Credit: Marc-André Boisvert
Building Bridges
Over the next six months, we will help address the fragmentation of civil society engagement in the anti-corruption field in four localities (Kenya, West Africa, the Western Balkans and Ukraine), with a focus on health and education. Funded by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), we are building on a previous project which supported cross-regional knowledge sharing and peer exchange amongst OSF grantees. The aim is to increase collaboration (and ultimately impact) based on locally-prioritized needs, leveraging diversity, nurturing relationships and harnessing complementarities. In addition, we aim to generate insights about how organizations operating in different parts of the anti-corruption system can strengthen that system for greater effect.
Health Systems
We kicked off the country-level engagement aspect of our Health Systems Strengthening Project with partners The Centre for the Study of Adolescence (CSA) based in Kenya and Ipas in Malawi. Using a Participatory Systems Thinking Approach, our project aims to support people and organizations who are part of health systems to address the interrelated technical and political economy problems that limit the ability of those systems to deliver health services effectively. This month, we have partnered with The African Health Innovation Center to facilitate a participatory systems thinking workshop with our partners CSA and other health system actors in Nairobi. The workshop will be geared to address the health system challenge of providing comprehensive sexual reproductive health services and education in the Kenyan context.
Open data to fight corruption: Early access to our new tool!
Corruption is a complex problem, and in order to design effective strategies that can be put into practice, it’s crucial to understand local contexts and dynamics. The roadmap to fight corruption with open data provides tools and resources to support users in identifying and overcoming the political, technical and logistical challenges in implementing the Open Data For Anti-Corruption commitments. This tool is product of the collaboration between Global Integrity, the Open Data Charter, ILDA (Iniciativa Latinoamericana de Datos Abiertos), the African Open Data Network, the Local Development Research Institute and the Open Data for Development Network, as part of the World Bank and Open Government Partnership’s program on Advancing OGP’s Thematic Priorities.
Promoting Regional Cooperation
This week, we launched a Regional cooperation for the sustainable management of mining resources in the Andean countries (MinSus) working group – supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). We will focus on identifying opportunities and generating recommendations for improving the use of data from mining certifications to improve local governance, social development, and sustainable development.
Research Updates
What has GI-ACE been up to?
The Story of a Zambian Market: Watch the third and final animated video from our GI-ACE Cities of Integrity project that studies the promotion of integrity within the urban planning sector in Zambia and South Africa. We take a look at how fostering professional integrity can ensure people’s access to fair and equitable cities. The Story of a Zambian Market, alongside two more GI-ACE produced films were featured in the 2021 ‘RISE Africa’ festival. Find the videos here.
Audits and Accountability in India: Amrita Dhillon’s project has just released two working papers on Performance Ranking State Success over Two Decades in India and Electoral Competition, Accountability and Corruption, that take a detailed look at the large-scale implementation of public service programs and rural development schemes.
Grand Corruption In Nigeria: Delve into Jackie Harvey’s latest working paper on the ways in which grand corruption manifests in Nigeria, a country that despite having the highest economic ranking in Africa, is mired by a history of corruption and its effects on public administration.
Paying for a World Class Affiliation: In a collaboration with the National Endowment for Democracy, John Heathershaw’s team provides robust research findings on academia’s increased reliance on donations from the super wealthy, and the questions this raises on the lack transparency and accountability for universities, which currently govern donations in a manner that is often inconsistent and secretive.
Law Enforcement in Nigeria and Malawi: In June we had the opportunity to bring together researchers Gerhard Anders and Matthew Page with senior policymakers and law enforcement officials in Nigeria and Malawi to discuss ACE research findings on what does and doesn’t work in law enforcement practice, focusing on the process of practitioner engagement. You can find the team’s working papers on Malawi and Nigeria on the GI-ACE website.
New Reads
Credit: CODE / Jide Ojediran
CTAP Learning Series Launch
Global Integrity has been working with the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability in Africa Project (CTAP), a civil society-led effort to bolster citizen engagement to advocate for better public service delivery, especially in light of the mismanagement of pandemic related funds. We are rolling out a four-part series to share emerging results and reflections from approaches taken on by our partners. Catch up with the project with our first post that looks at the struggles to get and use data on COVID-19 funds in Africa.
Beyond Transparency, Participation & Accountability
Alan Hudson provided frank and forward-looking feedback on the Hewlett Foundation’s evolving strategy on transparency, participation and accountability. Informed by the evolution of our own strategy (latest two-pager here), the feedback focused on the persistence of implementation gaps between policy and practice. We offer ideas around the role that problem-centered learning and action cycles can play in addressing the political economy dynamics that give rise to these gaps. Find our Hewlett narrative report here.
Credit: Marc-André Boisvert
Welcome, Andrew!
We are pleased to welcome Andrew Haupt, our new Managing Director of Finance and Operations. As we grow our organization and diversify our portfolio, we know that further strengthening our processes for financial management will help us continue to build forward, and Andrew has already proved to be an invaluable contributor in this effort.
Events
New research conducted SOAS-ACE has reinforced an emerging strand of research in anti-corruption—that messages promoting anti-corruption can sometimes end up causing corruption fatigue and a perception that corruption is too widespread to be challenged—outcomes at odds with any messaging campaign. Watch the SOAS team next week on September 22 at 12 pm BST speak on how to make anti-corruption messaging effective.
Hear Jorge Florez speak about transparency and social movements, sharing reflections from our collaboration with local civil society organizations in Latin America and Africa, on September 28 at Mexico National Transparency Week.
Hosted by the University of Buenos Aires and the Foundation “Poder Ciudadano”, you can join our Manager of Integrity and Anti-corruption, Elsa Peraldi, at the Anti-Corruption Conference 2021 on October 5 and 6. She will be joined by fellow experts at a roundtable on innovative strategies in the fight against corruption.
See us live! Don’t miss our first Open Gov Hub in-person event on how technology can help democratize funding. Philanthropy and international aid is top-heavy and insular, composed of decision-makers that tend to be disproportionately white, male, and from backgrounds of privilege. Meg Massey and Ben Wrobel tell the story of the funders who have chosen to cede decision-making power to people with lived experience of the problem at hand in their book, Letting Go. Join the authors and moderator Garry Johnson III at the Open Gov Hub this Friday, September 17 at 4:30 pm EST speak on findings from their research and stories from their book.