Policy Area: Civil Society

MOVIN

Movin is an independent political movement focused on influencing and monitoring:

a) the independence and efficiency of governmental institutions;

b) the increase in levels of transparency in their management;

It also works to stimulate citizens participation and involvement in order to get the prior two objectives.

It has the firm belief that it can foster a transformation in Panama through direct participation of citizens in politics, both through political parties and from the independent arena.

In order to attain this, Movin has created platforms for debates and education on their rights and duties in democracy, as well as other relevant topics, always encouraging “a call to action”.

Their plans also incorporate the development of leaders across the country through strict curricula based on our four fundamental values: integrity, transparency, diversity and objectivity.

Movin

Twitter @movinpty

Instagram @movinpty

Facebook MovinPanama

Quién es Quién Wiki / Who’s Who Wiki

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The opacity characterizing the Latin American private sector alters the balance between liberal democracy and market capitalism, ultimately affecting national development processes.

Additionally, the lack of an effective legal framework implies that civil society actors, as well as investors and other corporate stakeholders, lack the tools to intervene in corporate decisions that affect the public interest, forcing us instead to rely upon voluntary corporate action or porous legal systems.

However, today there are alternative, innovative tools to compensate for these shortcomings. Information technology is simplifying the participation of individuals and promoting the construction of a context that fosters socially responsible behavior and the exercise of professional ethics.

Increasingly, projects with collaborative platforms specifically designed to promote a culture of transparency and to foster, in the long term, compliance with fiduciary and legal standards are coming on-line.

Who’s Who Wiki combines business intelligence with transparency technology and network visualization to facilitate access to symmetric information about corporations and investors. With PODER’s editorial site, rindecuentas.org, we promote MéxicoLeaks, a secure whistleblowing platform.

The objective of the project is analyze the Mexican corporate network and facilitate public understanding of its individual and corporate members.

 

Twitter: @QuienQuienWiki

Read More About QQW: here.

Latest Article (Spanish): “CMHN, la política de negocios, las élites y la toma de decisiones en México”.

Citizen Action Network for Accountability (CANA)

The Citizen Action Network for Accountability in the Philippines works to improve public services provided in our communities in general and to the poorest and most marginalized in particular.

CANA believes simply that more we ordinary people can understand and engage the government, the more accountable and effective we can all hold it to be.

Latest Work

Citizens force city to improve quality control of public works: A simple story on how citizen action compelled the government to repair a foot bridge previously declared complete yet unusable during rainy days.

Citizens encouraged to monitor government projects, spending: A national broadcast report in Filipino featuring CANA’s views and work in encouraging citizen action to fight corruption and demand for good governance.

Facebook: Citizen Action Net • Twitter: @CitizenActionPH

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Fondos a la Vista

Donations to the third sector are currently scarce in Mexico, as a result, levels of overall investment in the projects supported by civil society are rather low.

At the same time, although organizations are accountable and report to various authorities, society at large does not know about such information, or simply do not have easy access to it.

Fondos a la Vista  has developed a platform to facilitate information about civil society organizations committed to social development and their donors.

The project has as its main objective to promote transparency and accountability in the sector and to promote trust in private donations and organizations.

It also aims to the recognition of the work and commitment of CSOs that already are have good transparency practices in place.

319081_132582570222812_337445412_nFacebook: Fondos a la Vista • Twitter: @FondosalaVista

XNet

Xnet is formed by a group of activists that, since 2008 work in fields related to:

  • online democracy (participation mechanisms and citizen control of power and institutions);
  • advocacy of a neutral and free Internet;
  • free circulation of culture, knowledge and information and the defense of citizen journalism for the right to know, to inform and be informed;
  • the development of technical, communication and legal strategies for the fight against corruption  and;
  • techno-politics understood as the practice of networking and taking action for empowerment, justice and social transformation.
  • Anti-corruption legal and communication strategies

xnet

XNet does not perceive political parties and public prosecutors as allies, but as a part of the problem. For anyone paying attention, it is obvious that the only victories in the fight against systemic corruption come from citizens, or thanks to citizens. Corruption is a moral, legal and political problem, but it is also a technical problem and as such, it can be pragmatically tackled in an efficient and technical manner.

