The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), on November 5th 2021, kicked off a month-long technology challenge and hackathon ‘Coding4Integrity’ in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa and Senegal. This initiative was to help countries foster youth innovation and use new technologies to fight corruption.
This hackathon is one of the ways for UNODC to promote the development of sustainable Information Communication Technology (ICT) based anti-corruption solutions and implement the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). It aims to increase youth engagement in the fight against corruption, youth employment, public-private partnership and effectiveness in public administration.
Over 1700 participants, the highest number of entries amongst the five countries for the hackathon were from Nigeria. Out of the twenty teams, nine teams moved to the second round and pitched their ideas to a group of local and international jurors. The participants need to pitch concepts on how technology can help fight corruption and maintain strong institutions.
The winning teams would have the opportunity to present their ideas at the Conference of State Parties, which will take place in December 2021. Further, they can develop their solution with the help of the public sector partners who wish to increase ICT solutions to fight corruption.
Kwarsen Shedrack Titus of the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Nigeria said that the innovative ideas by these participants would help African countries establish e-governance services by using ICT in connection with government functions and procedures and bring about transparency, efficiency and accountability in the system.
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