Dr. Vaqar Ahmed
Fayyaz Yaseen
Safwan A.Khan
Nafeesa Hashmi
Samavia Batool
Muhammad Zeeshan
Muhammad Adnan
Abiha Haider
Background
and Introduction
For the developing world, corruption has been termed
as a substantial barrier in the way of prosperity. The endemic use of public
offices for personal gains causes a blow to the national kitty – leaving little
budgetary space for provision of quality public service delivery. Corruption is not only responsible for
siphoning off public money, but also for misallocation of limited resources.
The abuse and miss-use of public power is so entrenched that conventional accountability
mechanisms have failed to control it.
In the given scenario, it is envisaged that civil
society can play an effective role in curbing the menace of corruption.
However, for doing so, it needs to be educated and sensitized on its roles and
responsibilities. Also, it needs to be equipped with necessary skills and tools
for vigilant monitoring of public expenditure.
In this regard, The Sustainable Development Policy
Institute (SDPI), through wider consultation with all the stakeholders, is
trying to develop an anti-corruption strategy outlining collective role of
civil society on curbing corruption. This strategy is expected to feed into the
creation and launch of a comprehensive anti-corruption program at SDPI.
As a first step to this wider consultation, SDPI held
a policy symposium on ‘Anti-Corruption
Strategy: A Civil Society Perspective’ on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 in Islamabad.
A large number of participants of this policy symposium belonged to civil
society organizations, academia, citizen groups, lawyers, public officials,
development practitioners, and political parties. While the especially invited
speakers comprised of prominent public officials, policy makers and
anti-corruption experts with national and international exposure and
recognition.
The day-long policy symposium was divided into three
sessions. Details of these sessions, along with the speakers, are given in the
Agenda at the beginning of this report. We discuss, in the sections that
follow, the proceedings and deliberations from each of these sessions.