Tired of witnessing how those responsible of the biggest frauds and scams go unpunished, XNet has taken part in the legal fights, some of which have led to the arrests of the main responsible for the misappropriation of funds in very representative cases in Spain.

Xnet have also encouraged, promoted and stimulated a series of citizen-run initiatives and collectives against corruption, among them the remarkable 15mparato, a citizen group responsible for the lawsuit against Bankia upper echelon, because of the scam this firm has proven to be. Starting from the participation of Xnet members in the collective for the Audition of the Debt, another group was created with the aim of auditing the most widely known banker in Spain.

Find more info here:

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Latest projects:

Facebook: RedX.Net • Twitter: @X_net

México Infórmate

México Infórmate works to promote access to public information in Mexico. At the same time, it seeks to generate a national dialogue  involving civil society organizations, governmental organizations and academic institutions on the importance of the right to know.

Its main objectives are:

  • To involve citizens in public affairs and get them to participate, in an informed manner, of decision-making processes and government oversight.
  • To inspire journalists to use the laws of access to information as a critical tool for investigative work.
  • To establish dialogue channels among media, public bodies and the general public, to discuss the importance of the right to know.
  • To promote the role of the culture of transparency in the consolidation of participatory democracy in Mexico.
  • To contribute to the dissemination of the culture of transparency in Mexico and promote the practical use of the laws of access to information as a tool to improve the quality of life for people.

México Infórmate has been involved in the  drafting of a citizens’ legal initiative on transparency (unfortunately, legislators are seeking to negatively modify it, even when they themselves invited civil society to participate).

The organization also trains  journalists on right to information and transparency issues and periodically publishes its own blog in El Universal, one of the major national newspapers.

So far, México Infórmate has published three studies on the Mexican Congress, the Administration of Justice System. More recently, it carried out a study on local Institutes of Transparency, which can be consulted here.

Facebook: México Infórmate •Twitter:@MxInformate

Fundación Ciudadana Civio

Fundación Ciudadana Civio (Civio) is a Spanish non-profit organization established in February of 2012.

Its strategy is to increase transparency and accountability through the use of information technologies and data journalism.

Their commitment is to promote transparency and the recognition and democratization of the right to access to information.

Civio’s ultimate goal is to increase citizens’ participation and awareness and to achieve significant cultural and legislative changes fostering a stronger democracy.

Civio’s combine web applications and data journalism to develop innovative digital tools that facilitate access and interpretation of public information.

Through the use of data mining, scraping, analysis and visualization, as well as the generation of quality content, Civio addresses fields such as public budgets, governmental pardons, access to information and conflicts of interest.

Facebook: Fundación Ciudadana Civio  • Twitter: @Civio

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Borde Político A. C. – Borde Jurídico

Founded in 2012,  Borde Político is a NGO created with the purpose of developing digital tools for monitoring the performance of the Mexican Congress.

Through this platform, citizens can better know the work of their representatives and find interactive tools designed to function as simple mechanisms for consulting, displaying or disseminate relevant information related to both Chamber of the Mexican Congress.

Since 2013, through a specialized project named Borde Jurídico, the transparency effort extended to observe the work of the Judiciary Branch.

Its team consists of 13 people, which includes political scientists, designers, lawyers, philosophers and programmers is dedicated to digitize, illustrate and make available, in real time, information generated in the Congress and the Supreme Court. The digital platforms developed by Borde Político aim to encourage citizen contributions and debate to political processes and legislation.

In addition, Borde Político is part of the Opening Parliament Alliance (Mexico) and has established important partnerships to work on matters of open budget and legislative budgets with renowned civil society organizations in Mexico such as Fundar and Métrica Pública.

