Transparency International Young Journalists Training

Partnerships were formed with the journalists' associations and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The overall goal of the training was to equip journalists with the necessary skills and techniques of writing investigative stories by conducting independent research using information technology. Sessions also focused on deepening participants' understanding of the media's oversight function (or watchdog role) in Uganda's democratic consolidation. Specifically, the training sessions involved:

• Two one-day workshops with the themes Techniques of Investigation and Computer Assisted Reporting and Applying Techniques of Investigative Journalism in Specified Areas (Finance, Health, Environment etc). The workshops tackled the anatomy of corruption, conflict of interest case studies, and differences in investigation between journalism, security services, and oversight bodies (i.e., Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, the Inspectorate of Government, and Internal Security Organisation).
• A one-day seminar, Challenges to Effective Investigative Reporting, in which journalists were equipped with knowledge about the economic and social environment, public access and privacy, media ethics, and legalities.
• A three-day round-table session tackling issues including globalisation and media oversight in democratic consolidation, campaign finance, and corruption and peer reviews.
• An on-site visit to local government departments of Water, Education, and the Chief Administrative Officer's office.

Further investigation on the projects/offices visited was completed by the trainees and published in the local print media.

Organisation of the training programme involved the following steps:

• Pre-preparation involved drafting of training material, which was reviewed and finalised before training started.
• Preparations also involved identification of prominent trainers from the recognised universities of Uganda, news editors from prominent media organisations, and personnel from the journalist institutes, i.e. Uganda Journalists Association and National Institute of Journalists in Uganda.
• A project management team was identified, comprising a project director and a project officer. Their mandate was to co-ordinate and supervise a technical team of local and international resource persons and provide administrative support.
• A seven-member panel selected 15 journalists from the electronic and print media through a formal application process. The applicants had to demonstrate a commitment to and interest in investigative journalism and had to have practiced for a minimum of four years. A strategic qualitative selection process favouring journalists from the print media based in Kampala was applied to identify eight journalists from Kampala and seven from the provinces.

Democracy and Governance, Rights.

The project aimed to train journalists to expose any form of corruption by the government. According to organisers, there are anti-corruption laws, rules, and regulations in the Ugandan Constitution of 1995 and various acts of law that have been passed, but due to illiteracy and lack of awareness among the populace, Ugandans are largely ignorant of these laws and regulations. "Most people do not know what roles to play in the fight against corruption, while even many more are unaware of their rights. Most people are not informed about the funds that they should benefit from, namely the Poverty Eradication Action Plan and Poverty Alleviation Fund. Getting the facts from the public offices to the citizens has been a challenge. Various audit reports of the period 2000/20032 indicate that there is rampant corruption in local government. Corruption threatens to fail goals of decentralisation and the Poverty Alleviation Fund."

Many of Uganda's citizens do not understand the concept of corruption and its corrosive effects on the communities. As discussions with people in Kisoro district (where TI-Uganda has a field office) showed, some people think that corruption helps in attaining things from others who have more than they need. Others believe corruption is a useful tool to speed things up, and some know that corruption has negative effects on others but only consider their own interests at the expense of public good. Unethical behaviour and corruption is even reported on family level: wives divert part of the families' money from children's scholastic materials to their cosmetic purchases; children make false expenses claims for extra tuition, school trips, loss of school books, or damage to school furniture in a bid to get extra pocket money; and husbands underdeclare their salaries to avoid demands from their family.

TI claims that, furthermore, the media lack the freedom and skills to inform others about corruption. The media faces severe constraints from anti-press laws, adversely affecting investigative journalism in the country.