes on to scale-up the solution in partnership with governments and other national actors.

Following are summaries of the winning proposals:

1. Pakistan – Citizens’ Information and Accountability Forum

The initiative will launch a Citizens’ Information and Accountability Forum in the province of Punjab, one of two local governments in Pakistan that have passed Right to Information (RTI) laws. The Forum is a citizens-led group that will review district development plans and budgets in order to promote government accountability and transparency.

The Forum will submit RTI requests to gain access to all relevant public documents and hold government officials accountable at public hearings it will organize. It will conduct monthly meetings and site inspections to check the progress of publicly funded projects and raise any issues with the appropriate government body.

In the long run, the Forum intends to change how development planning happens at the district level, allowing citizens greater say and scrutiny in public expenditures.

With UNDP Pakistan as lead organizer, the Forum will have representatives of youth, women rights organizations, minority groups, bar associations, traders association, farmers association, teachers association, NGOs, community based organizations, university faculty, and press clubs. UNDP also will partner with the Punjab district government, particularly its Information Commission, to ensure its ownership of the initiative.

For more information about this initiative, please contact: Amir Goraya, Assistant Country Director, Democratic Governance Unit, UNDP Pakistan. amir.goraya@undp.org

2. Philippines – Citizen Empowerment Hubs

To be set up in three strategic areas, Citizen Empowerment Hubs will address a major challenge in the Philippines: disaster management. Natural disasters here are now more frequent and severe. Most affected are local communities, especially their most vulnerable groups — women and children.

The initiative will pilot the Hubs in building the capacity of grassroots women to map and monitor service delivery, with a distinct focus on local response to disasters. Key to the initiative is increasing partnerships between grassroots women and local authorities so that women become more visible in local decision-making, including budget planning, for disaster risk reduction.

Implementing partners are the Government Watch (G-Watch) project of the Ateneo School of Government, Damayan ng Maralitang Pilipinong Api (national federation of 217 grassroots organizations), the Huairou Commission, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Government of the Philippines, and UNDP Philippines.

For more information about this initiative, please contact: Emmanuel E. Buendia, UNDP Team Leader for Governance, UNDP Philippines. emmanuel.buendia@undp.org

3. Thailand – Anti-Corruption Cafes in Universities

This initiative will expand “Refuse To Be Corrupt”, a social enterprise of the UNDP-led Thai Youth Anti-Corruption Network (TYACN). The enterprise is part of a broader strategy to influence youth attitudes to corruption and is a joint project with True Coffee, the largest locally owned chain of coffee shops in Thailand.

TYACN will scale-up “Refuse To Be Corrupt” cafés in Khon Kaen University and Ubon Ratchathani University. Each café will give college students a space and a command centre where young people can sit down and discuss issues, share their views with peers, organize multi-media events, and map out plans to tackle corruption in their universities and the wider communities.

The World Economic Forum recognized “Refuse To Be Corrupt” as a Creative For Good best practice that presented an inspiring and effective public education campaign to instil social change.

For more information about this initiative, please contact: Kwanpadh Suddhi-Dhamakit, Programme Analyst, UNDP Thailand. kwanpadh.suddhi-dhamakit@undp.org

4. China – Youth Participation Innovation Laboratory

This initiative will set up an Innovation Laboratory for Youth Participation in anti-corruption, as a tool to promote youth engagement in corruption prevention in China’s higher education sector.

Among the initial activities will be a national student design competition on innovative anti-corruption plans to curb the spread of corruption in the higher education sector, with technical advice from UNDP. Winning plans will be piloted in selected member universities of the China Integrity Education Network (CIEN).

The proposed initiative scales up a UNDP project that currently supports a nationwide integrity innovation competition among 10 member universities of the CIEN, in consultation with the Beijing Education Commission and the Guangdong Education Department. The scale-up doubles the number of participating universities to 20.

For more information about this initiative, please contact Qing Gu, Team Leader Poverty, Equity & Governance, UNDP China. qing.gu@undp.org

5. Indonesia – Corruption Tracking Tool for the Extractives Industry

This initiative will pilot-test a prototype Corruption Tracking Tool to help address the high prevalence of corruption in Indonesia’s extractive industries. The Tool is a user-friendly handbook that can help local governments track stages vulnerable to corruption in both the processing of mining permits and the implementation of mining concessions.

The Tool will identify the capacities and resources needed to reduce corruption strategically. It also will pinpoint the potential benefits to local governments and stakeholders once a corruption problem is resolved.

Intended for piloting in two local governments, the Tool will be developed by UNDP Indonesia in close partnership with the two pilot local governments, the Corruption Eradication Commission, the National Development Planning Agency, and the Ministry of Energy Mineral Resources.

For more information about this initiative, please contact: Dr. Abdul Wahib Situmorang, Project Manager-Participatory Governance Assessment, Democratic Governance and Poverty Reduction Unit, UNDP Indonesia. abdul.situmorang@undp.org

6. Viet Nam – Strengthening People’s Role in Anti-Corruption Work

The initiative will strengthen the role and participation of civil society organizations in anti-corruption work in Viet Nam. It will focus on two groups: local people’s supervision boars and news media practitioners.

For the people’s supervision boards, the initiative aims to improve their knowledge on inspection law, the anti-corruption law, and related government policies; train them on policy monitoring, and monitoring and handling of complaints; and, provide them practical tools (such as handbooks and checklists) to do inspection work.

News media practitioners will benefit from training for investigative journalists on anti-corruption laws and investigation skills, and the regular sharing of updated information on corruption and anti-corruption activities.

Partners in the initiative are UNDP Vietnam, the Government Inspectorate of Viet Nam, and civil society groups.

For more information about this initiative, please contact: Tran My Hanh, Programme Analyst, UNDP Viet Nam Office. tran.my.hanh@undp.org

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To know more about the Social Innovation Initiative (Asia-Pacific) and the Regional Dialogue on Transparency, Accountability and Voices against Corruption, held 12-13 June 2014, Bangkok, please contact: Elodie Beth Seo, Regional Anti-Corruption Advisor, UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre. elodie.beth@undp.org

Note: This story first appeared in the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre website.

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