Twitter: @bordepolitico /@bordejuridico • Facebook: Borde Político, Borde Jurídico • Youtube: Borde Político, Borde Jurídico

Fin al abuso (1st Campaign)

The project measures the amount of money annually stolen and diverted from education in Mexico, and holds a permanent campaign to advertise and display what could have been done in the education field in Mexico with the money that is lost to corruption. Additionally, “Fin al abuso” encourages citizens to join electronic campaigns and take legal action to demand that money spent on education is rightly used.

First campaign

Following up a three years movement named “Where is my teacher?”, Fin al abuso is leading a group of organizations demand for a single, complete and reliable registry of basic education teachers. The obligation to submit such registry was established in the enactment of the Mexican Federal Spending Decrees for 2010, 2011, and 2012; however, it does not exist so far.

Fin al Abuso, has detected (by name) 22,353 people, who are paid an income as teachers or principals, yet are not teaching. These people are the so-called “union commissioners” (UC) teacher union workers whose salaries cost Mexicans at least 1.7 billion pesos every year.

 Mexicanos Primero

“¡Fin al abuso!”  denounced this wrongdoing in 2012 and invited Mexicans to join the demand of more money to be allocated for education and less to be given to the Teachers Union.

The campaign collected signatures at public spaces, universities and forums; and had broad media presence in Mexico City, Tepic, Tijuana, Guadalajara and Monterrey.

In three months 230,240 citizens signed the campaign and 115 NGOs supported the initiative.

With each collected signature a letter demanding public resources to be well used was sent to the President of Mexico, the presidents of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the Ministers of Education and of Finance. If these Union Commissioners are essential to the SNTE (teachers’ union), then they should be paid from union dues deducted from teacher salaries. Those who signed received a reply from the federal authorities.

SEP (Secretariat of Public Education) and the SNTE reacted differing only in regards to the number of UC: SEP reported that there were “only” 12,704 commissioners whilst the SNTE admitted having over 160,000 commissioners.

In a second conference, Fin al Abuso published a document supported by the National Bar Association of Mexico (Ilustre y Nacional Colegio de Abogados de México) concluding that the payment of UC from the federal treasury is illegal.

 

 Twitter: @Finalabuso    •   YouTube: MexicanosPrimero  • Facebook: FinAlAbuso

Corruption Tour Bus – Corruptour

The Corruption Tour Bus (Corruptour) is a unique and disruptive product, designed to create awareness of the shameless government corruption in Nuevo León, Mexico. The past 10 years have been tragic for this prosperous state that once stood out for its sound business and peaceful environment. However, the last government administrations and political parties have partaken in ridiculous corruption scandals that have resulted in increased violence. Vía Ciudadana, a local movement that promotes independent candidates for 2015 elections, is the author this project.

The Corruptour’s strategy is to take citizens on a ride to eleven city landmarks that represent the major scandals of the past years: over cost state government buildings (Torre Administrativa), the tragic Casino Royale, where 52 innocent people lost their lives in an act of terrorism and no authority has been prosecuted, and City Hall as the actual mayor, Margarita Arellanes has been accused of proselytism, amongst others.

The narrative of the tour includes the names of the government officials involved, amounts of bribes and extortion and a direct call to action to citizens to eradicate and punish all forms of corruption.

With this project, Vía Ciudadana expects to outrage citizens and understand the relation of government corruption with the damage caused to their state. 2015 can be the year of change, the year where honest and hard-working citizens enter government offices and make a transcendental change.

Twitter: @Corruptour • Facebook: Corruptour • YouTube: ViaCiudadana

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Corruption monitoring system of Coalition 2000

Corruption Monitoring System (CMS) of Coalition 2000 was a system of empirical studies and analytical reports and represents one of the three main components of the activities of the anti-corruption initiative Coalition 2000, realized in the period 1998-2004. The main objective of CMS was to periodically present information, which would enable conclusions about the scope of corruption in the country, as well about the related public attitudes, assessments and expectations. The other functions of the CMS were to provide reliable feedback about the effectiveness of the anti-corruption initiatives of the Bulgarian society, as well as assessment of the effectiveness of the anti-corruption activities of Coalition 2000 itself.

