Accountability Lab Strategy Feedback Logo

  • Strategy Feedback Form

  • Accountability Lab makes governance work for people. We are seeking a world in which resources are used wisely, decisions benefit everyone fairly, and people lead secure lives.

    Over the past decade, we have experimented, learned, and tested, and now that we have significant buy-in for our work, we are scaling up our efforts as the new way to work within the accountability field. Read the full strategy here.

    We’d appreciate your comments and suggestions on the key areas below of our draft strategy for 2023 - 2026. We aim to finalize and release this new strategy before the end of November, 2022.

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    • Progress to date  

    • Through an organizational review and strategic retreat, we reviewed the Lab’s 10 key assets:

      • People - we have incredible people at every level within the organization, and our human capital is our greatest resource;
      • Networks - deep networks both from the community level upwards and from the global level downwards, across a variety of different stakeholders;
      • Brand - a respected global brand that is associated with integrity, compassion and equity;
      • Values - which we live by and use to inform decision-making on a daily basis;
      • Diversity - of people at every level, embedded within a model that allows all voices to be heard;
      • Positivity - a constant focus on the positive and on collective solutions to problems;
      • Generosity - we are not jealous, we partner wherever we can, and we lift up others at every opportunity;
      • Delivery - we have teams that are able to deliver outcomes effectively, even in the most difficult of circumstances;
      • Knowledge - we have deep knowledge of the contexts in which we work which can ensure our efforts are effective and we stay safe;
      • Ownership - of our work by the Lab teams but also by the communities and networks with which we work. 
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    • Strategic approach 

    • The key strategic thrust of the Lab over the next three years is to truly ensure that we operate as a translocal network. Translocal networks provide a way to break down big ideas - like accountability - into more manageable pieces; and understand how local efforts to problem-solve are both essential and instructive.  For us at the Lab, being a translocal network means five, inter-connected things: 

      • Ensuring proximity - working deeply in communities and among the networks in which we hope to support accountability;
      • Focusing on growth - not for growth’s sake, but through organic and intentional efforts to connect dots and fill gaps where we are best placed to do so; 
      • Centering learning - to inform and improve practice in real-time across the network and build momentum for change;
      • Building a shared discourse - implicitly in what we do and explicitly through our messaging around our cause. This allows us to build narratives of change that provide an alternative to the status quo and the entrenched systems that perpetuate it;
      • Prioritizing partnerships - not in the transactional sense but in the more meaningful sense of sharing resources and capacities and putting the eco-system as a whole ahead of individual or organizational recognition or goals. 
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    • During the strategic development process, we thought hard about what we do that is uniquely valuable. We collectively agreed to continue to focus on the three core areas of work we have developed over the past three years: 

      • Shifting norms and behaviors - around issues of accountability to ensure that integrity becomes the expected behavior within societies (campaigns). Examples from our work include Integrity Icon and Voice2Rep;
      • Equipping reformers for collective action - inside and outside government- with the knowledge and tools they need to push for better governance through training and learning (knowledge). Examples from our work include the Accountability Incubator and the Integrity Innovation Labs;
      • Influencing policies, processes and practices - around critical accountability issues, through growing coalitions and advocating for change (communities). Examples from our work include the Civic Action Teams (CivActs) and our advocacy through fora including the G20.
    • Priority strategic themes 

    • We have identified a number of strategic themes around which we feel we would like to grow our learning, networks, programming and advocacy in the 2023-2026 period:

      • Inclusion - including a specific focus on young people, people with disabilities and those that might be most excluded from decision-making due to language, geography, religion or other issues; 
      • Environmental justice - including a specific focus on strengthening inclusive governance of natural resources, climate adaptation and resilience programs, and a just and equitable transition to clean energy;
      • Digital governance - including leveraging technology to enhance good governance, disinformation, digital rights and data protection/privacy, and digital surveillance;  
      • Civic participation - specifically strengthening civic participation in democratic processes, including advocating for regular, free and fair elections as an essential indicator of democratic governance.
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    • Our people and leadership  

    • We want Accountability Lab not to be simply the best civil society organization to work for within the accountability space, but to be the best place to work for anyone interested in changing the world, period. We know that our people are our greatest resource - but we also understand that our work can be challenging. Therefore, we are working to intentionally center the well-being of our team members in every possible way (read more about our duty of care here, safety and security fund here and inclusion policies here, for example); improve our talent management to identify and retain the very best people; and to put in place capacity development plans that build or bring in the knowledge we need to achieve our strategic goals. 

    • Progress by 2026 

    • Below is a table that shows some of the key strategic shifts we are making over the next 3 years. Please rank these in terms of your sense of their importance to the Lab’s future success.

       

                    Where we're coming from                                         Where we're going

      The development of local coalitions and communities The leading eco-system building organization globally around accountability issues.
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    • A focus on bottom-up programming and community networks Well-developed translocal network in support of accountability eco-systems
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    • Using our own campaigns to drive specific changes in behaviors or norms Connecting our campaigns to movements, shared causes and locally-resonant issues
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    • Building communities through programming Developing a fellowship program to actively become the organization that supports anyone interested in accountability field, one way or another
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    • Data collection on a programmatic basis and intermittently for larger learning documents Coherent action research capacity and learning outputs around key accountability issues
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    • Growing support for stakeholders within our network, especially during programming Well-connected communities across our programs working together to build accountability
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    • Making connections across programs to amplify impact Working to ensure that programming works to shift accountability systems
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    • Intentional about staff support, growth and transitions Centering the well-being of our team members in everything we do
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    • Growing our thought leadership in the accountability space Consolidating our role as an intellectual leader in this field and further expanding our influence
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    • Building our global advocacy efforts around accountability issues Grounding national, regional and global advocacy efforts in local ideas, data and thinking
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    • Should be Empty: