2013 in Review and What to Look out for in 2014!

This year was a fantastic one for the Accountability Lab! Highlights included almost twenty new projects in Liberia and Nepal, including: the Community Justice Teams, Daily Talk, the RTI Toolkit, and TELL-it-True. We also hosted Liberia’s first film festivals and a Hip Co music festival for accountability. We helped launch two online platforms to empower citizens to solve accountability issues in Nepal: Bolaun and Nalibeli (which already has over 150,000 hits!) And we made news all over the world including on Forbes, National Geographic, Foreign Policy, Kathmandu Post, Front Page Africa and more.

Innovating in Development Through Accountapreneurship

By: Blair Glencorse. This post was originally published by the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

 

The Hyatt Hotel in Kathmandu is a serene place, with beautiful Newari architecture, lush gardens, and impeccable service. It is also about as far removed as possible in Nepal from the real lives led by ordinary Nepali citizens—an executive suite can cost $800 a night while the average Nepali earns just over $600 a year. As I sat in one of the hotel’s magnificent conference rooms several years ago, attending a three-day conference on poverty in Nepal funded by a foreign donor, I began to question how we do development—three aspects in particular.

Breaking the Silence: SMS Helps Liberian Schools to Improve Education

Maria Fahnbulleh publicises the Tell-it-True project at a high school in Monrovia.

By: Blair Glencorse, Founder and Executive Director. This post was originally published on National Geographic News Watch, Digital Diversity Blog Series by Ken Banks.

Dorcas Pewee is a young Liberian woman who has faced unimaginable challenges. She suffered severe hardship during the brutal 14-year civil war and has struggled to make ends meet during the subsequent decade of peace. Liberia has a female president, but is a deeply male-dominated society. As a result there are few opportunities for women to realise their full potential.

Accountability Lab Joins the National #GivingTuesday Movement

Accountability Lab has joined #GivingTuesday, a unique effort to harness the collective power of charities, families, businesses and individuals to transform how people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season. Following Black Friday and Cyber Monday,  #GivingTuesday aims to shift the focus of the holiday season towards giving back to one’s community and making the world a better place. Today, December 3, 2013, over 8,000 partners will harness the power of social media to inspire people to donate to the causes they care about and create a global movement of generosity.