With Integrity Idol, we’re celebrating the hidden heroes of public service:
Opinion: South Africans don’t trust government — championing honest public servants is key. […]
Integrity Idols: Finding Nigeria’s true heroes
This past week the Accountability Lab Nigeria team shortlisted candidates for the Integrity Idol Nigeria Award. […]
What does losing $100mil mean to Liberia?
$100mil destined for Liberia's central bank has disappeared without a trace. This incident has sparked vigorous conversation over the last few days and an investigation is underway. On social media, #bringbackourmoney is gaining traction and citizens are demanding answers. The missing amount is 5% of the developing country's GDP and 15% of its annual budget. In reality, $100mil is more than the country's budget for the entire education sector or public healthcare. Accountability Lab Liberia created the infographic below to illustrate the impact of this loss.
Mali is melting down. Here’s why the West should be paying attention.
By Blair Glencorse and Moussa Kondo This op-ed was published by the Washington Post on September 6, 2018 Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, has just been sworn in for a second five-year term after an election marred by violence, irregularities and low turnout. Many Malians told us that they bravely turned out to vote – not in favor of the government, but for a modicum of stability during increasingly difficult times. For this reason, the president should not take the election as an endorsement of his current brand of venal and corrupt politics. Accountability to the Malian people is urgent to support development, stem terrorism [...]
The OGP in Nepal: from Eyes and Ears to Hands and Voices.
In mid-July, a diverse group of around 2,000 activists, civic leaders, businesses, CSOs and NGOs congregated at the Open Government Partnership Summit in Tbilisi, Georgia. […]
Integrity Idol Featured in the WEF Future of Trust and Integrity Project
The World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) launched the Future of Trust and Integrity project to examine how to rebuild trust and integrity while simultaneously addressing corruption. […]
Diagnosing the Cure for Nigeria’s Illness: Open Governance
Imagine Nigeria was a hospital patient. The doctor’s analysis might read something like the following: Patient’s Name: Nigeria Diagnosis: Long-term and possibly fatal corruption. Cause: Long-term lack of accountability across government, business, civil society and the media; with complicit international business and financial institutions. Contributory factor: Lack of citizen engagement among 180+ million citizens. Medication: Strict regime of open governance with continual doses of transparency, citizen empowerment, anti-corruption measures and freedom of information. Nigeria has begun to take its medicine. After series of consultations and meetings between Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and civil society groups, Nigeria created it’s 1st [...]
What Accountability Really Means
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=zHa4fh9sOmg Trust in government is critical to building and maintaining a healthy society. The symptoms of a government that lacks trust are easy to spot: widespread corruption, nepotism, and patronage. In short, a profound lack of accountability. As Blair Glencorse of Accountability Lab notes in the video above, “accountability is about answerability. It’s about people who are in positions of power being accountable for the decisions and actions they take,” especially to the citizens and people who are most affected by these actions. Changing the way governments work and how people engage with them is no easy task. Accountability advocates like [...]
Portrait of a GroundBreaker: Blair Glencorse
GroundBreakers is thrilled to feature Blair Glencorse, the Founder of the Accountability Lab, on this week’s Portraits of a GroundBreaker Series. Blair Glencorse is the Founder of the Accountability Lab, an organization building a new generation of active citizens through innovative anti-corruption initiatives. Blair is passionate about contextualized, people-centered ideas that empower change-makers to drive positive social and economic reform in their communities. The Accountability Lab has developed creative campaigns to encourage accountable behavior, supports “Accountrapreneurs” to drive open governance in their societies, and builds ecosystems around accountability and open government. On this week’s feature of GroundBreakers’ Portraits of a GroundBreaker Series, our discussion with [...]
Remaining Accountable
By Ashmita Sharma, Stephanie Bandyk, and Soni Khanal, Accountability Lab Nepal In 2015, historic twin earthquakes struck Nepal and affected 14 districts with more than 8,790 casualties and 22,300 injuries. The Accountability Lab responded to an apparent gap between government bodies, civil society, and citizens by facilitating feedback loops that cycled information among community stakeholders through its mobile Citizen Helpdesks Platform. The model of mobile Citizen Helpdesks provides a framework to listen, collect, and interpret the concerns of communities, question, and validate these concerns with relevant stakeholders, and then disseminate the information back to the community. Over time, our community agents known as Community Frontline Associates [...]