“How Do We Fight Corruption …?”

The Academy for Educational Development Tuesday launched the publication “How Do We Fight Corruption…?” – a compilation of success stories prepared as part of the Strengthening Civil Society Monitoring Capacity in Moldova (SCSMCM) Program, Info-Prim Neo reports. The publication was presented and discussed by the partners, clients and beneficiaries of the Program at a conference held to mark the completion of the two-year SCSMCM Program. Since 2007, the SCSMCM Program has worked to strengthen nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and mass media to increase transparency and support public scrutiny of government performance.  Such scrutiny improves transparency and motivates government to make real anticorruption reforms. Through an innovative series of grants, training programs, and technical assistance, over 30 Moldovan NGOs and media outlets and more than 70 investigative journalists have gained the resources and capacity they need to continue the fight against corruption. The publication “How Do We Fight Corruption…?” speaks about the steps taken as part of the Program to achieve these results. The readers can find out about the most important components of the SCSMCM Program and examine its role in the process of strengthening the Anticorruption Alliance and other organizations that form part of the Alliance, in forming journalists and educating the public to more carefully examine the government performance and in the process of developing the public-private partnership. The work contains a series of good practices, success stories, case studies and analyses. It will be issued in several hundred copies and sent to the beneficiary NGOs and NGO Resource Centers as instructive material. Program vice director Anatol Beleac said that the publication includes only a part of the successful practices of the Program and the most innovative anticorruption measures implemented in Moldova. “At the start of the Program in 2007, we experienced a high level of skepticism as regards the efficiency of some of the measures in Moldova. These included the public-private working group, advocacy activities at the local level, measurement of the access to information once in three months, etc.,” Beleac said. The Program’s impact reaches beyond organizations and journalists however. Through the unprecedented National Anticorruption Public Awareness Campaign hundreds of thousands of Moldovans are now better informed about the nature of corruption and how they can stop it.   Surveys already indicate almost a 10% decrease in the population’s readiness to pay bribes. The number of Moldovans taking action and reporting corruption cases has almost doubled.   The SCSMCM Program is implemented by the Academy for Educational Development (AED), with technical assistance from the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX). The Program is funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) within the framework of the Threshold Country Program (TCP) for Moldova. With funding from the United States Government, USAID provides economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries to provide a better future for all.