9 December 2021 – As part of its advocacy for integrity education in Congolese schools, CERC issued a statement on International Anti-Corruption Day, under this year's theme “Your right, your role: say no to corruption”. The theme puts the emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of each person in the fight against corruption, from the community to the international level.
The stakes are high: the Anti-Corruption States-General estimate that corruption costs the DRC more than US$15 billion every year, and the country scored 18 out of 100 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2020.
Public integrity is doing what is right, even when no one is watching. – CERC statement, International Anti-Corruption Day 2021
In its statement, CERC made two demands:
- an integrity education course in all secondary schools, so that every student learns to recognise and refuse corruption;
- an access to information law, so that citizens can know how public money is spent and hold decision-makers to account.
Both demands build on CERC's work in schools since 2017. Convinced that a culture of integrity begins with the education of children and young people, CERC works with secondary schools to bring an integrity education course into the classroom. Between 2017 and 2020, it trained 810 students in 54 Integrity Clubs in South Kivu, who fixed on average 32% of the problems that corruption had caused in the projects and services they monitored.
The statement also follows weeks of national debate in which CERC took part. From 19 to 23 October 2021, it joined the Anti-Corruption States-General organised by the Ministry of Justice with the support of UNDP, on the sidelines of which it recommended an integrity education course in schools. From 29 November to 3 December 2021, it contributed to the validation of the new National Anti-Corruption Strategy of the Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Corruption (APLC).
Next, CERC is preparing Integrity Clubs in 150 secondary schools in Kinshasa and South Kivu, with funding from the Global Partnership for Education through Oxfam IBIS, to train 2,250 students aged 14 to 19. It will also keep pressing for an access to information law, which it has advocated since 2018 with APNAC DRC and the Collectif24.
Support young people who say no to corruption: make a donation or become a supporter of CERC.
Read also: Year Zero: 534 students and education actors consulted to design Students Acting