On March 20, the first lecture of the Bachelor's program - Corruption and Politics was held within the framework of the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption. The lecturer of the mentioned course is Zurab Sanikidze, who is the Chairperson of the LEPL Public Service Development Agency. Zurab Sanikidzewas working as the Head of the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia and for many years was actively involved instate policy-making for fighting against corruption.

During the semester, course participants will explore issues such as Political Finance and Lobbying; Identifying Corruption Risks in Politics; Public Resources and Voter Bribery; Social Programs and Corruption; Education Sector and Corruption; Environmental Protection and Corruption; Sport and Corruption. Throughout the course, students on the one hand will gain a broad knowledge of the essence and types of political corruption, and on the other hand, will be able to identify corruption risks in various areas of public administration as well as facilitate their elimination.

It should be outlined that the subjects of the Certification Program in Fighting Corruption are the academic courses of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the Ilia State University. Students of the fall semester of 2020-2021 of bachelor's degree have already studied the course - Good Governance and Corruption - that was read by the invited lecturer - Giorgi Chkheidze, who is the Chief of Party of USAID/PROLOG.

The Educational Certification Program in Fighting Corruption is implemented by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) in cooperation with the Ilia State University. The program is financially supported by the Open Society Foundations which promotes the development of sustainable human resources for fighting against corruption.