Data Use and Impact with INAI, GESOC AC, and the Veracruz State Audit Commission in Veracruz, Mexico

Open Government Innovation in Action: Engaging Citizens in Municipal Public Works in Veracruz

We helped partners identify key obstacles preventing effective data use on the part of citizens, and develop action plans for overcoming those obstacles. As a result, citizens and civil society organizations have collaborated more effectively, and are more able to use data on municipal spending to understand local challenges, advocate for changes in the allocation and use of public resources, and more effectively engage citizens at the community level.

Crowd protesting

When and Why do People Act Against Corruption? Finding Out What Triggers Citizen Action

Our research sheds light on the answers to this vital question. We developed and tested a three-tier theory of change (ToC), a model that spells out how citizens take action as a result of three variables: their own cost-benefit approximations, the way that contextual factors affect their lives, and their social connections, through which contextual factors are translated, and made tangible. This final factor – social mediation – where encounters and discussions with people who are important for the individual, is especially important, and constitutes the ‘tipping point.’ Our research suggests that it’s at this tipping point where anti-corruption organizations can do much more to support citizen action on corruption.