Dicky Christanto and Muhammad Nafik, Nusa Dua, Bali – A coalition of civil society groups said the international anti-graft conference wrapped up here Friday had seen "little progress" made toward finding a better partnership to fight corruption.
The coalition said the five-day conference had not allowed civil society organizations to actively participate in monitoring the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) together with the state parties.
In this case, the conference of the state parties to the UNCAC failed to promote transparency among them in implementing the convention, the coalition said.
"It clearly shows that these governments do not want to be monitored by others, especially by us, the civil society," Transparency International (TI) director for global programs Christiaan Poortman told The Jakarta Post.
"It is ironic, since these governments have vowed to eradicate corruption practices but failed to perform transparency in doing it," he said.
Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) spokesman Bamban Widjoyanto said local and international NGOs were dissatisfied with the results of the conference "because it did not ensure public transparency in implementing the convention's review mechanism by involving civil society organizations".
Poortman said it seemed there were some countries that did not want the review mechanism implemented immediately.
The early stages of the review mechanism included the obligation for state parties to fill self-assessment checklists that explained their weaknesses and their success stories in efforts to eradicate corruption.
Such lists were expected to explain the very position of each state party in the global campaign against graft, and to help United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in offering assistance requested by these countries.
Many signatory countries, mostly African nations, were still not returning their assessment lists to the UNODC.
This failure prompted the meeting to decide to resume discussions on the implementation of the review mechanism at the third conference in Doha by the end of 2009.
Dadang Trisasongko of the Partnership for Governance Reform, also a local member of the coalition, said the conference's refusal to include civil society organizations in monitoring the implementation of the conference's outcome was obviously violating the UNCAC itself, which obliges its state parties to ensure public participation by encouraging civil society organizations to jointly combat corruption.
"It is a characteristic of countries in transition from authoritarianism to democracy," Dadang said.
"They are not ready to be criticized. As for Indonesia, it is obvious that excluding other parties in monitoring government policies is one of the ultimate legacies from Soeharto's New Order regime".
But he said the conference succeeded in increasing the awareness of its signatory countries to join forces in battling corruption.
"More regional working groups are established. They would discuss new ways of in battling corruption in their respective regions," he said.