Events

The contest on the theme “City Budget – My Budget” was announced in May 2014. The contest was held as part of the project “Increasing the level of transparency and accountability of the budget process in the cities of Bishkek and Osh,” implemented by the Development Policy Institute with financial support from the British Department for International Development (DFID). According to the contest conditions, participants could be full-time and freelance authors of print, broadcast, and online media in the Kyrgyz Republic, who were invited to provide collections of published or aired analytical materials and journalistic investigations on the following topics:

• Bishkek and Osh city budgets: what do we know about them?
• Transparency in the expenditure of budget funds (municipal service, municipal procurement, social sphere, operation of municipal enterprises – municipal services)
• The city taxpayer – who are they?
• Integrity and effectiveness in the expenditure of budget funds
• Citizen participation in the budget process and support for citizen initiatives through city budget funds
• Corruption in city management

According to the director of the DCI, Nadezhda Dobretsova, 70 journalists participated in the contest. The competition commission, which included representatives from the mayors’ offices of Bishkek and Osh, the International Center Interbile, budget experts, an independent journalist-expert, representatives from DFID and the Development Policy Institute, reviewed and determined the winners among the participants. According to the decision of the Competition Commission, the winners of the media contest “City Budget – My Budget” were: Nomination “Print Media”:

• 1st place – Zinaida Sorokina, journalist for the newspaper “Evening Bishkek”
• 2nd place – Elena Zholobova, journalist for the newspaper “For You”
• 3rd place – Galina Luneva, journalist for the newspaper “Word of Kyrgyzstan” and Stanislav Polishchuk, journalist for the newspaper “Echo of Osh”.

Nomination “Broadcast Media”:

• 1st place – Ernist Nurmatov, journalist for radio “Azattyk”
• 2nd place – Ermek Aktanov, journalist for radio “Birinchi radio”.

Nomination “Online Media”

• 2nd place – Irina Bayramukova, freelance journalist for the sites “biom.kg”, “time.kg”, “day.kg”, “photo.kg” and Alexander Niksdorf, journalist for the site “Comment.kg”
• 3rd place – Anastasia Bengard, journalist for the site “24.kg” and Tursunov Muzaffar, author for the site “Yntymak”

The special nomination “Citizens and Budget” was awarded to Tamara Kashirskaya, journalist for the newspaper “Betme-bet”. All winners and prize-winners were awarded diplomas and commemorative prizes. Journalist Irina Bayramukova has been cooperating with the NGO “BIOM” for a long time, covering the activities of BIOM on the website www.biom.kg. This cooperation has proven to be very productive for the journalist. In her contest materials, which she submitted to the commission for review in the amount of 15 articles and photo materials, the journalist addressed issues of environmental funding and sustainable development in the cities of Osh and Bishkek. For a link to the news, see the site http://dpi.kg/ru/news/full/906.html, as well as in the magazine “Municipality” (http://dpi.kg/ru/news/print/id/906)