Integrated strategies for natural resource exploitation

The project aimed at:
– creating a virtual information center for monitoring the exploitation of natural resources in Romania;
– developing local civil society representatives’ capacity to actively participate in the development of regional strategies for the exploitation of natural resources;
– raising awareness among local and central authorities in resource rich areas about the necessity to design local sustainable development strategies for the exploitation of natural resources;
– advocating for transparency and accountability of central authorities’ management of natural resources.

Corruption as an election issue

A research on public opinion was conducted in September 2002. Its results were presented in the media. The project raised the public awereness about corruption, promoted important values of transparency and dedication in fighting the poverty, influenced political parties to pay attention to corruption issues in their activities. The project put pressure on non transparent politicians and their political parties and supported the implementation of the national anti-corruption strategy. This project also reinforced the civil society organisations’ role in fighting corruption as well as the role of Transparency International in the monitoring of political system in Bosnia.

Policy Forum

The Anti-Corruption Policy Forum is a high profile public event for anti-corruption initiatives, supporting the efforts of the civil society and public institutions in the fight against corruption. The Policy Forum convenes once a year to review the results of the preceding period, and to provide guidelines for the work over the next year. Members of the Policy Forum are prominent public personalities with established integrity and reputation as well as representatives of public and private institutions. The main purpose of the Forum is to discuss the annual Corruption Assessment Report of the Center for the Study of Democracy.

European policies (2003-2005/2008-2010)

The project aimed at assessing the state of civil society in Bulgaria. It provided a Civil Society Index as an action-research initiative covering more than 60 countries with a view of creating knowledge base and an impetus for civil society initiatives. Bulgaria takes part in the global survey for the second time (first phase was implemented by Balkan Assist 2003-2005). The survey seeks the answers to key issues within the development of civil society in Bulgaria through quantitative and qualitative methods. The project implementation tools include: 1. set-up of a national implementation team; 2. set-up of a project Advisory Committees; 3. identifying key issues within the civil society in the national context; 4. mapping of secondary data on civil society in Bulgaria; 5. quantitative surveys; 6. regional focus groups; 7. public discussion on the main findings; 8. summing up the main findings and recommendations in analytical report and policy briefs; 9. drafting of specific recommendations targeting the main areas of concern.

From good practices towards effective anti-corruption policies: Partnership between civil society structures and the public administration as a guarantor for enhancing transparency and accountability on national and local level

The project aimed to raise the capacity and create conditions for active involvement of civil society structures and public officials at local and regional level in the fight against corruption, as part of the general efforts to reform the public institutions in order to achieve higher efficiency, transparency and accountability. The basic goals of the project were: 1. to enhance the competencies and practical skills of civil society organizations and local and regional administrations in counteracting and preventing corruption by devising and applying concrete policies and practices of civil control and monitoring; 2. to raise the capacity of civil society structures and local and regional administrations for drafting of concrete strategies and project proposals for good governance; 3. to improve partnership skills between civil society organizations and Bulgaria’s public administration.

Civic pressure on corruption and incompetence at local and state administration levels regarding illegal construction

The project was designed to fight against corruption in the municipal and state administration in the sphere of illegal construction. for the purpose an expert group monitoring the process of issuing construction licenses in the municipalities of Sofia was established during the actual project implementation. The project activities included: 1. analytical report on corrupt practices in cases of illegal building in Sofia Municipalities based on one-year survey; 2. development and dissemination of a brochure: “What Should We Know in Case of Illegal Building and Reconstruction””; 3. setting up of a citizens “”Complaints and Information Desk”” for legal assistance and lodgment of signals; 4. research and publicity on the municipal-level process of issuing construction licenses; 5. active public and media campaign to educate citizens about their rights in cases of illegal construction and to present the made disclosures of corruption in this field.”

A Citizen within a Rule of Law

The project focused on watchdog activities of local anti-corruption activists; email conference for experience exchange was set up and workshops and seminars organized, focusing on real cases and practical know-how. An anti-corruption advice center for individual citizens was implemented, including the support of a lawyer.

