Working Group on Preventing Corruption in Public Administration
This working group does not exist any more.
COORDINATORS:
Barbara Kudrycka, School of Public Administration, Bialystok, Poland
E-mail: [email protected]
Roman Chlapak, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France
E-mail: [email protected]
The Working Group was a joint initiative of NISPAcee and the Council of Europe.
It included participants from Albania, Czech Republic, Kosovo (UNMIK), Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro and Ukraine.
Background and justification:
It is now generally accepted that the phenomenon of corruption cannot be reduced only by repressive means. Legal and law enforcement measures need to be complemented by the involvement of the public as well as by measures to prevent corruption within public administration. Special efforts are required in the field of prevention of corruption in countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in particular with regard to reducing risks and opportunities of corruption within public administration. At the same time, capacities to design and implement such prevention measures are limited. Public administration training institutions and more generally higher education institutions could make in impact in this respect by including corruption prevention issues in their curricula.
Objective:
To contribute to the prevention of corruption within public administration through integration of anti-corruption issues into the curricula of training and educational institutions.
Output:
The project was launched in April 2002 at the 10th NISPAcee annual conference in Krakow (Poland).
Conditions, modalities and initial schedule were agreed upon at the first meeting of the members of the Working Group in October 2002 in Bialystok, Poland.
Following that meeting, first draft case studies were produced and consequently reviewed externally. The reviewers delivered comments and proposals for improvement of content and structure.
The second meeting in April 2003 in Bucharest served to present and discuss the case studies and their external reviews.
Conclusions from the NISPAcee Annual Meeting:
On April 10-12, the members of the Working Group on Preventing Corruption met at the 11th Annual NISPAcee conference 2003.
The objective of the Working Group was to contribute to the prevention of corruption within public administration through integration of anti-corruption issues into the curricula of training and educational institutions.
The objective of the meeting in Bucharest was to present and discuss the case studies and their external reviews. Case studies from Albania, Czech Republic, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Russian Federation and Ukraine were analysed. Within this context, the four topics of the wider NISPAcee conference were discussed.
The first topic related to steps needed to build capacities given increasingly binding budget constraints and a weakening research sector throughout the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. Workshops participants opined that the co-ordination of all sectors was important to build these capacities – with special participation from the "grass roots” level and the private sector (which could provide finance needed to help alleviate budgetary constraints). Given such non-government participation, such co-ordination would involve bottom-up as well as top-down type co-ordination. The development of human capacities through training and the institutional development to undertake such training (and engage in benchmarking) were perceived as important – with the caveat that these institutions be further equipped and strengthened instead of created ex-nihilo. A vital area of such capacity building is at the local level where transparency, accountability, public awareness and general participation should be encouraged.
The second topic related to staunching the degradation of politico-administrative relations. While publicity of corruption cases is an important way of ensuring political probity and integrity, rules for politicians, politician training, as well as codes of conduct for both politicians and civil servants can set an important framework for ensuring public sector integrity. While such activities are important in the short-term, a strategic vision and clarification of relations between politicians and business would establish a positive framework for politico-administrative relations in the long-term.
The third topic related to moving from a focus on the quality of service delivery to the quality of policy development involves consultation with stakeholders as much as possible in order to tailor policy toward the ‘objects’ of such policy. Benchmarking, monitoring and more generally performance measurement not only helps to build capacities generally (as mentioned above), but also specific capacities related to improving policy development. While such participatory methods offer important new mechanisms of improving policy development, standard hard commitments and laws still have a role to play in promoting the depoliticisation of the administration and in augmenting the professionalisation of its staff.
The fourth topic involved the development of e-government in the development of policy skills. Some ways which electronic government could bolster policy skills needed to reduce corruption are through the creation of websites for "e-networking”, case databases (for public services with cases which can get "misplaced”), increasing use of electronic applications and forms, distance learning in anti-corruption, and electronically mediated exchange. Information technologies also have a role to play in developing computer literacy, strategic planning, and language skills required for the broadly based fight against corruption. Distance training related to NISPAcee conference resources could help to develop important "capacities to govern”. Information technologies could also be used in the creation of internal administrative competitions which offer awards for public service delivery or innovative ideas.
After that meeting the members of the Working Group finalised their papers and sent them for an additional external review.
The outcome of the WG is the publication "Anti-corruption training programmes in central and eastern Europe", edited by Bryane Michael, 2005
The publication represents the product of a number of discussions held by the WG on Preventing Corruption in PA, created within the NISPAcee with the support of the Council of Europe.
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