Activity Type: Advocacy

Civil Parliament – a model for improving the organizational work, control and monitoring in preventing the corruption and increasing the accountability of the municipal administration of the city of Koprivshtica

The project aimed at increasing the transparency, the organization and civil control over the work of the municipal administration in the city of Koprivshtica in order to achieve better governance at local level. The project activities included: 1. surveys assessing the transparency and accountability of the municipal administration; 2. assessment and evaluation of the structure and effectiveness of the governance procedures of the municipal administration and the provision of precise recommendations for improvement; 3. risk assessment of the potential for corruption practices in the work of the administration; 4. assessment of the strategic documents and legal framework concerning the governance of the municipality and development of measures and recommendations for improvement; 5. realization of public hearings and round tables (civil parliaments) aimed to define the major problems and needs with regard to transparency and control over the work of the administration; 6. variety of activities for dissemination of the project goals and results.

“Yes”” for Parliament with Clean Hands”

The “Yes to a Parliament with Clean Hands“ campaign was conducted in October and November of 2007 in cooperation with our partners, the Bura Network and the Romanian Academic Society (SAR). The main goal of the campaign was to raise the level of political integrity of all political parties and independent candidates that stood for the 2007 parliamentary elections on November 25th. The activities of the campaign were divided into three main categories. The first activity was a proposition made towards all the candidates for parliamentary elections to sign a declaration of asset form prepared by the Bura Network. By signing the form candidates would proactively show that their private interest was subordinate to their commitment to the public good. The second activity was directed toward the political parties asking them to sign a Campaign Participation Agreement. This agreement required the political parties to base their selection criteria of candidates on a number of principles insuring that the candidate or his close relatives never profited from the process of privatization, gained capital from extensive transaction with the state and never had verifiably been accused of a confirmed conflict of interest. The third activity was the general advocacy of the citizens democratic right to vote and convincing citizens to sign a petition for the amend of the Act on the Prevention of conflict of Interest in the Exercise in the Public Office.
These advocacy activities encompassed 54 cities, towns and municipalities, a total of 276, 352 leaflets were distributed and 2, 891 petition signatures were collected. The information on the campaign and its results were reported by 47 different media.
The campaign results were organized into a white list of political parties that signed the Campaign Participation Agreement and black listed parties that refused to sign the agreement. From the black listed parties the following candidates provided declarations of assets: Dragutin Lesar (HNS), Jozo Radoš (HNS), Nada Bajić (HNS), Jadranka Cigelj (HSP), Zoran Vinkovć (SDP), Božidar Čapalija (HSU), Ana Dusper (HSU).
The results of the campaign were 11 white listed parties and 7 black listed parties. However, this result must be contextualized with the information that all of the major parties in government and a large portion of opposition parties currently holding seats within parliament refused to sign the Agreement. The Agreement was mainly signed by regional parties that lacked any major role in the political decisions made by this session of parliament. This is a testimony to the lack of political will to reform the current structure of government that is plagued with conflicts of interest and corruption.

Accountability Program in the Western Balkans I

The TI Accountability Programme addresses the existing deficiencies in governments accountability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia by proposing remedies in two key areas of good governance, which are currently insufficiently regulated:
– Conflict of interest of public officials
– Free access to information
The programme also aims at involving civil society in actively promoting and monitoring the above mentioned laws.
These goals are be reached by:
– Raising public awareness;
– Strengthening civil society in the region;
– Enhancing higher level of media professionalism;
– Reducing opportunities for conflict of interest of public officials;
– Ensuring free access to information for citizens.
The three-year programme is being implemented by the TI National Chapters in the respective countries and coordinated by he TI International Secretariat.

The project includes the following activities:
– Assessment of the existing legislation
– Improvement of the Laws
– Public awareness raising
– Training of journalists and CSOs representatives
– Training of public officials
– Monitoring the implementation of the Laws

Civil society against buying of electoral votes: the effective civil society control as a factor for conducting fair and democratic elections

The primary goal of the project was to promote integrity in the election campaigns, to mobilize civil society organizations in order to exercise effective control and monitoring over the election campaigns in view of prevention of buying of electoral votes and to increase the level of integrity of the democratic process in general. The project objectives were: 1. to formulate adequate proposals for legislative amendments designed to restrict buying of electoral votes during the upcoming elections for MPs of the National Assembly and members of the European Parliament in 2009; 2. to mobilize the civil society structures for exerting an active public pressure on state institutions in order to adopt the civil society proposals for legislative amendments and to ensure fair democratic elections. 3. to advocate for civil and political intolerance towards the issue of buying of votes through focusing public attention on the importance of this phenomenon and organizing a civil society advocacy campaign for a fair and nonbiased electoral campaign. 4. to enhance the capacity of NGOs for exercising an effective monitoring over elections and to enhance the capacity of the state institutions for effective counteraction and restriction to the practices of vote buying.

With Business Ethics Against Corruption

The goal of the project was to raise entrepreneurship sector awareness about business ethics and to help to develop business ethics regulations by economic branches.

The project started in 1st January 2009 and sought to explain both to the entrepreneurship sector and to the wider public how important business ethic are in longer perspective.

