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“Anti-Corruption – Implementing Curriculum Change in Management Education provides resources for building trust through the implementation of comprehensive guidelines on how to professionalize ethics and anti-corruption education worldwide in a variety of classroom settings. It is written and tested by highly experienced program directors, deans and professors, in how to adopt, adapt and develop best teaching practice. It highlights successful patterns, details illustrative case studies and offers clear, hands-on recommendations.”

Stylus/Greenleaf Publishing, to be available July 2015

By Wolfgang Amann, Ronald Berenbeim, Tay Keong Tan, Matthias Kleinhempel, Alfred Lewis, Ruth Nieffer, Agata Stachowicz-Stanusch, and Shiv Tripathi

For more information about this book, please contact Jennifer Smith, Marketing Manager, Stylus Publishing (jennifer@styluspub.com]) or click here. 

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Two public officials in Papua New Guinea have been arrested for fund mismanagement of more than 2 million US dollars. Five more are waiting for court decisions, and approximately other 250 cases are being investigated.

Revelation of these perceived corrupt practices was made possible through the new “Phones Against Corruption” initiative, launched by UNDP in partnership with PNG’s Department of Finance in 2014.

The success is significant to Papua New Guinea, where corruption severely impacts and derails country’s development. PNG features 144th out of 175 in Transparency International’s Corruption Index and is in the lowest 15% of countries dealing with corruption according to the World Bank’s Global Governance Corruption Index.

This pilot initiative introduced new corruption reporting tool – text messaging through mobile phones. The text messaging is user friendly and is free of charge, with no specific application or Internet access required. It is anonymous – it does not report sender’s information. Required information relates to Where, When and What corruption case is being reported.

All reported cases are referred to the Department of Finance through the Internal Audit and Compliance Division for further investigation in collaboration with relevant state bodies responsible for criminal investigations and prosecution.

“We as Department of Finance are accountable of public money that are going to the different sectors, provinces and districts, and this initiative will help us, at least, to minimize the risk of corruption in the management of public funds”, said Acting DOF Secretary Dr. Ken Ngangan.

“Having singular approaches to addressing anti-corruption is not enough: we have to take a much more innovative and integrated approach. Through “Phones against Corruption” initiative we want to make sure that all Papua New Guineans – for the first time – will have an opportunity to report on corruption cases that they encounter and improve current practices”, said Roy Trivedy, the UNDP Resident Representative.

The initiative is initially introduced among 1200 staff of the Department of Finance. Since its launch in July last year, more than 6 000 text messages have been received from 1500 different users, averaging 38 messages per day.

The “Phones Against Corruption” initiative is led by Department of Finance through UNDP’s Provincial Capacity Building Programme. This pilot initiative is funded by UNDP’s regional innovation fund in close collaboration with its Corporate Innovation Facility supported by DANIDA. The project also received support from the Australian Government. Now the pilot initiative is going through user-experience review, which will allow to gather users experiences related to common issues and optimize the final product.

The project is ready for scaling up at the national level. Department of Finance will handover this responsibility to the PNG’s Independent Commission Against Corruption in late 2015. In partnership with UNDP, the initiative will be opened to the general public. 

For more information, click here: http://www.pg.undp.org/content/papua_new_guinea/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2015/04/10/new-corruption-cases-uncovered-with-phones-against-corruption-initiative.html

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In the Arab states region, UNDPs’ regional anti-corruption and integrity project (ACIAC) continues to support different countries in their efforts to establish effective protection for whistleblowers against corruption, in collaboration with the Arab Anti-Corruption and Integrity Network (ACINET). In March 2015, UNDP-ACIAC supported related activities in Lebanon and Tunisia to raise awareness on new bills that are being proposed in this regard and to enable an inclusive discussion on how to advance them.

The activity in Tunisia was held on 11 March in cooperation with OECD, the Government of Tunisia and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (INLUCC). It was attended by more than 40 participants including key stakeholders from the government, parliament and civil society. It enabled them to develop a deeper understanding of the whistleblower protection bill and related international standards and comparative experiences. They were also able to formulate specific recommendations to enrich the bill and promote its adoption and effective implementation.

The other activity was held in Lebanon on 26 March in cooperation with the “Lebanese Parliamentarians against Corruption” and the “Lebanese Transparency Association” (LTA). Participants included parliamentarians and key national stakeholders. It provided them with a comprehensive update on national anti-corruption legislative efforts, with a focus on the whistleblower protection bill, while enabling them to revise and fine-tune the “citizen guide”. The guide was developed by LTA to raise public awareness and engage citizens in whistleblowing against corruption in Lebanon.

Across the region, there are many similar efforts despite the various legal and societal obstacles that face them. Such efforts seek to comply with the requirements of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), and also benefit from ACINET’s Regional Conclusions in 2009. To date, three countries have taken regulatory actions in this regard. Iraq issued an order in 2004 to protect and provide appropriate incentives to whistleblowers and is currently preparing a more comprehensive bill. In 2011, Morocco introduced amendments to the penal code to protect whistleblowers in cases related to bribery, embezzlement, and other corruption crimes. In 2014 Jordan adopted a regulation specifically dedicated to the protection of whistleblower, witnesses, informants and experts in all corruption cases.

