What problem are you solving?:

Intense anticorruption campaigns developed in Romania in the recent years have sought to put pressure on official institutions and to place corrupt practices under the spotlight. The coalitions initiated by SAR in the field of education, parliamentary reform and local government have engaged important groups of stakeholders in anticorruption and pro-integrity activities, getting beyond the NGO community to include students’ organizations and unions, among others. But due to the economic crisis and political disappointment, anticorruption efforts do not seem to reach beyond an ever larger circle of activists to a sufficient number of voluntary contributors. With the lack of voluntary, spontaneous watchdogs and whistle-blowers, and almost absent citizen involvement in monitoring and reporting corruption, no effort is sustainable in the long run.

Describe your idea:

SAR supports the development of a broader anticorruption constituency that would actively employ not only civil society and official bodies, but also the larger community of citizens, through individual whistle-blowers and monitors. The project thus proposes the creation of an anticorruption portal ‘http://www.romaniacurata.ro’ (a pilot web page is in place), which will focus on interactive dialogue and public participation, as well as collaboration with national prevention and prosecution bodies- the National Integrity Agency (NIA) and the National Anticorruption Department (NAD). The portal would offer citizens the opportunity to actively discuss and report individual cases, as well as to inform themselves on the possibilities they have to defend their rights. Moreover, it would publish whistleblowers` reports and journalistic investigations (aided by such reports among other sources), and activate and support a network of investigative journalists in local and central media.

What country will this operate in?: Romania

Who are you?:

Established as a think tank in 1996, the Romanian Academic Society (SAR) aims to further the ideas of freedom, democracy and good governance in Eastern Europe. Starting with our own country we seek to raise the public awareness level of policy issues, contribute through research and advocacy to informed policy formulation and assist administrative reform through performance assessment. We believe that countries can do more or less out of their European accession process and our goal is to help improve their performance in this process so that integration brings a maximum of benefits. Finally, we are confident that both Europes – the old and the new one – will meet each other in an enlarged European Union where civil society will be a crucial actor.