Reports
The Africa Liberal Network, with the support of the Liberal Democrats’ International Office and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, recently hosted a workshop on Combating Corruption. On 1 and 2 June 2018, 16 participants from ALN member parties hand picked for their expertise in this field, attended the workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Corruption is not an unfamiliar phenomena to our member parties, and many of them struggle daily with the scourge of corruption in their countries. From corrupt presidents, to corrupt governments and institutions, it is difficult to maintain democracies that exist for the benefit of all. As liberal political parties, we have the express responsibility to combat corruption, both in our governments and in our parties. The ALN is committed to the rule of law, transparency and accountability. It is for this reason that we decided to host a workshop on combating corruption, with a particular focus on keeping our parties clean and the aim of delivering a user-friendly anti-corruption framework at its conclusion.
The workshop focused on breaking down our understanding of corruption and redefining the concept, followed by a thorough analysis of our parties’ organisational structures. Consequently, we were able to identify where the vulnerable spots in our parties are, along with an analysis of the measures we already have in place to prevent corruption and fraud. The participants took part in an engaging brainstorming session to come up with creative solutions for the previously identified problem areas, with many of them sharing best practices from their parties.
Through inputs delivered during this workshop, the ALN is proud to present its first Anti-Corruption Toolkit for Political Parties (pdf).
It is our hope that our member parties will utilise this framework to strengthen their structures, prevent corruption from happening and implement measures to detect when it does occur.