More than sixty anti-corruption practitioners and goverment officials from West Africa will gather in Monrovia next week for a three-day regional workshop on whistleblower and witness protection.
The meeting will be attended by police chiefs, lawmakers with oversight on corruption issues, and representatives from international organizations involved with whistleblower and witness protection activities in West Africa.
The gathering seeks to increase the knowledge of participants about systems to protect whistleblowers and witnesses, to share experiences and lessons learned from other countries in the region and beyond as well as identify practical priority actions for West African countries on the issues.
The workshop which is being organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in partnership with the LACC and the Network of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA) also brings together various stakeholders from the region to discuss specific challenges and raise awareness about concepts and measures used in other countries, their strengths and limitations.
The regional workshop comes against the background that, despite increased awareness about the need to enact whistleblower and witness protection legislation and other measures, there is still a lack of technical knowledge on how to devise such legislation, enforce good practices and tackle issues to be considered in developing appropriate legislation, a release yesterday indicated.
Moreover, most countries have some form of general witness protection provided in their anti-corruption laws, but these provisions remain vague and inadequate, the release suggested.
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