07.12.2021
The Digital Anti-Corruption Conference has become a platform to discuss the situation with corruption and ways to fight it.
From minister to IT specialist. More than 20 speakers shared the achievements and challenges of using IT to carry out reforms.
The conference brought together civil society and business in Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, to create joint anti-corruption projects. Participants shared approaches to working on the intersection of transparency, accountability, integrity and access to information on the one hand and the development of digital tools on the other. They discussed digital tools that are already actively used and how to expand their use.
From minister to IT specialist. More than 20 speakers shared the achievements and challenges of using IT to carry out reforms.
The conference brought together civil society and business in Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, to create joint anti-corruption projects. Participants shared approaches to working on the intersection of transparency, accountability, integrity and access to information on the one hand and the development of digital tools on the other. They discussed digital tools that are already actively used and how to expand their use.
The Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov voiced the plans of his Ministry to digitize all services by 2024. He believes that if a service does not exist online, it cannot exist offline. In addition, the official noted: “Digital transformation at the state level has a significant anti-corruption effect. It is a tool to stop many schemes worth millions of hryvnias that have settled in the pockets of corrupt officials. According to research, the potential economic effect of digitalization of only 17 public services in seven areas is almost UAH 495 million per year. And the potential anti-corruption - it's savings on bribes - is 841 million UAH per year.
Ats Kübarsepp, The Head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of The Police and Border Guard Board of Estonia, who has worked in law enforcement for over 19 years in the fight against organized and official crime, said: Technology is very important in the fight against corruption. In particular, they reduce the "human factor". Digital processes greatly reduce the level of bribery. Estonia has come a long way in this regard".
Hannes Astok, a senior expert and executive director of the Estonian Academy of e-Government, said: "It is very difficult to bribe a computer. If you are sitting at a computer, there is no official among you who would ask for or demand a bribe. So you avoid the corruption component.
The more digital transactions we have without interaction, the lower is the risk of corruption. We cannot avoid communication 100%, because an official must make a qualified decision, so it is impossible to do without human interaction, but only when necessary ".
In addition, representatives of various countries presented the existing innovative solutions to fight against corruption and told what successes have been achieved thanks to such tools.
More details about the conference:
The full video of the conference:
The event was organized by the NGO "Anti-Corruption Headquarters" (Kyiv, Ukraine) and Transparency International Estonia (Tallinn, Estonia).
The conference was funded by the European Union and the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