Towards establishing effective partnership: Improving citizen participation in anti-corruption initiatives at the local level

The project aimed at encouraging the establishment of a network of civil society organizations, offering an institutional support to NGOs in the city of Blagoevgrad for improvement of the anti-corruption climate at the local level. The major activity lines include thematic training seminars; developing an Index for measuring the Transparency of the local anti-corruption environment and designing a strategy for its improvement.

Public Policies Monitoring

The basic objective of the project was to reach the positive changes in quality of life in Sarajevo Canton by increased involvement of citizens, and by organized and articulated action of the civil society organizations in process of authorities monitoring, analyzing their previous work as well as advocacy actions for alternative measures in seven areas of public policy. These areas are: transparent spending of budget funds, health care, education, employment and professional retraining, care for old and ill, management of contributions and restricted funds and information services at local level. Particular importance of this project realization was the fact that not only monitoring and criticism of the authority were performed in Sarajevo Canton, but alternative measures for public policy have been offered and defined possible directions of future actions by governments that would led to positive changes in quality of life in Sarajevo Canton. The project was realized in cooperation with the Center for Policy Research and Development.

‘Civic Society Anti-Corruption Response’, Croatia and Kosovo (2008)

The project implemented by SAR together with PSD Croatia and COHU Kosovo aimed to strengthen the ability of partner organizations to implement anti-corruption advocacy projects. The program monitored the entire process, from policy-making to research to advocacy.

Croatia

  • Report on conflicts of interest, distributed electronically to all stakeholders
  • Hold an international conference in May 2008, with the participation of all partners, to present the status quo on conflicts of interest, the mechanisms that can be used to disclose them and civil society involvement in projects that would increase civil servants’ responsibility
  • Advocacy activities regarding the campaing entitled “Yes for Parliament with Clean Hands”, implemented by BURA before the parliamentary elections. The campaign was shaped after the Coalition for a Clean Parliament
  • Activities for consolidating the BURA NGO network, coordinated by PSD – meetings, public events, discussions

Kosovo

  • Report regarding conflicts of interest, the efficiency of statal instruments against corruption (including research on two conflicts of interest programs  and assets statements), distributed electronically to all the stakeholders
  • International conference in April 2008. The participants list included SAR, COHU and MJAFT. The conference aimed to to present the status quo on conflicts of interest, the mechanisms that can be used to disclose them and civil society involvement in projects that would increase civil servants’ responsibility

Implemented from January 1, 2008 to December 15, 2008

 

Anti-Corruption Legal Advice Center

The anti-corruption counselling center was established. A publication (cookbook) “How to face a corruption”” was one of the project outputs as well as the special internet section and the anti-corruption library. A workshop for the NNO representatives was organised durign the first year of the project implementation. The number of clients (individuals, companies, public authorities) and cases assited by the Center (available at Center’s Activity Report of 2006 and 2008) amounts to several hundreds every year. Lawyers employed by the TIC assist the individuals at the court if necessary and the TIC also organises public debates in the municipailities where particular case takes place with good results and impacts on transparency of the local governments´processes. The project is ongoing. There has been different funding every year. The anti-corruption number 199, operated by TIC (outsourcing), is funded by the Ministry of Interior. Some of the clients of the anticorruption line 199 are consequently assisted by the Center.”

Capacity building in support of cooperative and participatory processes

The goal of this project was to support the establishment of basic preconditions for participatory cooperation between regional authorities, municipalities and civil society groups in the planning and implementation of the social and economic reform process in Marneuli and Gardabani districts. Target groups: Local councilors, NGO, the general public.

Mutual trust for better governance

The project aimed at improving public trust in the administration at local and regional levels by increasing transparency and monitoring capacity of the administration. The project sought to promote the practices of good governance through the partnership between the civil society organizations and the municipal administration. Some of its main activities included: 1. survey assessing the transparency of the local and regional administrations; 2. public opinion survey for the identification of the main deficiencies of the targeted administrations; 3. realization of educational seminars and round tables; 4. development and publication of analysis with recommendations on the topic: “mutual trust – a barometer for good governance””; 5. activities for information and publicity.”

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