🇨🇩 Accountability Lab RDC's Civic Action Teams have been hard at work coordinating ...between Bukavu residents and community leaders. After surveying residents in three municipalities, participants hosted a data findings meeting where local leaders met to co-create solutions to major problems identified through the surveys.

Government leaders, chiefs, market representatives, and CSOs came up with the following solutions to challenges related to citizen participation in governance, participatory budget, and the work of newly elected municipal councilors:

1️⃣ Regular training for municipal councilors to strengthen their capacities in decision-making and public affairs management as well as their mission and role
2️⃣ Consider creating a one-stop shop for paying taxes.
3️⃣ Encouraging frameworks of exchange between authorities and residents such as popular expression forums, tax mornings, and neighborhood forums
4️⃣ Educate the population about citizenship and integrity.
5️⃣ Multiply capacity-building sessions for authorities and citizens on integrity, citizen responsibility, leadership, tax liability, citizen rights and duties, local governance, and participatory budget
6️⃣ Establish a mobilization and supervision cell, with a better knowledge of the contracts related to Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)

Keep an eye out for the team's progress as they close the loop between residents and their leadership!

There are many fundamental questions about #climate #finance. For instance, what investments ...constitute climate investments? How do we track financial flows and market activity while avoiding double counting investments? How do we ensure that investments in certain climate mitigation strategies are not harming the people living in areas that it is intended to help?

As part of our #HackCorruption project, which is supporting tech tools that help countries fight corruption, we're trying to answer some of these questions. Last month, the Lab co-hosted a roundtable with Development Gateway: An IREX Venture and the Thai Youth Anti-Corruption Network, in Bangkok, #Thailand. The goal was to discuss how to efficiently and effectively use money committed for activities to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Read this piece about the kind of multi-disciplinary approach that's necessary right now - https://developmentgateway.org/blog/letting-the-sunshine-in-building-inclusive-accountable-and-equitable-climate-finance-ecosystems/

#ClimateFinancing
#accountability

Letting the Sunshine in: Building Inclusive, Accountable, and Equitable Climate Finance Ecosystems – Development Gateway: An IREX Venture – Data and digital solutions for international development.

In April, DG, HackCorruption, and the Thai Youth Anti-Corruption Network hosted a roundtable in Bangkok to discuss climate financing. This blog...

developmentgateway.org

The Lab is joining the Pandemic Action Network and Sharing Strategies in calling urgently for the ...World Bank to include a civic engagement indicator in the bank's new Corporate Scorecard. As the bank evolves to implement its new mission and seeks a historic IDA21 Replenishment, our organizations are urging it to take bold, targeted, and meaningful steps now to translate this commitment into action.

Join us by signing on this letter to urge the World Bank to adopt operational indicators to publicly track and report progress on the quality of civic engagement -
https://forms.gle/WsJZexE5LvSdfPgN9

#MDBReform
#IDA21

Sign-on: Letter calling for the World Bank to include a civic engagement (CE) indicator in the bank's Corporate Scorecard

President Ajay Banga World Bank Group Dear President Banga, The World Bank Group (WBG) has committed to further strengthen WBG-civil society...

forms.gle

Wishing all the nurses out there a day filled with appreciation and recognition for everything you ...do.

#InternationalNursesDay

🌍 In this week's global roundup!

🇿🇦 Accountability Lab South Africa's ...What's on the Menu Mzansi team visited the eastern part of the country to hear what young people's expectations for government are around commitments to youth. They shared that there is a lack of service delivery in their communities and that local leaders can be unreasonable about youth freedom of expression and access to opportunities.

🇳🇬 Accountability Lab Nigeria stood in solidarity with journalist Daniel Ojukwu who was arrested and detained. The Lab urged Nigerian security agencies to uphold the pillars of democracy and press freedom by releasing Ojukwu. He was released today.

🇿🇼 Accountability Lab Zimbabwe hosted an internal knowledge management and organizational learning workshop to train their team in best practices for knowledge management and organizational learning. The team aimed to build a shared understanding and common ground to drive continued improvement and innovation.

⭐ We're so excited to bring you news about a new Creative Storytelling Fellowship run by AL ...Nigeria!

To kick things off, @accountlabng, @macfound and Luminate hosted a workshop for 10 talented journalists on a mission to amplify stories of Integrity Icons and foster positive conversations on accountability and transparency. 💡

During the workshop, participants delved deep into the art of storytelling, exploring how to integrate behavioural insights to engage audiences authentically. Emphasizing ethical journalism, they're developing skills to uphold integrity and accountability in their work. We look forward to sharing their stories with you over the next few months.

