Accountability Lab

12/19/2025

We’re closing out the year by sharing our newsletter wrap-up for 2025 – reflections on the learnings and collective efforts that shaped the year. As we take a short pause to rest and reset, we’re grateful to everyone who made this work possible. Wishing you a gentle close to the year.

🔗: https://bit.ly/4aRLR2Y 📰

12/18/2025

The 2024 Accountapreneurs from Nepal are advancing thoughtful approaches to accountability – whether through climate resilience, digital rights, civic tech, inclusive healthcare, or community-led sustainability.

What stands out across their work is not only innovation, but attentive listening – to community needs, youth voices, and lived experiences. Their initiatives remind us that accountability is not abstract; it is shaped through everyday interactions, shared responsibility, and constructive dialogue.

Accountability Lab Nepal has captured their journeys through a series of short film profiles, featuring:

🎥 Aakriti Dotel
🎥 Sadichchha Silwal
🎥 Dr. Samundra Gurung
🎥 Prince Chaudhary & Subin Shrestha (Speak Up Nepal)
🎥 Susil Khanal

Explore the playlist and hear directly from these leaders about what motivates their work:

12/17/2025

🎙️ What does accountability look like 13 years in? In this special AccountabiliTea episode, voices from across Accountability Lab’s global network reflect on learning, resilience, and what sustains accountability work today.

Featuring reflections from Blair Glencorse, Jean Scrimgeour, Cheri-Leigh Erasmus, Erin Sines, Djitteye Doussouba Konaté, Habibou Diaou, Florencia Guerzovich, and Brian Malika

🎧 Listen here: ➡️ https://bit.ly/3cs6Ywz

MacArthur Foundation | Accountability Lab Mali | One More Percent

12/17/2025

Does change always require something completely new? Maybe not. Sometimes, the most meaningful innovation comes from putting existing wisdom into practice with intention and that can be truly liberating.

In her latest blog, our Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Florencia Guerzovich, invites us to rethink how we support governance and civic space. Instead of relying only on technocratic prescriptions, she argues for valuing the connective, coalition-building work that keeps societies stitched together.

Florencia shares three insights on where governance support can go next:

The soft infrastructure and the people she calls “invisible weavers” are just as important as formal coalitions and movements. Their everyday contributions often go unnoticed, but they keep civic space alive.

These invisible weavers act in a bilingual infrastructure, helping translate between institutional systems and the lived realities of communities.

What this work needs most isn’t invention, but visibility and support by rebalancing portfolios and how we work so that relational work can sustain and scale.

👉 Read the full blog: https://bit.ly/4iYR7nn

Rebalancing toward the relationships, translation work, and bilingual soft infrastructure that make democratic practice possible.   Across conversations with practitioners, funders, researchers, and colleagues working on democracy, governance and civic space, the same diagnosis keeps surfacing. It....

12/11/2025

📍We're talking sustainable private sector AI adoption and ways to support groups of anti-corruption champions at CoSP 11 next week – join us!

Our session with Development Gateway, "Trustworthy AI ecosystems in the private sector", will be an interactive workshop. Participants from the private sector, government, academia, and civil society, will explore how scaling and benchmarking Al private sector anti-corruption solutions can create shared value when grounded in transparency, accountability, and collaboration. Rather than focusing on hype or technology for its own sake, the session will unpack the trust gap that often exists when it comes to digital systems for business integrity.

"Building the ecosystem against corruption" will explore the role of civil society, journalists and whistle-blowers in anti-corruption, how restrictions on these groups directly undermine UNCAC implementation and access to information and highlight strategies to protect civic space, and strengthen transparency and accountability.

12/10/2025

📢 Contribute to New Research on Independent Media

Independent researchers from Johns Hopkins University and -Pollinate Consulting Solutions are conducting a global study to understand how the recent termination of major US development assistance is affecting independent media around the world.

They are inviting insights from:
➡️ Media outlets and newsrooms
➡️ Journalists, bloggers, and content
➡️ Civil society groups working in or alongside the media
➡️ Organisations in countries where USAID or the US government previously supported

Note:
📌 You do not need to have received US funding to participate.
📌 They do ask for only one response per organisation.)

The survey is available in multiple languages, and all responses will remain confidential. Findings will inform a public report with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, helping donors and policymakers better understand evolving needs within the media ecosystem.

📝 Take the survey:

⚫ English: https://bit.ly/48SQwQE
⚫ Français: https://bit.ly/3Y6wQCL
⚫ Español: https://bit.ly/3MEl2Fg
⚫ Português: coming soon!
⚫ Українська: https://bit.ly/3Y9lYUI
⚫ Русский: https://bit.ly/3KHPL3J
⚫ العربية: https://bit.ly/3Kss2oc

For questions, you can contact the research team at: [email protected]

By sharing your perspectives, you’ll contribute to a clearer picture of the challenges facing independent media – and the opportunities to strengthen support in this space.

Create surveys with end-to-end encryption. Protect your respondents' data and privacy. Try it for FREE.

12/09/2025

This Anti-Corruption Day, we’re reflecting on insights shaped through our work during 2025 – in global gatherings, civic spaces, research, and collaborative learning.

