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Day 2: The Citizens’ Summit in Defense of Democracy & Freedom in Zambia

Written by Kibo Ngowi "We demand that all governments that have put in place restrictive CSO laws roll them back immediately as there is no place in democratic societies for laws that undermine fundamental freedoms." The Citizens' Summit for Democracy & Freedom took place this week in Lusaka, Zambia. One of the outcomes of this summit is a communiqué containing essential resolutions on youth engagement in democratic processes and spaces, media freedom and free expression, civic and democratic space, as well as elections and electoral practice. Read it here. The summit provided a platform for African civil society actors to [...]

2023-04-06T10:44:20+00:0028th March 2023|

Women changing the world through film

By Zeina Walet I am Zeinabou Walet Mohamed Ali, a young woman with a passion for women's empowerment and youth leadership, which I explore in the different communities I work with in Mali. Originally from the region of Timbuktu, I have been immersed in the realities and needs of these communities as I traveled all over the country. My journeys have taken me all the way up to the refugee camp of Mberra in Mauritania, and I have been aware of the challenges faced by these populations since my youth. Among these is the lack of women's participation in democratic [...]

2023-03-13T13:08:27+00:0027th February 2023|

“You don’t need to be motivated to be honest” – Integrity Icon Pakistan winner walks the talk

Integrity Icon - our campaign to “name and fame” honest government officials in Pakistan began seven years ago. Over the past seven years we’ve received over 1200 nominations for the campaign from across the country; and brought 35 of them into a vibrant network of reformers that is now working together to push for changes at every level of government. This has never been more important for Pakistan, as the country continues to face extremely difficult governance challenges. Blair Glencorse and Amna Rajput meet one of our Integrity Icon Pakistan winners for 2022.   Recently, after the seventh Integrity Icon [...]

2023-02-16T16:41:14+00:0016th February 2023|

Delivery Builds Integrity! Catching Up With our Integrity Icon Bhishma Kumar Bhusal in Nepal

Written by Blair Glencorse and Ashmita Sharma   Integrity Icon, our campaign to “name and fame” honest government officials, began ten years ago in Nepal. Over the past decade we’ve received over 7,000 nominations for honest government officials from across the country; and brought 45 of them into a vibrant network of reformers that is now working together to drive accountability within Nepali institutions. This is essential if we are to shift outcomes for citizens, improve service delivery and address Nepal’s many governance challenges. As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations during the “Year of Integrity” as we’ve branded it, [...]

2023-02-09T14:21:37+00:009th February 2023|

A Vision for the Future for AL Zimbabwe

By Nosikelelo Ndlovu  Accountability Lab Zimbabwe powered through a complex programming year in 2022 with the government proposing the Private Voluntary Organizations (PVO) Bill, described by experts as a threat to civil society operations. The country is also actively gearing up for elections scheduled for early 2023. However, the year also presented opportunities for us to improve our work, particularly with increased responsiveness and willingness to engage with communities by political leaders seeking re-election. In true Lab style, AL Zimbabwe conducted regular reflection sessions to continuously learn from monitoring data and critical insights in ways that allowed us to adapt [...]

2023-02-09T11:55:01+00:009th February 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|

Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms in Balochistan

In the words of Stephen Covey, “Accountability breeds response-ability.” This stands true at an individual as well as governmental level. When governments are accountable to their people,  they are more responsive to the needs of the people. When we talk of democracy, the government's financial accountability is undoubtedly a fundamental and distinctive aspect of parliamentary oversight. In the public's best interest, the government must disclose, defend, and justify its policies and actions before the legislature. This oversight needs to be complemented by state mechanisms to ensure accountability and responsiveness. It requires a framework through which government departments can be held [...]

2022-11-14T09:17:47+00:008th November 2022|

Six key takeaways from Gov-HER-Nance in Pakistan!

Written by Farhan Khalid Pakistan was ranked as the second-worst country in terms of gender parity (145 out of 146 countries) in the Global Gender Gap/Parity Report released by the World Economic Forum in July 2022. Out of the four key indicators that form the basis of the gender parity index - including Educational Attainment, Health, and Survival, Political Empowerment, and Economic Participation and Opportunity - the country ranked 145th on economic participation and opportunity and 143rd on health and survival.   It could be argued that the Covid-19 pandemic, apart from other ongoing factors, played a vital role in these [...]

2022-10-17T11:51:49+00:0017th October 2022|
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