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Transforming Transparency: How HackCorruption Winners Could Revolutionize Government Procurement in Namibia

One of our first winning HackCorruption teams has local municipalities interested in their winning idea - an online procurement tool that fights corruption. Looking at government institutions in Namibia, Amon Peter, Baptista Joao, Farida Junior Kyababa, Linda McLeod, and Saudai Sapi created a product that enables a transparent view of the procurement process—allowing both government officials and the public to have a complete overview of the awarding of contracts. It's just over a year since their victory, and we caught up with Farida and Saudi to learn the secrets behind their team's success and how they have used the experience [...]

2023-10-09T12:52:49+00:001st October 2023|

Why frontier technologies will drive the fight against corruption

By Daniel Malan and Marlen Heide Frontier technologies promise to fundamentally change anti-corruption practices, making detection, prevention and risk management more efficient and effective. However, technological innovations also carry integrity risks and might be abused for fraudulent purposes. To truly reap the benefits of frontier technology for governance and anti-corruption, three fundamental tensions have to be addressed: privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of choice. Frontier technology is described by the OECD as having the potential to “reshape industry and communications and provide urgently needed solutions to global challenges … and have the potential to displace existing processes.” The disruptive potential of [...]

2023-03-13T09:05:54+00:0013th March 2023|

Meet the Hackers

By Sara Hoenes In July 2022, Accountability Lab with support from the U.S. Department of State and in partnership the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), launched HackCorruption, a people-powered hackathon designed to develop innovative solutions for greater transparency and accountability. The first regional event was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, and brought together 100 participants from six Southern and Central African countries.  After a competitive judging process, five teams were selected as winners. Each winning team received project funding, continued training and mentorship, and an invitation to the HackCorruption Boot Camp.  The event drew a particularly diverse group of  [...]

2023-01-20T16:14:23+00:0020th January 2023|

COVID-19 and the invisible divide of digital outreach regarding government services for the vulnerable population

Written by Momina Sahar While one of the most promising and appealing steps taken by the government of Pakistan was the digitization of government services during the unprecedented times of a global pandemic, the uncritical embrace of technology for dissemination of information and services along with the lack of availability of digital services in certain areas of Pakistan creates a hierarchy in terms of access to information. Disparate access to the internet is a multilateral issue, the causes for which stem from various reasons such as infrastructure unavailability, gender disparity, and the economic and digital literacy divide.  As pointed out [...]

2022-11-10T06:46:21+00:0014th July 2021|

How the digital divide is affecting education for students away from urban settings

Written by Mehru Ahmed The advent of online schooling and E-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic In these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, many aspects of our lives have shifted from reality to virtual mediums. While most of these transitions were successful, one, in particular, lagged behind tremendously, that of the education sector, which faces great challenges, especially in Pakistan.  The initial suggestion for in-person schooling to be substituted with online school or e-Learning was proposed in 2020, during the first wave of the Coronavirus. Since the COVID-19 pandemic was an unexpected reality, people and governments were not ready to cope [...]

2022-11-10T06:46:21+00:0014th July 2021|

Tech-driven accountability approaches: power, politics and change in Pakistan

Making All Voices Count has supported a number of initiatives in Pakistan at the intersection of technology, accountability and open governance over the past three years. […]

2017-11-19T00:00:00+00:0019th November 2017|

Why we have to reimagine education to fight corruption

Image: REUTERS/Michaela Rehle By: Blair Glencorse, Executive Director of Accountability Lab, and Vasilis Koulolias, Director, of eGovlab at the University of Stockholm. This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum. Traditional approaches to fighting corruption tend to focus on rules, compliance and enforcement. Regulations are passed and organizations are formed to root out graft. These efforts may provide part of the solution, but are often hamstrung or ineffective in places where opacity and patronage are ingrained, and where there is a gap between legal frameworks and everyday behaviors. To truly build systems and societies with integrity we need to rethink [...]

2017-03-10T00:00:00+00:0010th March 2017|

Politics, Persistence, & Publicity – transforming education in Pakistan

By: Rafia Malik, Fayyaz Yaseen, and Syed Kauser Abbas. This blog post was originally published by Making All Voices Count.   In 2015, Accountability Lab won one of the top spots in Making All Voices Count's Global Innovation Competition with their project that brings tech-savvy youth activists together with Pakistan's open data movement.   A year on, the team discuss one of their biggest successes - unblocking funding for building colleges in Punjab - and why they think that we must invest in better public campaigns; in time to build government relationships; and  in understanding that "success is as much about perseverance as innovation".   Last year, through the [...]

2016-05-23T00:00:00+00:0023rd May 2016|

Liberian Students Mobilize to Advance Liberia’s Open Government Partnership Commitments

By: Ahmed Konneh, Co-founder of SMART Liberia and a student of the University of Liberia Students Making a Real Transformation (SMART) Liberia, with funding from the Accountability Lab and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, have worked together over the last two months to implement “Update 8.” Update 8 is an awareness campaign that encourages public institutions to regularly update their websites with fresh content (a component of the government of Liberia’s Open Government partnership action plan). The goal of this project is to allow the public make informed decisions and monitor the operations of various public institutions. As [...]

2020-03-03T16:03:45+00:0030th November 2015|

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|
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