International Conference
March 23-24, 2001
Sofia
Approximately a 100
representatives of non-governmental organizations and public
officials from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, as well as representatives of
bilateral aid agencies and international organizations, such as
USAID, OECD, the World Bank, the European Union, UNDP, the
Stability Pact for Southeast Europe and Hans Seidel Foundation, took part in
the International Conference organized by Coalition 2000.
Among the participants were also representatives of state
institutions and non-governmental organizations from the Samara and
Tomsk Regions of the Russian Federation. Leaders of Bulgarian
political parties, members of Parliament, US Ambassador to Bulgaria
Mr. Richard Miles, UK Ambassador Mr. Richard Stagg, German
Ambassador Ms. Ursula Seiler-Albring, the Ambassador of Sweden Mr.
Sten Ask and members of foreign embassies and missions in Sofia
also attended the event.
The Conference was part of a
series of events organized by the Coalition aimed at sharing
experiences such as Coalition Building and Monitoring in
Anti-Corruption: Strategies and Impact in Central and
Eastern Europe, held in June 1999 in Varna, and the
Southeast Europe Anti-Corruption Forum, held in Sofia in
February 2000. The purpose of this third international conference was to
review the experiences gained by the Coalition in establishing
public-private partnerships, to assess the results and impact from
implementing this anti-corruption instrument, and to encourage
further cooperation among governmental and non-governmental
organizations, especially in Southeastern Europe, within the
existing bilateral and multilateral instruments against corruption
and organized crime, as a security building measure for the region
in the framework of the Stability Pact.
The opening
session, chaired by Dr. Ognian Shentov, President of the Center for
the Study of Democracy (CSD), included contributions by the US
Ambassador to Bulgaria Richard Miles,Ambassador
Donald Kursh, Principal Deputy Special Coordinator,
Stability Pact for SoutheastEurope, the Ambassador
of Sweden Sten Ask, and UK Ambassador Richard Stagg.
The Conference then proceeded by
breaking into plenary sessions and four workshops, which explored a
wide range of problems, associated with corrupt practices in the
region and identified priorities for combating them. The
discussions focused on several important topical areas.
The focus of the first plenary
session, Regional Anti-corruption Strategies in Southeast
Europe, was on the assessment of corruption monitoring as both
a policy design and awareness tool, the impact and lessons learned
from coalition building, and the regionalization of anti-corruption
cooperation efforts in the region.
Mr. Alexander Stoyanov,
Director of Research at the Center for the Study of Democracy,
presented the first comparative survey and Corruption Assessment
Indexes designed for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Macedonia, Romania, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Mr. Boyko Todorov, Coordinator
for the Southeast Europe Legal Development Initiative (SELDI),
reported on the role and significance of cooperation between
governmental institutions and civil society in assessing corruption
in the countries of Southeast Europe. SELDI is the first NGO-led
effort for promoting legal cooperation as an instrument for
regional development. It was developed by the Center for the Study
of Democracy and the International Development Law Institute in
Rome based on favorable reaction to Coalition 2000. The
first results of this initiative, the creation of a forum for
partnership in the region, were presented at the
Conference.
The Regional
Corruption Monitoring System was evaluated as a specific
anti-corruption tool with awareness, research and policy
implications. Country results were analyzed by Mr. Auron Pasha,
Executive Director, Institute for Development Research and
Alternatives -Tirana; Mr. Damir Jandricek, Gallup-Croatia; Ms.
Ivana Aleksic, Center for Policy Studies-Belgrade; Mr.
Arben Tabaku, Project Manager, Albanian Center for Economic
Research-Tirana; Mr. Danilo Vukovic, Managing Director, Partner
Marketing Consulting Agency-Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
and Mr. Alexander Stoyanov, CSD Director of Research. Along with a
discussion on national corruption monitoring surveys, comparisons
between countries were made, and SELDI Corruption Diagnostics were
also evaluated.
The Developing
Anti-corruption Strategies and Building Public-Private
Partnerships panel discussed existing strategic concepts for
involving civic organizations in transition countries in the fight
against corruption in the context of their transition to a
pluralist democracy and market economy. Presentations emphasized
the impact of NGOs as initiators/generators of partnerships with
government agencies, as well as their role in exercising pressure
on these agencies and serving as a watchdog for reform efforts. An
inventory of instruments employed by anti-corruption public-private
partnerships: legislative inputs (e.g., the introduction of the
Ombudsman institution), social marketing techniques and awareness
campaigns, local government pilot projects, and anti-corruption
education were also discussed.
Coalition 2000' s
experience in establishing public-private partnership at the local
level, which included a manual on anti-corruption instruments
and best practices, was presented by Dr. Zhivka Damyanova,
Coalition 2000 Coordinator. The institution of the local
mediator (ombudsman), initiated and implemented by Coalition
2000' s local partners, were also considered by foreign
participants. A number of questions were answered by Ms. Iliana
Doneva, local mediator at Shoumen Municipality, Ms. Evelina Dosseva
of Pleven Municipality and Ms. Mila Georgieva of the Black Sea
Legal Association, Bourgas region.
