IOI President Chris Field and Vice President Europe Rob Behrens CBE attended the International Conference “Human Rights in Dark Hours” in Ukraine.

IOI President Chris Field and IOI Vice President Europe Rob Behrens CBE were honoured to meet the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Mr Ruslan Stefanchuk, in Ukraine.

IOI President Field and IOI Vice President Europe Behrens commenced their third day in Kyiv with a visit to the bunker used by the staff of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights followed by a formal exchange with the Commissioner and a meeting of his Coordination Council. The President and Vice President Europe then visited places of destruction in Kyiv.

IOI President Chris Field and IOI Vice President Europe Rob Behrens CBE undertook a visit to the city of Irpin in Ukraine.

The December 2022 issue of Waka Tangata is out now. Catch up on the latest news from Pacific and Australasia Ombudsmen and read how the Ombudsman Tonga is using "Ombudsvans" to provide access to its services in remote communities.

 

The Office of the Ombudsman of Tonga introduced a new initiative to better facilitate easier public access to the services of the Ombudsman. Six mobile outreach programs (MOPs) covered the smaller villages of Tongatapu not commonly present in previous district outreaches.

A training course sharing Korea’s best practices of anti-corruption policies, such as Integrity Assessment of public institutions and Corruption Risk Assessment, with 7 countries was completed. The ACRC designed the training course, which marks its 10^th anniversary this year, for foreign countries to build capacity for the effective establishment of anti-corruption systems.

The Ombudsperson released a report with a cautionary message for public organizations – don’t develop policies that are too narrow to serve the public fairly. In his report, Making Amends, Ombudsperson Jay Chalke highlights the case of a woman in her 70s who ran into bureaucratic roadblocks when she applied to the Vital Statistics Agency to amend her name on her B.C. birth certificate.