The Ebola Opportunity

This article was originally published by Global Policy Journal. By Blair Glencorse and Ashoka Mukpo “A few weeks ago there were plenty of cases” says Mohammed, a trader from a bustling market neighborhood of Monrovia, “but now Ebola- it has dropped”. In Liberia, the country hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak, there are now hopeful signs that the virus is being brought under some level of control. The latest World Health Organization situation report indicates that the number of new cases has stabilized. NPR wrote last month that there were just 8 Ebola cases in Liberia’s biggest treatment center. This [...]

2015-01-06T00:00:00+00:006th January 2015|

Knowmore LIB: Building Resilience and Defeating Ebola through Civic Education

This post was originally published by OpenIDEO. By Brooks Marmon The “Knowmore LIB” project aims to sensitize all Liberians on the dangers of the Ebola virus, practices to avoid and contain the disease, and to increase the trust of Liberian citizens in their government. The campaign uses innovative tools to help Liberians engage with policymakers and public health officials. The campaign will deploy chalk billboards around major cities and automated question boxes that allow citizens to ask questions about the Ebola virus; an Ebola awareness mural campaign; short films on Ebola through the students of an accountability film school; comic [...]

2014-10-10T00:00:00+00:0010th October 2014|

Design Thinking for Accountability

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. A new community justice system in Liberia emerges from a design-thinking approach. Last year, in the West Point township of Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, an enterprising community leader named Thomas Tweh found himself with a serious problem. West Point crams more than 75,000 citizens into a square mile patch of land by the Atlantic Ocean—and life is very hard. Space is limited, incomes are low, formal jobs are few, and basic services are almost non-existent. The issue Tweh faced was central to the causes [...]

2014-04-28T00:00:00+00:0028th April 2014|

TALEARNing in Jakarta

By: Anne Sophie Ranjbar Last week in Jakarta, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative brought together donors, researchers, INGOs, and CSOs from all over the world to discuss the key questions and challenges in our shared field of transparency and accountability (T/A). As a small organization striving to break tradition in this complex field, we attended the TALEARN conference to learn from others’ experience, share our ideas, and find useful ways to collaborate. Here are my top five take-aways: 1. Think politically. Technical solutions to create transparency are not enough. In order to close feedback loops, we need to figure out what motivates [...]

2014-03-21T00:00:00+00:0021st March 2014|

Accountability innovations we love: No.7-17

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation News. Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation. In mid-January, the Lab was lucky enough to be in Mumbai for a conference hosted by various programs at Stanford University and the University of Mumbai. The discussions brought together over 100 social activists, change-makers, donors, thinkers and ICT-experts for two days of discussions about the ideas and tools that can improve governance through the use of technology. We learned a huge amount about how to creatively engage citizens in accountability and [...]

2021-03-16T18:23:34+00:004th February 2014|

Innovating in Development Through Accountapreneurship

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. How one organization is combining the best elements of accountability and entrepreneurship to redefine development paradigms of the past. The Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu is a serene place, with beautiful Newari architecture, lush gardens, and impeccable service. It is also about as far removed as possible in Nepal from the real lives led by ordinary Nepali citizens—an executive suite can cost $800 a night while the average Nepali earns just over $600 a year. As I sat in one of the hotel’s magnificent conference rooms several [...]

2013-12-17T00:00:00+00:0017th December 2013|

Putting local justice first in Liberia

By: Blair Glencorse and Anne Sophie Lambert. This blog post was originally published by the Local First Blog. For many Liberians living in the low-income, high-density neighborhoods of Monrovia, life is a daily struggle. Land disputes, drug problems, domestic abuse, and a lack of basic services, among other issues, are pervasive. When citizens face legal challenges, the lack of legitimacy, affordability, accessibility and timeliness of the formal justice system often prevents any feasible recourse. Extensive bureaucratic red tape coupled with transportation and legal costs, lawyer fees, and opportunity costs of foregone work make the justice system not only physically but [...]

2013-11-14T00:00:00+00:0014th November 2013|

nepal and liberia: diverse contexts, shared lessons

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published in Beed Life magazine. In June 2007, I took a trip to Nepalgunj to meet representatives of the Madhesi community. I wanted to try and understand more about political dynamics in the Tarai. While sipping chia, the groups I chatted with explained vociferously, often for hours at a time, the difficulties they faced on a daily basis, which ranged from issues of exclusion, to poverty, to inequality. I have two enduring memories of that visit. First, Nepalgunj is very, very hot. Second, it was driven home to me that societies cannot function [...]

2013-09-20T00:00:00+00:0020th September 2013|

Testing new tools for accountability in higher education

By: Blair Glencorse. This article was originally published in Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Report: Education (Section 4.14). The international community has rarely engaged coherently on issues of corruption within higher education, focusing instead on issues such as building teachers’ capacity, infrastructure development and programmes to increase access. The learning to be garnered from testing new accountability approaches therefore has important implications for the future of universities and colleges. Higher education in what are called ‘fragile states’ suffers from a host of issues that manifest themselves in different forms – from a lack of strategies and plans, to absent regulations [...]

2013-04-12T00:00:00+00:0012th April 2013|

Emerging Voices: Glencorse on Higher Education in Liberia

This blog post was originally published on the Council on Foreign Relations' Development Channel. Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Blair Glencorse, Founder and Executive Director of the Accountability Lab. He analyzes the challenges of integrity and accountability in Liberia’s colleges and universities, arguing that failures in higher education threaten the country’s progress toward peace and development. You can follow Glencorse on his blog and on Twitter at @blairglencorse. Under the leadership of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia and its international partners have focused on several [...]

2012-08-20T00:00:00+00:0020th August 2012|
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