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One of the biggest problems in Ukraine is high level of corruption practically in all life spheres. It concerns every citizen. Nowadays, both representatives of authorities and of public look for the ways to combat this problem.

Recently, a training “Mechanism of public participation in fighting corruption in the sphere of land property” took place in Chernihiv organized by the Community Law Center of Chernihiv public committee on human rights.

The participants consisted of public activists interested in increasing the capacities of the community to fight and prevent corruption in land property in Chernihiv region.

During the training, community’s representatives learned main aspects of legal regulation of land property issues, technologies of public expertise, monitoring of usage of land resources by authorities and methods of public influence on authorities’ decisions in this sphere, modern standards of effective anticorruption policy, including practical examples.

Trainers Ivan Sikora, the director of the Foundation “Open society”, former consultant of Council of Europe, ex-advisor of the Minister of Economics of Ukraine, author of methodology “Index of anticorruption policy”, and Ihor Puzan, the head of land management and land protection office of the Main department of State land agency in Chernihiv region, shared their experiences and knowledge.

“Chernihiv region can become one of the centers of Ukrainian renaissance demonstrating effective anticorruption policy and reliable public control to combat schemes of land “shadowmarket” which belongs to the territorial communities. This will increase funds of the local budgets and will make budget spending of costs, resources and actives more effective”, - Ivan Sikora convinced.

Great attention was turned towards learning the instruments for community to lead own investigations. Training enabled public activists to understand opportunities the community has to combat and prevent corruption on local level. Combating corruption depends not only on clear rules of the state but on the activeness of the community which controls the state. It depends on the position of common people who refuse to pay bribes to the officials as well.

Reference

The training was part of the project “Protection and promotion of rights of farmers-owners of the land and property shares in Khmelnitskiy, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions” implemented by Khmelnitskiy regional public organization “Podil legal league” together with Chernihiv public committee on human rights and Chuhuev human rights group with the support of International “Renaissance” Foundation, “Human rights and justice” programme initiative.

Additional Information: Community Law Centersare established with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework of “Human rights and justice” programme initiative. You can learn more on the Centers network activities, basics and principles of work here: www.legalspace.org