During project examples of Nordic countries were brought. Nordic countries examples will be obtaining with help of Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry branches and TI-Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, also Ministry of Justice of Estonia.

Advocacy and Legal Advice Center I

The project aimed to enhance citizens’ participation in anti-corruption by:
– facilitating public access to information related to their rights;
– offering legal guidance regarding complaint procedures in case of fraudulent use of public funds or when citizens are victims of corruption or learn about cases of corruption;
– offering citizens the opportunity to take action against corruption by implementing information campaigns. These campaigns will include brochures and citizens’ guides and will provide practical advice and information related to concrete questions, such as “How to fight against corruption in fiscal administration.”
– promoting open dialogue with public institutions for the setting up of mechanisms capable to deal with citizens’ complaints effectively.”

Civil control – a guarantee for transparent and accessible local authority

The project seeks to improve the role of the structures of the civil society in the city of Gabrovo in the formulation of policies and programs at municipal level. Some of the main project activities were: 1. realization of surveys aimed to define the main problems and deficiencies in communication between the local administration and the civil society at large; 2. monitoring activities regarding the work of the administration and development of precise recommendations for improvement; 3. organization and realization of round tables with representatives from the civil society and experts from the municipal administration aimed to encourage the dialogue and partnership between the two target groups; 4. realization of educational seminars regarding the civil control over the work of the administration; 5. realization of a regional information campaign “Civil society organizations – factor for increasing the transparency and accountability of the municipal administration””.; 6. development of precise recommendations for the public administration on how to incorporate good practices and procedures, which will ease the access to information for the citizens and the business and engage the civil society into the decision making process regarding the provision of services of general public interest.”

Openness and competence II

It is a Poland-wide project targeted at raising awareness about corruption and shaping anti-corruption behavior models. The project is on-going and runs since late 2003. Both youth (primary schools, high schools and universities) and teachers are targeted and the aim of the undertaking is to introduce to school curricula more information about corruption and ways to counteract this phenomenon. Additionally, teachers were to be trained on topic how to deliver information about anti-corruption in classes as well as an internet database of corruption related materials was to be created. Within the program local governments are engaged on some stages and in some initiatives, like on-site visits, conferences, workshops, etc.
The project is of the very large scope and thousands of teachers as well as youth was trained and took part in multiple workshops and trainings. Many various materials have been elaborated within the project, like informative brochures, manuals, code of conducts etc. Moreover, some stages were linked with other ongoing projects in Poland, e.g. in 2004 with the Transparent District and in 2005 with Transparent Poland.
Project’s donors have varied over years and the funding have originated from governmental sources (the US Embassy and Polish Ministry of Education and Sport and Civic Initiatives Fund) as well as EU means the European Commission, Transition Facility 2005 (managed by the Cooperation Fund Foundation), and other NGOs, e.g. the Stefan Batory Foundation.
Within this project a number of other anti-corruption-/transparency-oriented initiatives for youth have been taking place. Two most significant are:

Youth in transparent Poland (since 2006) – Młodzież w przejrzystej Polsce
@corruption e-platform (2008) – E-platforma @ntykorupcyjna

Both of them were of the national scope and engaged large number of participants. Youth and teachers often try to engage within the projects public officials from local administration but also particular working groups, like judges, doctors, policemen etc., which often bear a patch of being very prone to corruption. This was achieved thanks to study visits to interested institutions as well as conferences and workshops with representatives of those sectors. Moreover, the project ‘Youth in transparent Poland’ stepped outside Poland and it turned into joined projects with e.g. Lithuania, where schools and local administrations were encouraged to cooperate in the field of anti-corruption.

Creation of the strategy for development of local selfgovernment of Bosnia&Herzegovina with the involvement of the crucial stakeholders

The main objectives of the project were: (1) to introduce the question of local governence and decentralisation as the priority in the process of reforms in BIH; (2) creation of the leading nucleus of crucial national stakeholders (from pubic administration, NGOs, other leading practitioners and experts in the field of good governance) as a driving force for the creation and implementation of the strategy; (3) creation of the integral, systematically established and generally accepted strategy for development of local government in BIH; (4) establishement of new qualitative approach for the policy and practice for the creation of solutions for local level in BIH (bottom-up instead top-down).

Georgian Government under the Sunshine and/within “FOI Implementation, Law Reform and Financial Transparency”

The project was one of the most important and influental in the anti-corruption sphere in Georgia. it had a long duration period with several phases, with strong support from many different international donors with large sclae funding. The project aimed at the promotion of accountable government structures through the implementation of the legislation on the access to information and, at the same time, through the promotion of financial transparency in the public institutions funded from the state budget by using FOI as an instrument. The following activities were implemented within the framework of the project: 1. Implementing freedom of information principles in real life by strategic litigation and monitoring access to information; 2. Monitoring and advocacy through the project “Georgian Government under Sunshine”, which includes the following elements: support of the establishment of public broadcaster; monitoring of the President’s reserve fund; monitoring of the Government’s reserve fund; monitoring of the reserve fund of Adjara autonomous republic; 3. Assistance to the development of the local NGO sector addressing corruption and transparency actions in Adjara and Kutaisi; 4. Round tables and trainings for judges and freedom of information officers; 5. Creation of data bases of freedom of information officers in Georgia; 6. Creation of an online guidebook on Freedom of Information; 7. Elaboration of recommendations for the promotion and development of freedom of information legislation and practice in Georgia.

