#YoCo is a Mexican network of CSOs, citizens and public officials concerned about corruption. It works for the development of anti-corruption initiatives maintaining a focus on the prevention of corruption in the public sector.
The project is structured by a model based on four measures:
1. Diagnostic of work processes to identify risks of corruption in public agencies and private actors.
2. To raise public awareness on the existence of acts and behaviors to detect corruption risk maps.
3. Identifying corrective measures.
4. Identification and punishment of corruption acts.
These concrete actions seek to effectively prevent acts of corruption by public servants and citizens.
By August 2015 #YoCo will present a legislative initiative that will focus on prevention and citizen participation in the fight against corruption.
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Organizations leading #YoCo :
- Aportes Contraloría, A.C.
- CIMTRA: Ciudadanos por Municipios Transparentes
- Desarrollo Institucional de la Vida Pública A.C
- Instituto para la Defensa del Interés Público, A.C. (IDIP)
- ONG Contraloría Ciudadana para la Rendición de Cuentas, A.C
The project aimed at promoting the accountability and transparency of the judiciary through establishing effective ways of handling citizens’ complaints and increasing the involvement of the public in judicial inspections. The project sought to influence improvement of legislation with regard to the access of individuals to the judicial inspection process. In addition, the project was expected to increase information of the public regarding the procedures and ways of following up complaints regarding judges and courts, and in particular the public participation and cooperation during the inspection of judicial cases.
Legal councils provided advice to citizens who were victims of corruption or who knew of corrupt cases.
The project focused on cases of conflict of interest in three courts in Albania: Court of Appeals in Tirana, First Instance Court of Vlora, First Instance Court of Shkodra.
The main goal of the project was offering free advice to bidders in the area of protection of rights.
The project aimed to bring about a change in the regulation and grant people the right to receive legal assistance. Its main activities included: 1. data collection and analysis of the system for providing legal assistance by the officially appointed defense lawyers and attorneys; 2.qualitative and quantitative data accumulation and processing concerning the process of providing legal assistance in cases of defense provided by the state; 3. alternative model testing for providing legal assistance by the so-called Legal Assistance Bureau; 4. analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative methods for improving the quality of legal assistance and formulating a public policy by means of which an alternative can be applied.
The goal of the project: providing legal advice on corruption. In some cases, legal assistance was offered in court cases.
The project objectives are: Identifying and formulating international standards and norms in regard to the prosecutor’s office. This includes the following: 1. operative standards by which the effectiveness of the prosecutor’s office can be judged; 2. standards regarding ethics and human rights by which the activities of the prosecutor’s office can be judged; 3. employing the existing mechanisms for ensuring the independence, efficient functioning and effectiveness of the prosecutor’s office, as well as finding out the best practices; 4. promoting debates about the need to reform the prosecutor’s office in Bulgaria and seeking methods for its better organization, effectiveness and efficient functioning; 5. turning the research into a reliable tool for making reforms. The tool itself should serve before the institutions which have tendencies towards reform and thus promote the debate concerning the prosecutor’s office in the countries which urgently need such changes.
In state administration, the organization’s objectives are to enforce access to information and public participation in compliance with international agreements, to actively empower citizens facing attacks, and to strengthen accountability of public representatives. In judiciary, the project aims at strengthening public control over the quality of decision making, extend public access to decisions, start a qualified discussion on court rulings and on the issues of judicial ethics. These efforts will contribute to reduction of possibilities for interference with judicial independence. (source: http://www.ceetrust.org/grants-database/in-country-grants/slovakia.html). Legal support for individuals when access to information is denied by government authorities (mainly on municipal level). Via Iuris works on court cases with systemic character (precedence).
The project focused on watchdog activities of local anti-corruption activists; email conference for experience exchange was set up and workshops and seminars organized, focusing on real cases and practical know-how. An anti-corruption advice center for individual citizens was implemented, including the support of a lawyer.
Working with 6 municipalities and 2 municipal units of Tirana as apart of the decentralization plans, focusing on local government transparency and analyzing bureaucracy.
The project aimed to a transparent control and management system to oversee and update university regulations and departmental decisions concerning students, administrative and academic staff. By doing so, the project aimed to increase the transparency and accountability of the academic institution and to incorporate practices of good governance. The project was realized in the course of Coalition 2000 and USAID Open Government Initiative Project: “Civil Society Against Corruption”” – Small Grants Program.”
This project, ‘Law-making process monitoring’, was initiated in 2006 by the Stefan Batory Foundation and Institute of Public Affairs (01.2006-12.2007). Thanks to the newly enacted in 2005 law on lobbing the NGOs and other organizations obtained an opportunity to monitor, follow more closely and also participate in legislative law-making processes. The engaged organizations monitored law projects with a significant impact on the anti-corruption sphere. The goal of this undertaking was twofold. On the one hand it intended to empirically appraise the possibility and effectiveness of the NGO participation in the legislative process. On the other hand, assessing the law making process transparency was envisaged.
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.
The creation of the Center for Advocacy and Legal Advice addressed the need to raise the public awareness of the challenges confronting the Bulgarian society in fighting corruption and to provoke public interest in the ways and mechanisms of fighting the phenomenon. The purpose of the Center was and still is to allow citizens to play an active role in fighting corruption by providing them with free legal assistance in their efforts to deal with corruption-related crimes by public institutions and civil servants. The Center also aims to raise the capacity and readiness of state institutions to work with citizens regarding corruption complaints.
The goal of the project was to increase citizen’s participation in active fight against the corruption through the information and education about corruption.
The goal of the project was to design and establish the Anti-corruption and Legal Advice Center (ALAC), with the following functions:
– to assist citizens in resolving corruption related problems;
– to inform citizens about the available methods to combat the problem of corruption;
– to ensure the effective communication between citizens and state institutions responsible for dealing with those problems;
– to ascertain the sectors in which instances of corruption are most common; and
– to highlight and resolve the legislative and systemic weaknesses that foster corruption.
The project was aimed at development of legal instruments protecting whistleblowers in Lithuania. TILS was nominated by the Government to lead the drafting of the whistleblower protection law. The project consisted of three parts: 1) TILS analyzed the current reporting and whistleblowing legal framework and practices in Lithuania; 2) TILS developed a set of proposals to address the issue of whistleblower protection and encouragement by producing a draft law and design a draft institutional/systemic framework that would effectively address the issue of whistleblowing in Lithuania. Such a proposal were based on thorough national research and best practice examples; 3) TILS sought to have necessary whistleblower protection documents adopted by the Parliament and relevant institutions. TILS staff has held a number of meetings members of the Parliament, in order to secure their support for the draft law. Whenever they had a chance, TILS raised the issue of whistleblowing in the media (a number of TV and radio shows attended) or during events organized by public institutions (meetings of certain commissions, working groups, and conferences), etc.
The project aimed to increase the capacity of victims and witnesses of corruption to solve their complaints through legal and administrative means.
The project consited in the creation of community liaison offices in regions and Kyiv City with a purpose of receiving of public complaints, and providing legal consultations.
The project consisted in a transfer of expertise from the European to Romanian Ombudsman in the field of defending citizens’ right to access public information and in an effort to make Romanian public opinion aware of the efforts an European institution makes so as to increase transparency and openness.
The main goal of the project was the exchange of the experiences on good practice and lessons learned between Bosnia&Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia on the field of Election Law and Conflict of Interest Law in order to make changes in all three countries regarding this issue. The three regional meetings were organized gathering representatives from NGO sector and government institutions which resulted with the recommendations for improvement of both laws. These recommendations were delivered to the competent institutions.
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.”