In mid June TINZ Board Director, Debbie Gee, and CEO, Julie Haggie, joined colleagues from TI chapters across Asia Pacific in Bangkok, for a review and planning session.
These essential meetings give us the chance to support each other and to share knowledge, new ideas and experiences. It helps us all to understand the local and geo-political context each country chapter faces. We also plan regional advocacy and programmes.
Country chapters are doing amazing things to fight corruption and promote integrity:
- exposing weak anti graft policies and lack of transparency in Indonesia’s palm oil industry
- developing a Coalition for Integrity and advocating successfully for Right to Information legislation in the Maldives
- empowering citizens rights through legal advice centres in several countries
- running citizens election monitoring and advocacy on mining transparency in Mongolia
- taking legal action about alleged irregularity, bribery and corruption surrounding the claim for compensation arising from a shipping disaster in Sri Lanka
- running Youth Democracy camps in the Solomon Islands, where young people are empowered with knowledge of their political, legal, civil, democratic, and human rights
- and co-designing anti-corruption courses and anti-corruption songs in Fiji.
However chapters from many countries also shared that civil society space and rights are being reduced by laws and general repression across Asia Pacific. Many chapters are just holding on, and even talking about them publicly makes them vulnerable.
The meeting lifted spirits and determination. The success stories, small and big, have reinvigorated the participant’s knowledge that civil society is a powerful force in the fight for fairer societies.
Here is one of our Asia Regional Coordinators Urantsetseg Ulziikhuu talking about some of Transparency International’s work in the Asia Pacific region.
