The public and state should be equally interested in fight against corruption and work together. Only then it will be possible to achieve a tangible result.
“Anti-Corruption perception among the population is rather low and they are prone to corruption. Naturally the non-governmental organization have a lot of work to do,” Karen Zadoyan, President of the Armenian Young Lawyers Association, “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project Manager said.
A three-day Anti-Corruption training is organized in Yerevan for the CSOs and Media organizations of Yerevan, Aragatsotn and Armavir marzes in the framework of the European Union funded “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” project. Debates on the subject of the training are rather hot, however everyone agree that the fight against corruption should be joint.
“Today many people simply do not realize that their actions are qualified as corruption, or that they have become victims of corruption,” Nare Gareginyan from “Zartonk-89” benevolent non-governmental organization said.
Participants of the three-day seminar acknowledge that the state fights against corruption however there is a big gap in this fight.
“There is a struggle against this phenomenon, but the extent, the levels the struggle is carried out and the long-term goals of such fight, is another matter,” Heghine Nazaryan, representative of “European Integration” NGO mentioned.
“Let us point out two things, what we have in reality and what is written on paper. If we compare these two, then there’s a big difference. We have really good legal acts, which are just on paper. If these acts really operate act, I think the result will be evident,” Siranush Zakaryan from “Informed and Protected Consumer” NGO said.
The schedule of the three-day training includes principles of good governance, information about the notion of corruption, history of its development and reasons for its occurrences, etc. The participants got acquainted to the notion of ant-corruption public monitoring, methodology and international practice. The aspects and issues of the RA Government Program, Strategic Program of the RA Legal and Judicial Reforms 2012-2016, international experience and mechanisms of creating anti-corruption coalitions were discussed. The themes covering mechanisms and sources to receive information, and the rule and specifics of implementing journalistic investigation were included as well.
The training program includes the journalistic investigation procedure and specifics, and the mechanisms and sources to obtain information as well.
“Journalistic investigation requires rather serious professional skills, and the people who will be involved in it should pass certain training,” Davit Alaverdyan, Chief editor of “Mediamax” said.
“As a journalist I believe that the disclosing of some occurrences that corruption may have, can help me in my future journalistic activities, and why not, maybe in exercising journalistic investigations,” Arpine Hovhannisyan, journalist of “Armedia” Information Analytical Agency noted.
“Generally, the right for freedom of information in the context of revealing corruption acts as an instrument, a precondition, which then correlating with the journalistic investigation may assist to revealing the corruption,” Gevorg Hayrapetyan, Coordinator of Government – CSO Dialogue of “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project said.
CSO and Media Organizations, who have completed the training successfully, will have opportunity to participate in the tender for small grants to undertake monitoring, watchdog activities and journalistic investigations.
You can see the list of CSOs and the media participants of the Anti-Corruption Training here.
