(VOVworld)- The Government Inspectorate and the World Bank jointly held a press conference on Monday to launch the anti-corruption initiative program for Vietnam in 2014 as part of the National Strategy on Anti-Corruption until 2020.

Under the theme “Strengthening transparency, uprightness and accountability”, the program includes an innovation competition and a forum for knowledge exchange on policy. Through the innovation competition, the program aims to look for new initiatives and ideas and effective ideas at the local level. Deputy Chief Government Inspector Nguyen Van Thanh said:“The Vietnam Anti-corruption initiative program is part of efforts of the Government Inspectorate and Vietnam in general in preventing corruption, encouraging the public to join this challenging work. We have the foundation to hope and believe that with the participation of the community and international friends, Vietnam will be able to escape from the current corruption crisis”.

This year’s competition focuses on “strengthening public uprightness and civil ethics”. It also calls for “improving transparency and information accessibility”, “improving accountability”, “expanding and duplicating initiatives and models”. Entries to the competition are required to have clear purposes that matches the theme of the program and identify beneficiaries and stakeholders. At the same time, these models must be practical and applicable and they should be supported by the community and locality. The deadline for entries is March 21, 2014.