My experience at the IACC Tech Hub

By: Fayyaz Yaseen, Accountability Lab Pakistan Country Representative. This blog post was originally published by IACC. In attendance for the Accountability Lab at this year’s International Anti-Corruption Conference, I was struck by the level of innovation present among the attendees. In times gone by, thinking of the word ‘innovation’ conjured images of grey-haired scientists, strenuously working in complex laboratories with huge administrative support. Today we think more about dynamic and colourful visions of youth – and for me, this vision came to life as I sat amongst youth groups in a joint brainstorming session at the IACC. The ability to cross-pollinate [...]

2015-10-09T00:00:00+00:009th October 2015|

What happens when you get 1,200 anti-corruption activists in a room?

 By: Blair Glencorse, Executive Director There was plenty of irony in the fact that Transparency International’s (TI) flagship meeting- the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC)- took place in Malaysia last week during the largest ever protests against corruption in the country’s history. The Prime Minister perhaps sensibly stayed away from the meeting in the end, but Jose Ugaz, the President of TI, certainly wasn’t going to let him get away that easily, asking publicly in the opening session: “Who paid the money and why? Where did it go?” This set the tone- there was a refreshing directness and focus at the [...]

2015-09-08T00:00:00+00:008th September 2015|

Integrity Gets Great Ratings

Integrity Gets Great Ratings How Nepalis harnessed the power of reality TV to strike a blow against corruption. BY BLAIR GLENCORSE, SUMAN PARAJULI. Originally published in Foreign Policy. To Gyan Mani Nepal, the newly appointed head of education in Panchthar, a small and beautiful corner of far eastern Nepal, the situation in his school district was a depressing reminder of his own youth. Teacher absenteeism was as high as 90 percent; those who did come to work often showed up drunk. Others shook principals down for bribes just to come to their jobs. Schools were regularly shut down by political [...]

2015-07-09T00:00:00+00:009th July 2015|

Building Business Through Trust in Africa

By Blair Glencorse. Originally published on the GE Ideas Lab Blog. Blair Glencorse, Founder and Executive Director, The Accountability Lab, USA; Global Agenda Council on Transparency & Anti-Corruption at the World Economic Forum on Africa 2015 in Cape Town. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Jakob Polacsek There is no doubt that Africa’s success deserves to be recognized and celebrated. At the recent World Economic Forum on Africa, much was made of Africa’s clear and well-documented progress. FDI in the continent has more than tripled in the past 15 years for example, while GDP is expected to rise by over [...]

2015-06-22T00:00:00+00:0022nd June 2015|

Shaking Up the Status Quo in Nepal

Shaking Up the Status Quo in Nepal By BLAIR GLENCORSE and SUJEEV SHAKYA. Originally Published in the New York Times.   “Ke garne?” an old lady said to us, tears pouring down her cheeks, as we visited her earthquake-battered village in the Dhading district of Nepal last month: “What to do?” With a history of repeated crises — political, economic and natural — it has become the Nepali way to shrug one’s shoulders and hope for the best. Sadly, people have been hoping for a long time: even before the earthquakes, Nepal was one of the poorest, most corrupt and least [...]

2015-06-01T00:00:00+00:001st June 2015|

5 Things We Learned at the Global Innovation Competition 2015

By: Narayan Adhikari, South Asia Representative, and Fayyaz Yaseen, Pakistan Ambassador, for the Accountability Lab. Last month, Narayan and Fayyaz took part in the finals of the Global Innovation Competition (GIC) 2015. In this blog, originally published by Making All Voices Count, they reflect on the GIC process, the people they met, and the lessons learned.  Narayan Adhikari and Fayyaz Yaseen from Accountability Lab Hundreds of individuals and organisations from around the world applied to Making All Voices Count’s Global Innovation Competition, and we were thrilled to be one of the ten selected finalists to take part in the week long mentorship and pitching programme in [...]

2015-05-04T00:00:00+00:004th May 2015|

Can filmmaking help achieve development goals?

Blair Glencorse of the Accountability Lab discusses the importance of community-driven development and how filmmaking can engage people in accountability goals. Many organizations and development professionals have found that reaching initial benchmarks is sometimes easier than sustaining them. However, with clear goals, development progress can be sustained in the long-run. According to Blair Glencorse of the Accountability Lab, setting goals that are context-specific is critical. The Accountability Lab, he says, meets “people where they are, not where we want them to be,” and takes into consideration the varying levels of literacy, numeracy, and other practical skills of their clients when designing a program. [...]

2015-04-15T00:00:00+00:0015th April 2015|

Fighting Corruption by Localizing Aid

This article was originally published by "The Hill." By Gregory Adams  America is the most generous country in the world.  We do this for a lot of reasons.  Helping other countries helps strengthen our own security, and our own prosperity.  But most importantly, America gives aid to fight poverty because it is the right thing to do.But Americans often ask ourselves, "is any of this aid making a difference?" How do we make sure our aid gets to the people who need it?  How do we make sure it leads to real change? How do we make sure it's not [...]

2015-03-30T00:00:00+00:0030th March 2015|

Why Cameras Are Not Enough

By: Nora Rahimian. When Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed 18-year-old, unarmed, Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri was not indicted (indict: formally accuse of or charge with a serious crime; not try in a courtroom with jurors, but simply accuse), people got angry. Despite eyewitness testimonies that said Brown was not acting aggressively and had his hands up when he was shot, the case ultimately became a s/he said-s/he said of the police versus the people.Without physical proof of Wilson’s aggressive attack (or Brown’s peaceful compliance, depending on which narrative you support), the state ultimately sided with itself [...]

2015-01-22T00:00:00+00:0022nd January 2015|

Shaking Up Aid Donors Five Years After the Haiti Earthquake

This article was originally published by the Miami Herald. By Blair Glencorse and Anne Sophie Ranjbar Five years ago today - on January 12th, 2010- Port-au-Prince crumbled to the ground in one of the worst natural disasters of recent times. Over 200,000 were killed in the earthquake, with another 300,000 injured. Entire neighborhoods were raised. As many as 2.3 million people- the equivalent of half the population of the Miami metro area- were displaced from their homes. More than 50 percent of all government, administrative and economic infrastructure was destroyed. Haiti lay in ruins. The earthquake generated a huge outpouring [...]

2015-01-09T00:00:00+00:009th January 2015|
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