The past year has been a period of learning and exciting project achievements for Accountability Lab DRC. The team created and registered the local office and launched a pilot project around strengthening integrity in the DRC. The overall objective is to contribute to efforts to reduce corruption in the country by empowering civil society to support integrity through creative and positive campaigning, mobilising youth to oppose corruption and putting in place feedback loops on tax issues. Over the next few years, this series of activities will include:

Integrity Icon: We successfully completed our first edition of Integrity Icon RDC to “name and fame” the most honest public officials in South Kivu province. The five finalists included: Colonel David Ipanga, Commander of Regiment 2202 / FARD City of Baraka; Marie Mithila Ponga, Head of Gender, Family and Children in the Territory of Uvira; Hilaire Ngoie Mwepu, Judge President of the Court of Appeal of South Kivu; Munguakonkwa Gilbert, Minister of State at the HGR-Uvira; and Salumu Mikoso Didier, a dedicated Commissioner of the Bukavu Traffic Police.

Film Fellowship: supporting a new generation of anti-corruption activists by building the collective storytelling capacity of young people.

Civic Action Teams: addressing community issues of fiscal transparency to build trust between citizens and those in power.

Accountability Incubator: working with young change agents to build out community initiatives around fiscal transparency, civic oversight and the pandemic response and recovery.

Corrupt and exclusionary governance has left many Congolese feeling powerless to hold leaders and officials to account. But what our research is showing is that these bottom-up approaches can improve governance outcomes for citizens. The project will improve on efforts to bring people together to better understand and find solutions to social accountability challenges.