Today is a very bittersweet day here at Global Integrity. Our longtime friend and colleague Raymond June is returning to his homeland — the San Francisco Bay area — and leaving us. Raymond has long threatened to return to San Francisco, particularly as the Washington, DC summers have seemingly become worse and worse, so we…
Global Integrity recently signed to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and published our (admittedly limited) IATI-related financial information using the amazing, free Open-Aid Register, a tool to turn information into an IATI-compliant XML feed! Woot! For the less familiar, IATI is “a voluntary, multi-stakeholder initiative that includes donors, partner countries and civil society organizations,”…
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision dramatically restructured political financing in the United States. With a 5-4 majority, the Court categorized political donations as a protected form of speech for corporations, unions, and individuals, raising plenty of concerns about transparency. For example, Super PAC donors disclose the names of…
Global Integrity was invited in July to Praia, Cape Verde, for a conference organized by the Alliance for Rebuilding Governance in Africa. The theme was “Africa Re-Invents its Governance,” and the venue was the Assembleia Nacional, a deliberate choice because Cape Verde has been a reputed model of good governance on the continent. Last year,…
The term "failing fast" is often thrown around as a catchy term describing how entrepreneurs are supposed to embrace experimentation, learn from failure, and iterate quickly. When they do fail, they're then supposed to immediately "pivot" — that is, change their business model to better respond to what the market is telling them. The "fail…
Over the last few weeks, Global Integrity has been busy poring over National Action Plans submitted by Open Government Partnership participant countries to make sense of the heaps of commitments contained therein. Last month we presented our analysis of the plans using SMART criteria on this blog. Our assessment gave us reason to be optimistic.…