In addition to those three countries, Saudi Arabia is currently preparing a specialized whistleblower protection bill, and has also dedicated part of the website of the National Anti-Corruption Commission to receive corruption complaints. Morocco, on the other hand has established a specific website solely dedicated to this purpose, but reserved so far for reports on corruption related complaints and furnish legal advice to small and medium enterprises (SME’s) www.stopcorruption.ma .

In parallel to these governmental efforts, civil society is playing a more active role on whistleblower protection advocating the adoption of related laws and providing various types of facilities to receive documents and follow on whistleblower protection. Active initiatives in this context are carried out by the AMAN Coalition in Palestine, Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA), Kuwait Transparency Society (KTS), and Transparency Maroc, all through the concept of ALACs(Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres), promoted by Transparency International which provides free and confidential legal advice to witnesses and victims of corruption.

By Chloe Younes, Communication Intern, UNDP Lebanon

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Ukraine has been attempting to radically reform its governance systems in the midst of an uneasy transition. Efforts include purging civil service ranks of corrupt officials and schemes, introducing more transparency, and launching corruption prevention mechanisms. Government at all levels has received technical assistance and expertise in multiple areas. It has been surged with reform priorities that it needs to address immediately.

Working in close partnership with government and the new Reanimation Package of Reforms (RPR) CSO initiative (a cluster of over 40 most active reform-minded civil society organizations), UNDP in Ukraine helped to advance corruption prevention and promote transparency. Three systemic areas merit mention: Setting up the rules of the game, creating tools for implementing the adopted policies, and empowering the actors to take up the new instruments.

In close partnership with the Ministry of Justice, the Parliamentary Committee for Combating Corruption, and the thematic RPR civic expert group, UNDP helped craft new laws “On Prevention of Corruption” and “On the State Anti-corruption Strategy for 2014-2017”. Expert support and engaged discussions hosted by the Ministry and the Parliamentary committee in partnership with UNDP and other development partners have shaped new legislative frameworks in a truly participatory manner. On-demand assistance to civic advocacy efforts has, in its turn, made possible the adoption of these drafts by MPs in October 2014. At present UNDP is assisting the government in getting the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption, envisaged by the legislation, up and running before the end of spring this year.

UNDP Ukraine has responded to the growing demand for more transparency and digital openness of governance by championing open data. UNDP experts worked alongside civic experts in designing an open data framework (some of the civic experts were part of the team that built the prototype of Ukraine’s open data portal, www.data.gov.ua). Among the outcomes is draft legislation intended to amend existing “Access to Information” regulations. These would make open data a legal term in Ukraine and mandate publication of datasets. The UNDP-supported draft law also became one of the signature products of the RPR E-Governance group, taken up by the Administration of the President as part of a “Digital Ukraine” legislative package, introduced to Parliament, and finally passed as a law on 10 April 2015

Corruption prevention work in Ukraine needs a detailed and structured roadmap for taking action and measuring progress. This is why an important component UNDP Ukraine’s work is helping the government develop the National Anticorruption Programme. Adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers in early April, the action plan makes the National Anticorruption Strategy operational by translating overarching goals, principles and values into concrete time-bound initiatives that the government will undertake in the next three years.

UNDP continued its previously launched pilot on making municipality budgets clearer and more user-friendly for citizens and local journalists. The tool that “interprets” long rows of accounting codes and cumbersome tables into an interactive and easy-to understand format was finalized in early 2015 (see http://bit.ly/1H2ybNv for an example of a multi-year expenditure comparison). The presentation of the web-instrument to over 30 head city accountants from all over Ukraine has generated much interest.

Finally, fulfilling its mission of building capacities of local actors to effectively counteract corruption at the sub-national level, UNDP has worked hand in hand with six CSOs that are recognized as the backbone of anti-corruption reform in Ukraine. To transfer the skills, knowledge, and practical experience of these CSOs to the regional level, UNDP organized an Anticorruption School in March 2015. Some 30 activists, journalists, and aspiring anticorruption practitioners from 15 regions of the country attended the school. UNDP continues to link the School participants with national organizations (including through daily Facebook communications) and is helping to build linkages between the regional and national levels of anti-corruption work.

It may well be said that the changes in Ukraine’s integrity, openness and corruption prevention landscape are too slow and that the public is waiting for tangible change already here and now. The process of hammering out more perfect arrangements between civil society and the state in a democratic, deliberative manner has been slow, yet, already showing some of its first fruit. With steady movement ahead we hope for more and more progress to report and, in a while be able to live up to the statement that water indeed is able to carve stone at its slow but steady pace.

By Maksym Klyuchar, Governance Expert, Democratization and Human Rights in Ukraine Project, UNDP Ukraine Country Office

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