Accountability Lab

I am applying to the Elevate Prize for three reasons. First, because I truly believe that if the goal is to elevate humanity, inspire others and start a movement, all of this needs to begin with the idea of accountability. Unless people in power are accountable to all of us, and we are accountable to each other, then we can't create the more inclusive, fair and equal society that we all want. The Elevate Prize is a fantastic platform through which to grow this conversation and build buy-in for accountability as the fundamental building block for social change.

Second, I would use the Elevate Prize's support- strategic marketing, media expertise, mentorship and connections- to super-charge our efforts that relate to the key challenges we collectively face right now- including our programs to counter-misinformation related to COVID-19, to push back on closing civic space and to build a network of honest government officials (www.integrityicon.org).

Finally, I would use the financial support provided by the prize to grow our duty of care efforts for our staff and partners and ensure we become an organization that can build the eco-system for change, as I outlined for the Skoll Foundation here recently: https://skoll.org/2021/04/01/p... 

I was recently diagnosed with cancer. Before this happened I was convinced that pushing for more accountability for development, building equity into the delivery of public services and improving the transparency of decision-making were essential to a better world. Now I am convinced. While my prognosis is good, I am laser focused on building the right kind of systems to ensure people in power are responsible to communities; and we collectively build better societies, especially during and after this pandemic. All of us have no time to lose and literally every day counts- so I am going to make sure they do.

I am more and more sure that the work of the Accountability Lab is absolutely central to improving governance, and am dedicating everything I have to growing and improving the organization so that we can improve our impact. My goal for the future is to scale the ideas as much as the organization- partnering with others to support an eco-system in which power is more equitable, local voices are heard, indigenous expertise is valued and accountability is hard-wired into approaches to social change. I cannot think of anything more important.

We are solving the problem of a lack of accountability of people in power. This lack of accountability leads to corruption, inequality and violence- because citizens are unable to hold government officials and business responsible for their decision-making. Corruption costs $2.6 trillion a year- money that could be used for hospitals or schools. Inequality is appalling- Jeff Besos could pay for COVID-19 vaccinations for 2.7 billion people and STILL have over $1 billion in his bank account, while the 1% in many countries refuse to pay taxes or act as responsible citizens. More than 100 people die daily in violent conflict around the world- these are all issues, at their heart, of accountability. 

Accountability Lab makes governance work for people. We support active citizens, responsible leaders and accountable institutions through campaigns (like www.integrityicon.org); knowledge (like www.accountabilitylab.org/accountability-incubator); and communities (like www.civacts.org). The learning from these activities informs our own approaches and we also feed it into national and international decision-making and policy processes related to accountability, open government, citizen participation and SDG16. We are a translocal network- not a top-down effort but a collaborative of change-makers from around the world with shared values, ideas and approaches.

Our work is innovative in three key ways:

i) The usual approaches to accountability, governance and anti-corruption are very negative- they are about the problem and enforcement for lack of compliance. We have changed the narrative and focus on the solutions and the people working to do the right thing, even when no-one is watching. We call this "naming and faming" instead of naming and shaming, and it is a much more powerful way to change approaches, behaviors and norms.

ii) Social change work (and definitely governance work!) includes the same usual suspects and can be seen to be very technical and difficult to understand. We are popularizing this work and broadening the coalitions working on it by building what we call "unlikely networks" which bring dynamism, energy and new ideas. We work with rappers, artists, creatives, technologists and others to find solutions that work.

iii) Too often civil society organizations, entrepreneurs and government work at odds with each other, or do not connect dots in meaningful ways. We build what we call "insider-outsider" coalitions- by bringing together reformers from across different kinds of organizations to work together for collective change. This multiplies the impact.

Accountability Lab began 9 years ago as an idea. I quit my job and crowdfunded $12,000 to get it started. Now, we have a team of more than 100+ young people and Labs across 13 countries. We baked adaptive learning into our approach from the start so that we have constantly learned and improved along the way. Now we are taking three, key steps to ensure we achieve our planned impact and improve effectiveness. We are focusing on:

i) Duty of care- especially during COVID-19. We know our people are our most important asset. So we are building out our efforts to ensure holistic physical, emotional, and digital wellness. 

ii) Equity- to meaningfully interrogate power inequities and ensure our organization and programs lift up all voices, honor indigenous expertise and are co-created with the communities we serve.

iii) Learning- across and among teams to ensure that we can collectively provide each other with the support that is needed, find synergies where they exist and replicate ideas where that is feasible.

These approaches are effective because they are not programmatic- they are about values, sustainability and impact over time, which are the goals that guide our collective decision-making.