Narayan Adhikari calls the deep footprint he’s made at Accountability Lab a “journey of learnings” in how to build communities and ignite movements. What stands out in his telling of the journey is how extensive the learnings and innovations are, spanning internal teams and external networks. “Even though the sociopolitical landscape has changed dramatically since we started Accountability Lab in Nepal 12 years ago, I think we’ve adhered quite strictly to our vision and values; doing work that we are committed to. We’re constantly trying out new ways of building our communities and also our organization,” the AL Nepal CEO shares.

The values he mentions – integrity, humility, innovation, and collaboration – have helped drive governance programs in Nepal that are infused with a contagious sense of community and creativity. Launching Citizen Helpdesks in May 2015 in the days following Nepal’s devastating earthquake, the project helped distribute urgent information to communities, solved problems around relief efforts and donations, and closed the feedback loop on problems relating to emergency shelter, healthcare, and financial entitlements from the state. It provided a blueprint for a program the Lab now calls Civic Action Teams which Narayan has taken to Bangladesh with local partners including the Manusher Jonno Foundation.

The Nepal team is also responsible for devising the Gov-Her-Nance program, which advocates for stronger gender and youth inclusion in the way federal policies are implemented at a mayoral level. “Young people are organizing in very different ways. There’s a much stronger technology aspect that runs through their efforts; tech is helping facilitate new ways of thinking and also finding solutions and opportunities,” Adhikari says. AL Nepal works at the intersection of these issues in different ways – whether conducting right-to-information training or supporting innovative ideas in their Accountability Incubator. 

Youths making inroads

But tech, or social media to be specific, is also a big part of the political story in Nepal. The last general election in 2022 saw a group of inspiring young candidates sweeping into power on a wave of online campaigns. “A large number of youth candidates won in their wards – and two years later many of them are performing well. This is encouraging other young people to also consider standing for office,” he says. Many of these new candidates stood – and won – as independents, which put pressure on the country’s majority parties to pay their young members proper attention. “Nepal had its glory days of a student movement in the 1970s but the movement never extended to young people actually reaching decision-making roles in the government. This time round, with the new methods at people’s disposal, youths are making serious inroads into government,” he shares.

Inside the AL Nepal office, the picture looks much the same. Adhikari has consistently created a space for young people to work on programs in a way that gives them agency and leadership opportunities. “The first question we always ask in team meetings is ‘What are we learning?’ It’s a key strategic thing for us – to create space for others to flourish and be creative, be wild and mad even, while the team ensures we learn and innovate from the projects we pilot.” As a manager, he has stayed the course by ensuring that team members are growing personally while also advancing their careers. 

On the horizon

A succession of academic research projects has Adhikari thinking about a different kind of participant as AL Nepal looks at the next few years. Having been at international conferences in the United States, the Philippines, and Japan in the past year, he complains about the ‘silos of practitioners’ he meets. “In all of these places, like in all of the countries we have labs, activists are doing the legwork defending democracy and freedom. And they have so much to share and teach others. Many may not be able to describe it technically, but they are doing the work. Part of Accountability Lab’s job is about creating linkages between these activists and academics so their work informs the global accountability sector,” he says. It’s about amplifying local narratives and ideas to diversify the global sector. He says a new model of “scholar-activists” is slowly taking shape. “We need to work collaboratively to amplify the new ways of working and grassroots innovation we’re seeing,” he says.

These efforts spill over neatly into what Adhikari sees as the big picture – building a resilient ecosystem of accountability actors. Diversity is similarly at the heart of these efforts. “All human beings may have an equal amount of cells and brain power; we all share biological characteristics. But otherwise, we are different in almost everything else – our everyday lives, challenges, and opportunities. So being inclusive means taking into account the beliefs and ideas of all of these different people with different life experiences. That’s what we mean when we say bottom-up.” Adhikari adds that it hasn’t been the path of least resistance in terms of running a bottom-up, translocal organization. “Running an organization like we do, with a very flat structure, is highly unusual. And while I think that we are able to make changes faster than traditional organizations that work in a more incremental way, it’s not always easy. But it always pays off.”

In closing, he shares an example about a student intern who remained a close supporter of AL Nepal over several years, only to end up at a global foundation as a firm ally. “The Lab will always be special for combining innovative ideas and ways of working, while also challenging power structures and unjust systems at the same time. People want to be a part of our journey and this helps us create community and agency,” he says.

Sheena Adams