Europe
08.07.2015

Fighting Corruption in Belarus

Vilnius, 06. July 2015. In cooperation with our long-term partner SILC (Swedish International Liberal Center) we conducted a 4-days-workshop in Vilnius, Lithunia with 21 participants from different regions of Belarus. This year the workshop focused on the delicate issue of fighting corruption. Together we discussed an overall strategy and developed projects on local level that will be implemented by the participants. In order to reach that goal we relied once more on the method of simulation gaming.

During 4 days we discussed the phenomenon of corruption, its manifold faces and theoretical models that try to explain under which circumstances are most likely to happen. Not surprisingly we figured out that the political system in Belarus appears to be a fruitful soil for corruption to take place. Further we analyzed the different types and the main causes for corrupt behaviors in Belarus.

The simulation game “Bribania” provided a fruitful framework, within which the participants could develop measures and combine them to a holistic strategy, in order to fight corruption. The actors of the simulation game had different approaches and preferences regarding the fight against corruption. As a matter of fact it was even in their interest of some to spoil any kind of anti-corruption-agreement in order to protect their own interests.

From this it becomes clear that the simulation game had got goals on two levels. On the one hand, the efficiency of possible measures was discussed and moreover the complexity of the negotiation process and its influence on the overall strategy became accessible to the participants.

Thus the simulation game provided the participants with a fruitful basis to develop their own projects. In the end of the workshop we had 6 projects-ideas that designed by the participants to fight corruption. All of them take place on local level and are aiming to increase transparency in the municipalities.

We hope many of them will be actually implemented and we wish our participant good luck in their fight against corruption. Don’t forget that corruption usually is a win-win-situation and thus you will create losers by fighting against it.