By Katalina Siasau

Youth leaders from various NGOs, government, health, media, private sector, and communities engaged in Anti-Corruption training from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Tonga this week, ahead of a very important youth dialogue with the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, scheduled for Monday, 26 August, at Tonga's Parliament.

The training was presented by Anti-corruption Consultant, Hobart Va’ai on Thursday, 22 August, at Tungi Colonade in Nuku’alofa.

Va'ai noted the importance of informing and educating the youth of Tonga and the Pacific on the topic of corruption.

“Well, the most important thing, we need to equip them. Often we fail to equip our youth leaders too late, but this is the time when they're learning, they're coming up from, they're just working organisations, they're making way up. This is the best time to equip them," he said.

“They need to have the necessary tools, as they advance in their careers, that ethics and integrity is a priority. So, this is, for me, probably the most critical of all the trainings we do across the Pacific, and across everywhere that we work, is that we equip our youth now.”

The training was focused on understanding the various types of corruption and corruption case studies in the Pacific. How does it apply to us in our Pacific context and what are the tools we can implement in our organizations to stop corruption? They were encouraged to talk about the most common forms of corruption. 

Participants also learnt the importance of ethics and integrity, and also unpacked the impacts of corruption in Tonga and the Pacific.