It’s been just over four years since we launched our new strategy at Global Integrity. That strategy responded to many of the lessons we’d learned from our earlier work on governance assessments, from conversations with our partners in countries and communities across the world, and from our engagement with emerging communities of practice like Doing Development Differently, and Thinking and Working Politically. In it, we announced our intention to move beyond simply producing governance data. We wanted to do more, so that we could better help our partners learn how to address the complex governance challenges they cared about, particularly those related to corruption and the use of public resources.
At the time, we weren’t quite sure what that more should mean, in practice. We knew that the work we wanted to do should help reform-minded actors craft and implement reforms that work in their contexts, rather than try to replicate one-size-fits-all, cookie cutter solutions. We also knew that we were well-placed to capitalize on our position at the heart of the Open Gov Hub in Washington DC, connecting in-country evidence and insights to the broader global development community. But we were not sure exactly how to do all of that, practically-speaking.
Today, four years on, we still have plenty to figure out. But we’ve come a long way. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves, our partners, and how we can most effectively support progress towards more open, effective, and accountable governance. We’ve come to understand that we best achieve our own goals when we help our partners – civil society organizations, governments, multistakeholder initiatives, donors, and others working towards more effective governance – achieve theirs.
This means that we’re most effective when we listen, rather than dictate our own agenda, or that of other external actors; when we work with partners to understand problems, rather than assume solutions; and when we tailor our support to help partners innovate, learn, and adapt as they tackle complex governance challenges in their contexts, rather than trying to impose cookie-cutter approaches designed in Washington DC.
Perhaps most importantly, we’ve come to see that our impact is greatest when our partners learn to navigate and shape the political dynamics and patterns of incentives that are at the heart of governance-related problems, and figure out, over time, how to attain their own goals. In other words, we make the most progress when we step back, and help our partners step forward.
We’ve also seen that we offer real value when we use the evidence and insights from our innovative work with partners to inform and influence the behavior of donors, international initiatives, and other organizations, to shape policy and practice on governance and development, and help ensure that locally-led, innovation, learning, and adaptation is center stage.
Today, after almost four years of action, reflection, and learning, we’re pleased to launch a new website. Our new site aims to capture and incorporate what we’ve learned, in order to more clearly set out what we do, and why. Some highlights:
- We now offer three, customizable services. These services – Problem Mapping, Data Use & Impact, and Strategy & Learning – are tailored to meet the needs of our partners, so that they can more effectively address the complex governance-related challenges they face.
- We work across the world. Check out our impact stories, to read about how partners, have used our services to tackle corruption in Tanzania, strengthen public procurement in Mexico, and improve citizen participation in budgeting processes in the Philippines.
- We put our multilevel approach, combining in-country innovation with global advocacy, into practice across four key themes that are central to the governance agenda: integrity & anti-corruption, fiscal governance, multistakeholder initiatives, and the Open Gov Hub.
- We translate evidence into actionable learning products. See our resources for more.
- We explore the value of problem-driven, learning-centered, and adaptive approaches in governance and development. Visit our blog to read how.
We’re excited about our new website, and about this new distillation of how we work. But most of all, we’re excited about continuing to working with our partners – old and new – and supporting you to understand and address the governance-related challenges that matter to you. Want to discuss a challenge you’re facing? Get in touch. We’d love to speak with you.