#MediaExcellence #IntegrityIcons #ALNigeria

⭐ We're so excited to bring you news about a new Creative Storytelling Fellowship run by AL ...Nigeria!

To kick things off, @accountlabng, @macfound and Luminate hosted a workshop for 10 talented journalists on a mission to amplify stories of Integrity Icons and foster positive conversations on accountability and transparency. 💡

During the workshop, participants delved deep into the art of storytelling, exploring how to integrate behavioural insights to engage audiences authentically. Emphasizing ethical journalism, they're developing skills to uphold integrity and accountability in their work. We look forward to sharing their stories with you over the next few months.

#MediaExcellence #IntegrityIcons #ALNigeria

AL Co-CEO, Blair Glencorse, is at the United Nations in New York today as Co-Chair of the Open ...Government Partnership attending the SDG16 High-Level Conference. He spoke to delegates about the critical importance of protecting civic space and how SDG16 provided a solid framework for supporting disadvantaged social groups in demanding public integrity and accountability.

"We need to develop or reinforce legal frameworks everywhere to ensure that the rights of activists, journalists, and independent media are protected; tackle disinformation and strengthen privacy laws. We must also strengthen legal frameworks that allow citizens and civil society organizations to form and operate- for example by ensuring that women and marginalized groups can easily come together to influence policy," he said.

Blair added that we have to build on peaceful citizen movements, rather than shutting them down with force. This included realigning aid systems to support citizens directly.

Protecting citizens’ right to assemble in public or private spaces to "express, espouse, and advocate collective interests" was also essential. "This is topical here in the US at the moment and perhaps there are lessons from elsewhere. For example, the Government of Nigeria has created a guide on peaceful protests with the Nigerian police and organizes citizen-police dialogues, working with independent bodies like the National Human Rights Commission," he shared.

#SDG16
#UnitedNations

Rounding up our group of HackCorruption South East Asia winners is Lexicon BO. They're working... on a platform that flags companies with a history of fraud for procurement officers, law enforcement and CSOs. Their tech platform is aimed at finding people or companies that have verdicts from criminal offences in the area of corruption, #bribery, #fraud, #environmental issues, and international sanctions. The team would also like to use the beneficial ownership data points they gather for deeper research and analysis for stakeholders.

The program, supported by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of State and the USAID Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge for Development, aims to support talented individuals from civic tech, CSO, and activist backgrounds. The South East Asia #hackathon brought together teams from #Malaysia, #Indonesia, and #Thailand to collaborate on anti-corruption tools. The Lab is implementing HackCorruption in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise and Development Gateway: An Irex Venture.

#data4integrity
#anticorruption

🌏 This week's global roundup!

🇿🇼 After a week of masterclasses on how ...artists can influence lawmaking, how to properly promote yourself as an artist, and the nuts and bolts of songwriting and production, Accountability Lab Zimbabwe's 2024 cohort of socially conscious artists just wrapped album recording. Keep an eye on our socials for the album launch!

🇨🇩 Accountability Lab RDC's Civic Action Teams have been hard at work coordinating between Bukavu residents and their municipal leaders. The team has followed up their process of data gathering, reporting their findings to local government leadership, and have now hosted a data findings meeting that identified major problems and compiled a co-created plan for improvement of citizen participation in governance, participatory budget, and the work of newly elected municipal councilors.

🇵🇰 Accountability Lab Pakistan hosted a two-day workshop on the Role of Innovation and Evidence-Based Decision Making for Good Governance. It included knowledge and training on identifying barriers to good decisions, navigating decision traps, incorporating evidence in decision-making, understanding decision-making models, and initiating the change process. Participants got to engage with real-world decision-making scenarios that they might encounter in the course of their work.

Integrity Eyes is a #HackCorruption team in Malaysia that is developing a dashboard tracking ...high-value #procurement projects. The tool identifies cost overruns and fund leakages linked to corruption, as well as #cartel influences in appointments.

By advocating for merit-based contractor selection and citizen oversight, the platform aims to address corruption's root causes in the region, helping to ensure that infrastructure projects are completed efficiently and #ethically.

The team is one of 5 winners from HackCorruption South East Asia which the Lab is implementing in partnership with Development Gateway and the Center for Private Enterprise. The program is supported by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of State and the USAID Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge for Development.

#data4integrity