Berlin/ Ramallah/ Gaza – The team of the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability (AMAN) won the International Transparency 2024 Team Award for Extraordinary Impact that rewards courage, bravery and ongoing action and impact even under the gloomiest conditions. AMAN Coalition received the award for its extraordinary work and maximum efforts in resilience and in supporting the resilience of citizens especially during the genocide that is still ongoing in Gaza and the escalation of Israeli incursions and settlers’ attacks in the West Bank.
Transparency International announced the winners at its awards ceremony at the start of its Annual General Assembly meeting yesterday, with AMAN staff in attendance. Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Vice Chair of Transparency International, stated that the Aman Coalition - Transparency International's Palestinian chapter - has shown extraordinary courage in continuing to operate under fire. The AMAN team has shown exceptional resilience and innovation, always reaching out to the media to internationalize its recommendations on distributing humanitarian aid and preventing impunity for the occupation, despite the heavy personal and collective toll of the war and limited access to basic resources.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of AMAN's Board of Directors, delivered a speech in which she welcomed the award, praising the collective work and collective effort exerted by the Aman Coalition team, and the continuation of its work in an unsafe environment. She reiterated that the Coalition persists in its mission to promote the system of integrity, transparency and anti-corruption, in light of the genocide that is taking place live. Ashrawi also called on human rights and international organizations to hold the occupation accountable, limit its access to cover from many Western countries, led by the United States of America, and ensure that it does not go unpunished for the crimes it commits daily against the Palestinian people, as it uses hunger as a weapon of war, denying aid and anything that supports the basics of life, such as food, medicine or fuel.
A number of Transparency International chapters nominated AMAN for its devoted work under painful and precedented conditions in the Gaza Strip, in conjunction with the sad news about the passing away of relatives and families of staff members, friends, journalists who received training in producing investigative reports with AMAN, service providers, partners as well as active members of the Civil Society Team To Enhance Public Budget Transparency, of which AMAN is the Executive Secretariat. The award winners were selected by TI Board of Director’s Anticorruption Awards Jury. AMAN Coalition Team in the West Bank and Gaza Strip received the Team Award for Extraordinary Impact.
It is worth noting that AMAN’s team continues to prepare reports related to monitoring humanitarian aid management. It also holds tens of radio and TV interviews through various media to raise people’s voice and proposes AMAN’s recommendations to include the recommendations in an anticorruption manual related to the distribution of humanitarian aid. AMAN also works on the ground and organizes several training sessions and interactions with citizens, relief works, food supplements distribution teams, all centered on the requirements of justice in the distribution of humanitarian aid, the importance of having a unified database, accountability, and complaint mechanisms. It also trains local committees’ teams on the best practices to promote the values of integrity and principles of transparency in the distribution of humanitarian aid to ensure fair distribution and more targeted outreach of the needy in the Gaza Strip.