What Are We “Learning About Learning” at the Accountability Lab?

By: Blair Glencorse and Anne Sophie Ranjbar. This blog post was originally published by Feedback Labs. The Accountability Lab, a member of Feedback Labs, catalyzes a new generation of active citizens and responsible leaders around the world. They train, mentor, and resource local changemakers to strengthen systems of accountability and unleash positive social and economic change. Blair Glencorse is Executive Director and Anne Sophie Ranjbar is Associate Director of the Accountability Lab. Follow the Lab on Twitter @accountlab. Last month, we released our most recent Impact and Learning Report– a document which is the result of a year-long process of trying to [...]

2016-05-26T00:00:00+00:0026th May 2016|

Politics, Persistence, & Publicity – transforming education in Pakistan

By: Rafia Malik, Fayyaz Yaseen, and Syed Kauser Abbas. This blog post was originally published by Making All Voices Count.   In 2015, Accountability Lab won one of the top spots in Making All Voices Count's Global Innovation Competition with their project that brings tech-savvy youth activists together with Pakistan's open data movement.   A year on, the team discuss one of their biggest successes - unblocking funding for building colleges in Punjab - and why they think that we must invest in better public campaigns; in time to build government relationships; and  in understanding that "success is as much about perseverance as innovation".   Last year, through the [...]

2016-05-23T00:00:00+00:0023rd May 2016|

One Year On: Learning from Feedback After the Earthquake in Nepal

By: Marc Maxmeister, GlobalGiving Innovation Consultant; Narayan Adhikari, Accountability Lab Nepal Country Representative, and Pranav Budhathoki, Local Interventions Group Executive Director. This blog post was originally published on GlobalGiving's Tools + Training blog. Accountability Lab is a recipient of our 2015 Feedback Fund. Recently they shared these insights with us. In April of 2015, twin earthquakes in Nepal killed over 8,000 people and displaced almost 3 million more. Accountability Lab and Local Interventions Group mobilized our youth networks into what we called Mobile Citizen Helpdesks. These helpdesks of 5 to 10 volunteers worked with communities across the 14 worst affected districts to gather immediate feedback from [...]

2016-04-27T00:00:00+00:0027th April 2016|

One Year On: Responding to Disaster in Nepal with Echoing Green

  By: Blair Glencorse, founder of Accountability Lab, and Pranav Budhathoki, founder of Local Interventions Group, are Echoing Green Fellows working in Nepal. Follow their work on Twitter: @accountlab and @LIGintl. This article was originally published by HuffPost Impact.   Like so many others in Nepal, Butti Gyalbo Taamangni suffered heartbreak after the devastating twin earthquakes that struck the Himalayan country last April, which killed over 8,000 people and displaced almost 3 million more. She lost her husband during the first quake, a loss compounded by two other critical problems. He was the only wage-earner in the family, so her income [...]

2016-04-21T00:00:00+00:0021st April 2016|

Gathering and sharing feedback to improve the earthquake response in Nepal

By: Sara Rodriguez, Accountability Lab Resident in Nepal Accountability Lab and Local Interventions Group started the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks (MCHDs) just under a year ago with very limited resources. Right after the first earthquake on April 26, 2015, we mobilized volunteers to provide earthquake-related information to victims and to close the feedback loop by connecting citizens needing assistance with different organizations who could provide relief. Today the MCHDs are a consolidated project that has reached over 60,000 citizens in 800 communities. We are now systematically documenting the progress and the challenges of the emergency relief and the recovery processes. At the same time, we are [...]

2016-04-12T00:00:00+00:0012th April 2016|

Our Short Experience With Disaster Accountability in Nepal

By: Patrick Xu, Harvard University. This blog post was originally published by Local Interventions Group. Austin Wu, a fellow Statistics concentrator and good friend, and I devised a senior research project based off of our existing interests: can we study how data has been used in the disaster relief process, and how data can effectively improve and eventually optimize disaster relief? Given the intensity of damage of Nepal’s most recent earthquake disasters, as well as the coincidental timing, Austin and I began to reach out to NGOs delivering aid in Nepal to begin to build a narrative of how data can [...]

2016-02-17T00:00:00+00:0017th February 2016|

Learning to Transform Governance in the Philippines

Learning to Transform Governance in the Philippines By: Blair Glencorse, Accountability Lab Executive Director. Last week I was part of the latest Making All Voices Count (MAVC) learning event in Manila—which brought together about 60 of the initiative’s grantees, researchers, technologists and other stakeholders to reflect on the theme of “transformative governance”. The first point to make is that as a learning event—with a real emphasis on reflecting, sharing and improving what we do, it was the best workshop I’ve been to in a long time. The content, team and process kept me fully engaged from start to finish and I [...]

2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:0015th February 2016|

Making Our Voices Count: Youth Efforts to Close Feedback Loops on Service Delivery in Pakistan

Making Our Voices Count: Youth Efforts to Close Feedback Loops on Service Delivery in Pakistan By: Fayyaz Yaseen, Syed Kausar Abbas, and Rafia Malik. Working Against the Grain with Young People The power dynamics that lead to mis-governance are deep set in Pakistan, and on first glance it might seem like there is very little that motivated young people can do to fix systematic patronage and graft. But at the Accountability Lab and the Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO), we have been working with a group of young volunteers in Rawalpindi recently on a project that shows just how far energy and a [...]

2016-02-03T00:00:00+00:003rd February 2016|

Nepal Mobile Citizen Helpdesk Year-End Update

Happy Holidays from the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks team! Over the past 8 months, the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks team has been working hard to make sure Nepali citizens’ voices are heard and their needs are met during the earthquake relief process. Each month our team of 100+ dedicated, local volunteers surveys 1,400 citizens across Nepal’s 14 “crisis zones”. We are pleased to announce that our most recent Community Feedback Report demonstrates a markable improvement in citizens’ perceptions of the relief process! For the first time since the earthquakes, the majority of survey respondents said that their information needs are being met and that they believe that aid [...]

2020-03-03T16:03:55+00:0014th December 2015|

Powerful Citizen Media to Champion Responsible Governments

By: Karolle Rabarison. This blog post was originally published by Media Rise. Interview produced by Katie Gach. I recently sat down with Blair Glencorse, Executive Director of Accountability Lab. The Lab “catalyzes a new generation of active citizens and responsible leaders around the world.” As part of this year’s Media Rise festival, Blair will lead a workshop on media’s role in promoting civic engagement, happening at the OpenGov Hub on September 29, 2015 (register). Media Rise: Last year, Accountability Lab was the Media Rise Pitch Night People’s Choice Award. That contributed to the film school in Liberia where students are making films to [...]

2015-09-28T00:00:00+00:0028th September 2015|
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