30 NGOs and over 70 investigative reporters learn to fight corruption

About 30 NGOs and over 70 investigative reporters have been trained to fight corruption within the Program on Strengthening the monitoring capacity of the Moldovan civil society. The achievements of the program and the future anti-corruption reforms in this country were discussed Friday at a final conference of the project called “Civil Society and Media against Corruption: What's next…?” Info-Prim Neo report. The Program has started in July 2007 as a part of the Country Threshold Program (CTP) for Moldova. “We focused on strengthening the capacity of the NGOs and media to enhance transparency and to support the public scrutiny on the Government's work to order to implement the anti-corruption reforms. This scrutiny enhances transparency and motivates the Government to undertake concrete reform to curb corruption,” said the Program's manager, Sharon Van Pelt. “Today is an extremely important day for us. A day to think it over, to celebrate the successes and to identify steps to be made. We have discussed the experiences and lessons learnt by media and the civil society following the implementation of the anti-corruption activities within the CTP,” Sharon Van Pelt added. Through grants, programs and technical assistance activities, the civil society and media media have learnt to monitor the state authorities. The impact of the Program does not restricts only to NGOs and journalists. Hundreds of thousands of Moldovans have become better informed about corruption and ways to curb this due to the public awareness-raising national campaign “You can stop corruption!” The polls carried out by Transparency International already display a 10% drop of the people's readiness to give bribes. The number of the people denouncing corruption cases has practically doubled. “In this program, we managed, for the first time, to join the efforts of the NGOs, media, the Government and of the private sector,” said Valeriu Balaban, a national CTP Moldova coordinator. In addition to an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign, the Program managed to setup a Civil Council to monitor the Economic Crimes and Corruption Combating Center – a new phenomenon not only for Moldova, but also for the rest of South-East Europe. A public-private group was also created in which representatives of the authorities and media work. The Program on Strengthening the monitoring capacity of the Moldovan civil society is implemented by the Academy for International Development (AED) with the technical support from IREX, and is financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and run by USAID withing the CTP. Through the CTP, the Moldovan Government committed to continue, with the support of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the reforms in decreasing corruption in five sectors. The Government has benefited from assistance worth $24.7 million from the US Government. The measures envisaged by the CTP were to be achieved from 2007 to 2008.