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Debating Integrity Idol Liberia with the Street Parliaments

By: Beth Goldberg, Resident Summer Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia  In Buchanan, Liberia, we sat circled around glasses of hot, milky tea in an open-air tea shop, far from a traditional parliament. The 20 members of the “street parliament” opened the meeting with a call and response chant, melding the disparate group of men into one voice comprising elders, students, local representatives, mechanics, and everyone in between. These men gather daily for the self-described purpose of critiquing leaders and debating hard questions. Such forums hearken back to early Athenian democracy, where citizens (men) met in public squares to engage lawmakers directly [...]

2016-08-11T00:00:00+00:0011th August 2016|

Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 2

By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur). This blog post is the second in a series about the Community Justice Team in Logan Town, Liberia. Mr. Kamma and his team of mediators face three primary challenges in delivering justice in Liberia: Transportation & Communication – the communities served by the Citizens Bureau are widely dispersed and the mediators have no vehicles. For example, one office of the Bureau serves Logan Town’s 17 distinct communities of over 70,000 residents. This is a tall order, but [...]

2016-07-14T00:00:00+00:0014th July 2016|

Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 1

By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur) The five mediators sat along the wall of the bright blue room, sweat beading in the stagnant Liberian heat as the office manager, Rockson, recalled a recent case: A 16 year-old girl was accused of witchcraft by her community for exhibiting “unusual behavior”, not unheard of in Liberia where belief in the supernatural is widespread. The girl was subsequently ostracized by her community, prohibited from attending school and church. The situation escalated when her parents were given [...]

2016-07-13T00:00:00+00:0013th July 2016|

Where Are We With The Learning Agenda In Liberia?

By: Beth Goldberg and Lawrence Yealue (Accountability Lab Liberia) At the Accountability Lab we have recently been running a series of “learning about learning” discussions to understand how we- as a community- can get better at adaptive learning. We want to help highlight practical ways to internalize and build on lessons around what works and what does not; and to support open conversations around impact (read recent blogs from our impact survey process and learning in Pakistan). In Monrovia last week, we brought together a group of donors, civil society representatives and government officials to discuss these issues. In Liberia, [...]

2016-07-06T00:00:00+00:006th July 2016|
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