The executive director of the Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education (CYECE), Lucky Mbewe, emphasized the importance of investing in programs aimed at raising awareness in young people to foster a generation with a corruption-free mindset.
The call comes at a time when the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is undergoing a significant change in awareness and outreach efforts aimed at young people for a future free of corrupt practices.
Mbewe noted in an interview the limited visible efforts by stakeholders to actualize these aspirations.
“It is concerning that many young individuals are actively participating in corruption instead of utilizing their numbers and energy to combat it, particularly given their present and future leadership responsibilities,” he remarked.
Speaking in October last year during a media briefing celebrating 25 years of the bureau’s operations, ACB director Martha Chizuma underscored the importance of formulating programs that will see the youth actively involved in anti-corruption activities.
She said the programs will reverse the entrenched moral decay in the society through the implementation of interventions aiming at inculcating a culture of honesty and integrity in children and youth while they are still young.
During the formulation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy II (NACS II), it was observed that earlier one, certain groups such as the Youth, Women and Academia were not adequately included under NACS because they did not feature as standalone pillars of the NIS.
“This is so even though these actors are critical stakeholders in the anti-corruption drive. The youth make up a large part of Malawi’s population while academia plays an important role in educating the nation and conducting research on challenges facing the nation, leading to evidence-based interventions,” reads part of the strategy.
NACS II recognizes the youth as the leaders of the future, while some among them are already assuming leadership positions.
“They have an important role to play in the implementation of this strategy by, among other things, demanding accountability of government officials, mobilizing to raise awareness about the high social costs of corruption and to develop and implement innovative initiatives to monitor the delivery of public services as well as expenditures of public funds,” reads the strategy in part