The citizens and the municipality – partners for transparent and effective local administration

The aim of the project was to increase the transparency, accountability and effectiveness of the municipal administration in Bulgaria by creating bridges between the civil society structures and the local authorities. The initiative included: 1. survey and analysis of the existing working practices of the Bulgarian local administration; 2. development of precise measures for improvement at national level; 3. development and realization of educational seminars and workshops for the targeted groups; 4. dissemination of the results of the project.

Accountability Program in the Western Balkans II

This regional programme for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia aims strenghting implementation Access to Information law. The programme also aims at involving civil society in actively promoting and monitoring law.
Project goals:
– To improve the quality of Access to Information laws;
– To monitor and encourage harmonization with European standards;
– To maintain popular and media support for anti-corruption initiatives;
– To generate a body of knowledge on Access to Information for use in the region and beyond.
The one-year project was implemented by the TI National Chapters in the respective countries and coordinated by he TI International Secretariat.

The project included the following activities:
– Improving legal standards;
– Testing effectiveness of laws/analysis of obstacles to implementation;
– Assisting users of the law;
– Improving government capacity to implement laws;
– Exploring development of legal cases (e.g. preparation of pilot cases to challenge implementation of FOIA laws, or provisions of information to those preparing cases).

Curbing corruption and promoting transparency in the work of municipal councils in Bulgaria

The project aimed at identifying corruption-generating practices in the work of local authorities. The project fulfillment included three stages: 1. an analysis of the Municipal Council documentation and the local newspapers; 2. a focus-group discussions with Municipal Councilors and community representatives for determining the target groups and spheres of competing interests; 3. social experiments in resolving typical cases in three of the selected municipals. As an outcome a Policy Paper and a Handbook comprising analytical material, suggestions for amending the Rules and Procedures of Municipal Councils’ functioning and for public feedback was developed.

Typology of the corruption practices in higher education in Bulgaria and a strategy for counteraction

The project aimed to develop a typology of the various forms of corrupt activities in the higher education, to analyze reasons and systems proposals for institutional change. Some of its main activities include: 1. national representative polls of the universities and focus group discussions with the stakeholders in the educational system; 2. Work groups on the social roots of the various types and forms for corruption practices in the higher education; 3. preparation of a final report and recommendations for increasing the transparency in the higher education and combating the corruptive practices.

Regional support for the realization of the strategy for local self-governance

The goal of this bilateral project (between BIH and Serbia) was to (1) analyze the importance of decentralisation, especially the fiscal decentralisaton, governance, good quality management in local adminsitration, vertical and horizontal relations between local and other level of governance, as well as to analyze the level of cooperation betweeen local communities – after this analysis the goal was to (2) prepare and distribute the publication on good practices, challenges and experiences and to promote alternative steps towards decentralisation in BIH and Serbia.

More active civil society – more trust in the work of the local administration

The project aimed to improve the cooperation between the structures of the civil society and the public administration in the Southwest region (NUTS II) in Bulgaria in order to: improve the civil control and monitoring; prevent the corruptive practices; and increase the accountability of the administration. The project included: 1. survey of the public opinion in the region regarding the work, transparency and accountability of the local and regional administrations; 2. realization of educational seminars for representatives of the civil society regarding mechanisms for monitoring, control and prevention of corruption in the administration; 3. realization of round tables with representatives from the civil society sector and the public administration; 5. development of a web site of the initiative.

Public procurement City of Zagreb – Financial Management Policy Analysis project

The objective of the project was improving transparency and accountability of the City of Zagreb business dealings – i.e. transparency of all departments within the City of Zagreb) and establishing new and/or to improve the existing mechanisms of independent and accurate control of financial management related processes.

Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers

Goals of the project:
Provide the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina with an effective instrument for combating corruption in their everyday lives;
Provides citizens with free legal advice for reporting complaints of suspected corruption of public officials, or where the citizen is a victim or has knowledge of corrupt practices;
Makes information on citizens’ rights easily available and accessible to the public;
Raises citizen’s awareness of their rights and possibilities to take actions against corruption;
Opens a dialogue with the national institutions to support the establishment of appropriate mechanisms for citizens’ complaints in order to systemize and organize fight against corruption;
Monitor the work of responsible public institutions during processing of cases of corruption.
PROJECT ACTIVITIES:
Case studies of citizen’s complaints against corruption, using statistics and qualitative examples (who complains about what, which agencies were involved, which authorities were most vigilant in pursuing corruption, etc.);
Monthly press releases and reports to the public;
“Should I complain?” an ethical brochure for citizens about why individual action is important for combating corruption;
Training manual for government agencies on dealing with citizen’s complaints and obligations under freedom of information and conflict of interest;
Cooperation with journalists and radio and TV broadcasters on small programs about corruption cases.

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