Ramallah – Last week, the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN) and Economic and Social Development Centre of Palestine completed six awareness raising sessions targeting cooperative societies in northern, central, and southern West Bank. Held in January and February 2022, these meetings aimed at enabling cooperatives to use methods and mechanisms for promoting the systems of integrity and transparency, tools of accountability, governance, and development of anti-corruption processes in relevant operations.
The awareness raising sessions targeted the Bizzariya Cooperative Society; Dura Cooperative for Agro-processing; Savings and Credit Group, Ya’bad; Tubas Cooperative Society; Wadi al-Far’a Cooperative Society; Al-Ibda’ Cooperative Society, Deir Ballut; Burbara Women’s Society, Abud; Nuwei’ma Agricultural Cooperative Society; and Al-Duyuk Cooperative Society. Meetings were also attended by representatives of several government bodies, including district offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Cooperative Work Agency, Palestinian Farmers’ Union, Ministry of Local Government, and local government units.
The programme brought together 173 participants from various cooperatives in northern, central, and southern West Bank. Meetings discussed a number of anti-corruption issues, including the definition of corruption, legal framework for cooperatives in Palestine, general concepts of corruption, governance, and good governance, different forms of corruption, causes of pervasive corruption, and risks of corruption to political, economic, and social aspects of life. The event also covered corruption preventive mechanisms, namely, the values of integrity, principles of transparency, systems of accountability, whistleblowers, and agencies to whom incidents of corruption are reported.
These sessions are part of the partnership between the Economic and Social Development Centre of Palestine and AMAN. They sought to strengthen the integrity of cooperatives, raise awareness among communities about the fight against corruption, and activate internal and external accountability mechanisms. Sessions were also designed to rejuvenate the values of integrity, principles of transparency, and systems of accountability in the action strategies of cooperatives.
