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Integrity Summit 2016: What Can We Learn from Integrity Idols in Pakistan?

By: Fayyaz Yaseen, Country Representative, Accountability Lab Pakistan In January 2017, the Accountability Lab brought together the winners of Integrity Idol Pakistan 2016, experts in anti-corruption and governance (including Brig Mussadiq Abbasi, former Director General of the National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan), Executive Director of the Accountability Lab, Blair Glencorse, and around 25 other representatives from civil society organizations. Unpacking Integrity The group discussed the dynamics of integrity in Pakistan, the ways in which individuals can resist the pressure to be corrupt, and how a system for accountability can be developed within the civil service. Key points that emerged from the [...]

2017-02-21T00:00:00+00:0021st February 2017|

Integrity Summit 2017: What Can We Learn from Integrity Idols in Nepal?

Background In January 2017, the Accountability Lab brought together the three winners of the Integrity Idol Nepal competition since 2014 (Gyan Mani Nepal, Pradip Raj Kanel and Dor Bikram Shrees), along with other Integrity Idol finalists (including Bindu Kunwar, Tara Subedi, Bhishma Kumar Bhusal, Krishna Prasad Danchha, Bhuwan Kumari Rai, and Ram Narayan Shah), experts in anti-corruption and governance (including Suryanath Upadhyay the former head of the CIAA, Dr. Tarak Bahadur KC the Deputy Executive Director of Nepal Administrative Staff College, Bharat Bahadur Thapa the Head of Transparency International and Jiwan Prabha Lama the former Secretary of the Nepali Government, [...]

2017-01-23T00:00:00+00:0023rd January 2017|

5 lessons on fighting corruption

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum. Image: REUTERS/Marco Bello Corruption is a barrier to economic and social growth in much of Latin America. In many countries, robust legal frameworks for transparency, including far-reaching laws, criminal, administrative and audit regimes, and mechanisms for prevention, investigation and sanction already exist. But implementation and enforcement of laws can be weak and impunity for certain acts continues. Many countries in the region linger towards the bottom of indices that measure the Corruption Perceptions Index and the Rule of Law Index. With this in mind, the recent Partnering Against [...]

2016-12-06T00:00:00+00:006th December 2016|

Opening governance with a new generation in Liberia

By: Blair Glencorse and Heather Gilberds. This blog post was originally published by Making All Voices Count. This week, as the Open Government Partnership holds its 2016 summit in Paris, there will be many reflections on how to improve the ways that governments interact with citizens, and how to ensure that citizen voices and priorities are incorporated in policy-making. Under President Sirleaf, the Government of Liberia has worked to open up government and put in place organisations and mechanisms to support accountability. As part of the work funded by our Making All Voices Count research and learning grant, the Accountability [...]

2016-12-05T00:00:00+00:005th December 2016|

The OGP Process in Nepal – On The Path of Our Own Choosing

By: Narayan Adhikari and Pranav Boudhathoki. This blog post was originally published on the Open Government Partnership blog. Politics has often been the obstacle to greater transparency in Nepal. But the country’s open government movement took an important step forward last month, when twelve leading accountability and transparency groups gathered in the new OpenGov Hub Kathmandu - a resource center on openness and transparency – to critically examine progress on this agenda to date. The idea was to push build consensus around the idea of open government and the Open Government Partnership, generate local ownership of the process and develop preliminary ideas on [...]

2016-12-01T00:00:00+00:001st December 2016|

How A Weekend on Wasan Island Helped Us Learn, Improve and Strategize

By: Blair Glencorse, Executive Director of the Accountability Lab and a winner of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Award.  This summer, the BMW Foundation kindly convened a group of activists, thinkers, practitioners and policy-makers on Wasan Island in Canada for an Impact Weekend on behalf of the Accountability Lab (photos here). The retreat was transformational- as a young, growing organization often overwhelmed with day-to-day activities, it provided the perfect space for all of us at the Lab to rethink and strategize. It was also well-timed- a period of reflection after four years of our work to build accountability in countries like [...]

2016-11-16T00:00:00+00:0016th November 2016|

Celebrate Accountability – Blair Glencorse (Social Entrepreneur)

This blog post was originally published by Paper Napkin Wisdom. Power is an interesting concept. Few other nouns evoke such a visceral response quite like the five letter word. Today’s Paper Napkin Wisdom guest has a unique take on power and has used this philosophy to guide his organization, Accountability Lab. “The best thing you can do with power is give it away,” says Blair Glencorse. While many people seek to “change the world” by gaining power through political or economic means, Blair notes that the people who actually inspire change are those who give their power away. “I believe we [...]

2016-11-10T00:00:00+00:0010th November 2016|

Communicating Impact: How Do We Tell Better Feedback Stories?

By: Anne Sophie Ranjbar, Associate Director of Accountability Lab As a small organization tackling the seemingly abstract issue of accountability, we’ve learned the great power of storytelling. We were excited to lead a “LabStorm” on how storytelling can be used to strengthen feedback loops at the annual Feedback Summit last week. Here’s what we asked and what we learned: Why is it important to communicate about our feedback loops? Feedback loops are at the heart of accountability systems. Fortunately, more and more organizations are recognizing the value of feedback (the number of attendees at the Feedback Summit doubled in size [...]

2016-11-07T00:00:00+00:007th November 2016|

Media Stakeholders Stress Accountability and Independence

By: Gbatemah Senah. This article was originally published by The Bush Chicken. At a recent discussion on the role of the media in society, several media stakeholders have stressed the need for accountability and independence within Liberia’s media industry. Serving as panelists was Lawrence Yealue, Country Representative of Accountability Lab Liberia; Jefferson Krua, founder of The Bush Chicken; and Zubin Cooper, founder of Omuahtee African Media. Lawrence Yealue II, Coordinator of Accountability Lab Liberia. Photo: Gbatemah Senah Yealue said in order to have an accountable media, practitioners must have the requisite training and capacity to drive their passion. According to him, training [...]

2016-10-20T00:00:00+00:0020th October 2016|

Ignore Feedback Loops at Your Peril Evidence from Nepal

By: Narayan Adhikari, who runs the Accountability Lab in Nepal, and Pranav Budhathoki, Executive Director of Local Interventions Group. This blog post was originally published by Feedback Labs. In February 2016, almost a year after Nepal’s first devastating earthquake, government officials and 344 earthquake-affected Nepalis squatted on the grounds of a public school in the epicenter district of Gorkha. This was a community meeting organized by Accountability Lab and Local Interventions Group. The group collectively set out to solve a serious problem– there was not enough assistance to survive. The government showed no sense of urgency to speed up aid delivery. Citizens demanded [...]

2016-10-19T00:00:00+00:0019th October 2016|
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