Ms. Helene Holm-Pedersen,
OECD anti-corruption network manager, informed participants about
the panel's main conclusions and proposals for next steps at the
Third Annual Meeting of the Anti-corruption Network convened in
Istanbul, March 20-22, 2001.
The participants' attention was
focused also on another important aspect in the fight against
corruption - the role of civil society and the
media.
Dr. Maria Yordanova, Coordinator
of the Judicial Reform Initiative in Bulgaria, reported on
public-private partnerships in developing a legal basis for
judicial reform in Bulgaria and human rights protection and
promotion through the establishment of the Ombudsman institution in
the country, and provoked a discussion on the legal, as well as
moral aspects, of anti-corruption activities.
Dr. Emil Tsenkov, CSD Senior
Fellow, and Dr. Andrey Ivanov, UNDP Human Development Report
Coordinator raised important discussion points, such as the impact
of the media on public perceptions of corruption and changes in
public attitudes, the role of investigative journalism, obstacles
caused by imperfections in existing legislation, the need of better
regulation in accessing information, etc. The discussion exposed
the increasing role of the media in the development of
anti-corruption initiatives at national and local levels, as well
as the improvement in quality of their coverage of corruption
issues. Various forms of partnerships initiated and implemented by
Coalition 2000, such as the expert group on investigative
journalism, media corruption monitoring efforts, and joint
anti-corruption publications, were also discussed by the
panel.
Mr. Lyubomir Koutin, Varna City
and Culture Foundation President, presented a sociological survey
made among pupils in the secondary educational system in the city
of Varna. The survey results were analyzed and recommendations were
offered calling for further action for improving the
anti-corruption environment at schools. Ms. Svetlana Lenivkina,
Director of Business-Club "Renaissance" Russia; Mr. Vladimir
Zaitsev, Director, Samara Consult, Russia; Mr. Sergey Saveliev,
Chief of Staff and Administration, Samara Oblast Administration,
Russia; Ms. Valentina Pestrikova, Vice-Director, Samara Regional
Association "Povoljie", Russia; Mr. Vladimir Shevchenko, Assistant
to the Governor, Tomsk Oblast Administration, Russia; Ms. Galina
Popova, Russian Children Fund, Siberian Support Center of the Civic
Initiative, Tomsk Oblast Branch, Russia; and Ms. Olga Koneva,
Deputy Director General, Partnership of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs, Tomsk, Russia presented the anti-corruption
situation in two Russian regions - Samara and Tomsk.
In his report
"Partnerships or Dependencies" Mr. Corbin Lyday, Senior
Policy Analyst, USAID, reported on the experience of public-private
partnerships within the framework of USAID's Implementing Policy
Change Project, a wide-ranging program undertaken by the Global
Bureau's Center for Democracy and Governance. Stressing the
assumption that "the positive experiences of a limited number of
organizations such as Bulgaria's Coalition 2000, can easily be duplicated
in other transition states", Mr. Lyday pointed out some critical
challenges, which included the need for new partnerships for
maintaining integrity and independence, the need for increasing
transparency, as well as for increasing verifiable economic
performance. Further elaboration on these challenges and other
specific problems in the building of public-private partnerships in
transition countries was given by Ms. Anastasia Moser, MP, Co-Chair
of the Parliamentary Group of the People's Union, Dr. Ognian
Shentov, Mr. Boyko Todorov, Mr. Danilo Vukovic, and Mr. Adrian
Baboi-Stroe.
Corruption and trans-border
crime, fighting organized crime and the link between corruption
and trafficking were other issues brought to the discussion by
Ambassador Victor Jackovich, Associate Director for International
Liaison, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies,
Garmish-Patenkirchen, Mr. Richard N. Seaman, Criminal Law Program
Director, American Bar Associations & Central East European Law
Initiative, Mr. Tihomir Bezlov, Senior Analyst, Vitosha Research
and Mr. Ivailo Angelov, Expert, Coalition 2000. Contributions
were also made by Colonel Christofor Masov, Deputy Director of the
National Service on Counteracting Organized Crime and Mr. Vladimir
Shevchenko, Assistant to the Governor, Tomsk Oblast Administration,
Russia.
Among the themes
explored were trafficking in goods, people, drugs and arms, money
laundering, and organized crime's impact on the individual,
society, economic development, and security and the democratization
process in the region. The tools developed in the countries of
Southeast Europe and the international instruments to which the
countries present have signed up to were also discussed. The
participants underlined the necessity of:
Regional solutions to the problem of
corruption and trafficking;
Prevention through law enforcement
techniques;
Professional training and combating
corruption within state institutions engaged in the fight against
corruption;
Civil society organizations' monitoring and
control, and
Public-private partnership.
Conference agenda
List of
participants
Media
coverage
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