Agreement Will Promote Integrity and Anti-Corruption through Education

Birzeit University’s Public Administration Department signed on June 10, 2014 an agreement with Integrity Action to promote the culture of integrity and anti-corruption through education.

The agreement aims to develop cooperative working relationships between both parties by providing advanced training for Birzeit University faculty members and students on integrity and community building by holding workshops and training sessions designed to introduce the concepts of transparency, accountability, reform, anti-corruption and to stimulate and encourage students and faculty to conduct research on these vital issues. Moreover, Birzeit University and Integrity Action will form a joint research committee.

The memorandum was signed by Birzeit University president Khalil Hindi and Integrity Action CEO Fredrik Galtung, in the presence of Public Administration Department Chair Mohammed Hanini and a number of faculty members.

An academic seminar on "Why the reform and anti-corruption efforts in developing countries fail? What lessons can be deduced for Palestine?" was delivered by Galtung, who addressed the most important causes: human nature, weakness of the institutional and organizational framework, an ineffective role by the media, a powerless penal system, lack of appropriate laws and regulations and absence of community awareness of the need to fight corruption.

In his lecture, Galtung argued that 75% of anti-corruption bodies and existing projects, in more than 100 countries including Palestine, are superficial. Galtung went on to say that if a country wants to get rid of corruption, it should take into account the reasons anti-corruption projects fail, and benefit from the experiences of the very few countries that have managed to combat corruption.