The Proverb “It Takes a Village” Never Gets Old

Joining Accountability Lab in the United States while enrolled as a South African master's student has been extremely rewarding. The day I received my offer letter to be the Global Programs and Partnerships Fellow, I was elated yet nervous. Still a student at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, moving to another new city in the fall of 2022 seemed like a big decision. But I was comforted by the idea of working in an organization that values integrity, collaboration, humility, and innovation. I was also happy to work with diverse and inclusive [...]

2023-01-27T10:25:06+00:0026th January 2023|

Global #tech4good lessons from HackCorruption

Accountability Lab is running HackCorruption, a hybrid tech-for-good project, with support from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of State, in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise. The project identifies and supports talented individuals from the civic tech, CSO, and activist arenas, to build innovative solutions to combat corruption. Our first HackCorruption event brought 100 participants from six Southern and East African countries to Johannesburg, South Africa, for a three-day event.  The program has also been rolled out by Accountability Lab Nigeria, with support from NORAD, SIDA, UNDP Nigeria, and in partnership [...]

2023-01-27T06:25:10+00:0020th January 2023|

Meet the Hackers

By Sara Hoenes In July 2022, Accountability Lab with support from the U.S. Department of State and in partnership the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), launched HackCorruption, a people-powered hackathon designed to develop innovative solutions for greater transparency and accountability. The first regional event was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, and brought together 100 participants from six Southern and Central African countries.  After a competitive judging process, five teams were selected as winners. Each winning team received project funding, continued training and mentorship, and an invitation to the HackCorruption Boot Camp.  The event drew a particularly diverse group of  [...]

2023-01-20T16:14:23+00:0020th January 2023|

Accountability Lab Has a New Strategy! Here’s a Summary of Our Priorities for 2023-2026.

Written by Blair Glencorse   How Did We Develop The New Strategy? Accountability Lab began over a decade ago as an effort to support local change-makers within specific communities to develop creative ideas around governance issues. Our growth has been exciting- and we are now a global translocal network of Labs that is building an eco-system for accountability around the world. Despite all of the ups and downs of the past ten years, our vision remains the same as it has always been, because it is ever more important- a world in which resources are used wisely, decisions benefit everyone [...]

2023-01-18T06:53:13+00:0017th January 2023|

Making The Translocal Network Real: The Junior Staff Council

Written by Alawi Masud As a primarily youth focused organization, Accountability Lab understands that junior level staff bring critical perspectives on our work,  provide important support to projects, and fuel innovation and connectivity. But as with many organizations that have many staff working on a variety of issues across 11 geographies, there is always room to better engage our teams. In order to provide a more formal space for junior staff all around the world to to build interpersonal relationships, support each other’s work, learn from one another, and connect with senior Accountability Lab staff, AL developed the Junior Staff [...]

2023-01-16T12:44:01+00:0016th January 2023|

Our 2020-2023 Strategy – What Were The Challenges?

Written by Blair Glencorse As we launch our new 2023-2026 strategy, we have been reflecting on the challenges we faced during our last strategy. The 2020-2023 period was a very difficult time for many organizations, of course, ourselves included. Just as we finalized our new strategy at the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 began to fundamentally upend global health, politics and economics. As our strategy came to an end, the war in Ukraine and related political problems, and broader economic challenges had undermined our ability to plan or deliver on organizational goals. At the country level, during the 2020-2023 period we [...]

2023-01-17T14:31:41+00:0016th January 2023|

Applying CivActs to Housing Insecurity in Mbare

By Kibo Ngowi What does it look like to close the feedback loop between citizens and authorities to ensure people-powered accountability? That’s the question we’ve been asking for the last seven years starting in Nepal after the devastating 2015 earthquake when we established the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks with a vision of galvanizing volunteers to bridge the information gap and respond to the unfolding humanitarian crisis.  Since then the program has been renamed Civic Action Teams (CivActs) and evolved to address a variety of challenges such as migration, human trafficking, inclusion and elections across the several countries where we operate including [...]

2023-01-09T08:51:59+00:009th January 2023|

‘When people with integrity begin to rise, corruption fails’

By Eresh Omar Jamal Narayan Adhikari is Nepal country director and co-founder and Sanjeeta Pant is programmes and learning manager at Accountability Lab. In a conversation with Eresh Omar Jamal of The Daily Star, they discuss the Accountability Lab's Integrity Icon initiative, which recognises and awards public servants (across 15 countries), nominated by citizens and others for demonstrating exceptional integrity at work and their personal lives. It is an attempt to address the perception of widespread corruption among civil servants in these countries, and encourage greater integrity in the profession. What motivated you to create Accountability Lab and the Integrity Icon initiative? Narayan Adhikari (NA): When we [...]

2023-01-18T13:17:30+00:0022nd December 2022|

Super-Charging Accountability In Belize

Written by Blair Glencorse   If you are interested in governance in Belize, you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to find substantive information or networks. Most indices that measure these kinds of issues are not able to access sufficient data. There are several newspapers, but these are published weekly and the quality is variable. At the same time, while a civic infrastructure has developed around core priority sectors in the country- including the environment in particular- the community of organizations working on governance more directly is almost non-existent. This is problematic because it is clear- here, here and [...]

2022-12-15T09:37:24+00:0015th December 2022|

Five Public Servants Win Accountability Lab Integrity Icons Awards

Accountability Lab in its commitment to promote integrity in Liberia’s public service sector has awarded five public servants the Integrity Icons of the Year 2022. The Integrity Icon Awards is an annual event that recognizes and awards honest public servants who display integrity on their job. This year marks the eighth edition of the Integrity Icon which is an eight-month-long program that focuses on a rigorous campaign to select dedicated individuals who are working in the public sector. The campaign focuses on 35 integrity icons in different sections, ranging from health, education, security, engineers, judiciary, including the media. The recipients [...]

2022-12-14T22:06:51+00:0014th December 2022|
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