Lecture: Integrity, transparency and accountability against corruption

4 August, 2019

Gaza — The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution carried out a lecture titled “Integrity, transparency, and accountability in the face of corruption”, within the project “The Youth Forum for Politics and Development”, which comes in cooperation with the “National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”. It hosted the lawyer of the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Gaza, Mr Bakr al-Turkmani, with the participation of a team composed of 25 youth (13 females : 12 males) within the age category 18–24, who have the passion to learn about politics and development.

The lecture aimed at studying corruption in general and its reality in Palestine in particular, and also the necessity of the existence of an effective accountability system, which contributes to mobilising all the components of society and bringing about democratic development.

The lecture's principal axes comprised the role of the various Palestinian sectors in fighting corruption and realising integrity — namely the public sector, the private sector, the civil organisations, the Palestinian media, and the political parties. Also distinguishing between similar concepts such as the plundering of public money, bribery, wasta, and favouritism.

Al-Turkmani likewise touched on the concept of each of transparency, integrity, and accountability and their indicators. In addition to the legal system for fighting corruption in Palestine, the Commission for Combating Illicit Gain and its competences and powers, and the Administrative and Financial Control Bureau, its goals and competences.

In the conclusion, agreement was reached on the lecture's review activity: 5 members of the team were chosen to present a short presentation comprising indicators and statistics on the following subjects: integrity and transparency in the work of the public sector, integrity and transparency in the private sector, integrity and transparency in the civil organisations, the citizens' right and freedom of access to information, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption.