Online training on the use of the CENOZO business database platform

PRESSE RELEASE

The Norbert Zongo Cell for Investigative Journalism in West Africa (CENOZO), in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is organizing September 21 and 22, 2022 for of its members, an online training workshop on the use of its business records database platform.

Ouagadougou, September 05, 2022: Corruption is a complex phenomenon and its occurrence destabilizes West African countries, leading to a massive waste of natural and public resources, poor infrastructure and public services, lack of opportunities for young people, increasing insecurity and loss of trust of the population in both national and regional institutions.

As the guardian of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) notably supports Member States in the prevention of corruption within the private sector, in line with Article 12 of the Convention. Moreover, Art. 13 of UNCAC calls on each Member State to “respect, promote and protect the freedom to seek, receive, publish and disseminate information concerning corruption”.

Indeed, public awareness of the scale that corruption can take and its harmful consequences needs to be raised to ensure the necessary determination to fight corruption and pursue effective anti-corruption policies. In this context, UNODC supported in 2015 the creation of the Norbert Zongo Cell for Investigative Journalism in West Africa (CENOZO), a regional association based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was created to promote investigative journalism in West Africa, notably in the areas of corruption, organized crime, terrorism, human rights violations and crimes against the environment.

CENOZO has built a skillful and trustworthy cross-border network of journalists that is able to collaborate and exchange information across the region, thereby developing quality investigative stories. So far, the collaborative work of this dynamic regional network has resulted in the publishing of a multitude of reports exposing corruption and other malpractices, in West Africa and beyond. Several stories published by the Cell have resulted in concrete impact, including investigations by national law enforcement bodies.

During the first phase of a project aimed at strengthening the rule of law and the fight against corruption in the Sahel region, UNODC supported CENOZO in establishing a comprehensive database of company records in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Making up-to-date data on company records accessible to its members by covering legal, commercial, geographic, and financial information, CENOZO intends to facilitate the investigative work of journalists in the region.

Within the framework of a second phase of this project funded by the Kingdom of Belgium, the database was further extended to compile data from Benin, and it is meaning to continue to grow progressively. Even before the compilation of this additional data, the database already regrouped more than 121,000 entities and it became necessary to host it on a dedicated and suitable platform. This transfer of data to the Digital Ocean platform was finalized in 2022.

This training workshop aims to build the capacity of CENOZO members to detect and report on corruption and organized crime in West Africa, by facilitating their access to company data on its platform.

The training will be delivered virtually on the Teams platform, during two consecutive 4 hours sessions. The sessions will be in French, with simultaneous interpretation in English, for all participants.

If you are a member of CENOZO and you wish to participate in this training, please register by sending your surname, first name(s), country and city of residence and WhatsApp or Signal contact to the email address: contact@cenozo.org.