These come through reflections shared by Blair Glencorse at the World Justice Project (Forum); research carried out by Blair and Shally Baloch on global anti-corruption prize ecosystems; intergenerational exchanges Cheri-Leigh Erasmus had with Anti-Corruption Excellence Award winners, convened by the UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Rule of Law & Anti-Corruption Center; governance discussions Cheri contributed to through the World Economic Forum’s Good Governance Communities; civic space reflections Jean Scrimgeour engaged at the UN General Assembly; prototyping and iteration through HackCorruption in Mexico City; and youth leadership perspectives highlighted by Narayan Adhikari in Nepal.

Swipe through the carousel to explore the lessons.

12/04/2025

Last week, Narayan Adhikari, South East Asia Lead at Accountability Lab Nepal, participated in the Bay of Bengal Conversation (BoBC) in Dhaka – a regional forum convening policymakers, scholars, journalists, and sector leaders to examine South Asia’s shifting geopolitical landscape.

Drawing on discussions from the 2025 theme, “Rivals, Ruptures, and Realignments – Navigating Power & Purpose in a Disordered World,” Narayan highlighted the trends shaping the region:

1️⃣ Rivalries: Intensifying geopolitical competition is influencing national decisions more directly, with India-China tensions continuing to shape the strategic outlook of Nepal, Bhutan, and other smaller states.

2️⃣ Ruptures: Recent political and economic crises have exposed structural vulnerabilities across the region. Sri Lanka’s economic collapse, for example, altered mobility, remittances, and the nature of international engagement.

3️⃣ Realignments: New forms of cooperation are emerging around shared risks such as climate vulnerability and regional security, signalling a move toward more pragmatic, issue-based partnerships.

Narayan noted that these dynamics are creating a more complex environment for smaller states, where strategic foresight, adaptability, and cross-border collaboration are increasingly important.

The BoBC serves as a valuable platform for nuanced dialogue and regional exchange, offering space for diverse perspectives on how South Asia can navigate evolving geopolitical realities with clarity and purpose.

12/01/2025

💡 Introducing a new AI tool to strengthen integrity in public contracting!
Together with Development Gateway, we are excited to launch a new AI-powered contract summary and analysis tool through the HackCorruption program, designed to help journalists, civil society, and the private sector detect red flags in procurement processes.

This open-source AI solution automates key parts of the data analysis process, identifies trends, and sheds light on the often opaque procedures of public contracting. By making procurement data more timely and accessible, the tool aims to strengthen transparency, heighten accountability, and ensure good governance in public contracting.

This matters because public procurement is one of the largest areas of government spending, accounting for nearly a third of budgets globally - approximately $10 trillion per year. Yet, despite the enormous volume of taxpayer dollars involved, procurement data remains difficult to access and even harder to analyze, contributing to an estimated 20–25% of spending lost to corruption globally, and even higher in some regions.

🔗 Read more about this open-source AI model trained to curb corruption in public contracting: https://developmentgateway.org/blog/building-useful-usable-ai-a-new-tool-to-curb-procurement-corruption/

DG, together with Accountability Lab, have launched a new AI-powered contract summary and analysis tool through the HackCorruption program, designed to help journalists, civil society, and the private sector detect red flags in procurement processes.

12/01/2025

A few weeks ago, we convened a few of our teams in Mexico City for a reflective learning workshop to map out their possible next steps. Teams from four countries met with our mentors to discuss how to leverage their anti-corruption prototypes. Find out all the details in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrKsgPxXmr8

🎥 Sebastian Marin

We convened some of our HackCorruption participants in Mexico City in October 2025 for a workshop. Catch up on proceedings in this video.

11/28/2025

Across different countries, Civic Charge fellows are shaping thoughtful approaches to accountability – reflected in the choices they make, the collaborations they nurture, and the spaces they open for engagement.

This roundup brings together the work emerging from our incredible 2024 and 2025 participants – including digital platforms addressing harmful information, improved access to civic tools, contributions to policy and participation processes, legal and justice initiatives, climate and community priorities, and creative public forums where art and dialogue foster civic connection.

👓 Read the full roundup here: https://bit.ly/4okXkeo

Civic Charge is Accountability Lab’s global learning programme that brings together changemakers strengthening accountability within their communities. Unlike fellowships built around deliverables, Civic Charge is designed as a learning accelerator – a space for reflection, skills-building, and ...

11/25/2025

We’re excited to host an important conversation at the Open Gov Hub on Wednesday, December 3 at 6:00 PM!

Join us as we welcome Severin Wirz, author of Bribery Beyond Borders, for a deep dive into the history, impact, and future of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). He’ll be in conversation with Gary Kalman, Director at Transparency International US.

Nearly 50 years after its passage, the FCPA is at a crossroads. Bribery Beyond Borders reveals how the U.S. became the first country to criminalize corporate bribery outside its borders and how it continues to shape today’s global fight against corruption.

Don’t miss this thought-provoking conversation and the opportunity to engage directly with the author.

In-person registration: https://bit.ly/4inx7uD
Join virtually: https://bit.ly/43Myop0

We hope to see you there!