ACCOUNTABILITY LAB LIBERIA

📊 The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2025 is out, and it raises urgent questions about leadership and accountability.

Published by Transparency International, the CPI assesses 182 countries and territories, ranking perceived public-sector corruption from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 ...(very clean). This year, the global average has fallen to 42, the lowest on record. More than two-thirds of countries score below 50, and while 31 countries have made progress since 2012, most have stagnated or declined. The report links this to weakened checks and balances, shrinking civic space, and a lack of sustained leadership.

Across the contexts where we work — Mexico, Nigeria, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Mali — these findings reflect what our teams observe in practice. Corruption challenges are rarely about missing laws alone, but about how power is exercised in reality and whether accountability mechanisms can operate independently and consistently.

The CPI also requires careful interpretation. It measures perceptions, shaped by who can report, investigate, and challenge abuse. Independent media, civil society, journalists, whistleblowers, and oversight institutions make corruption visible. Where these actors are constrained – by repression, conflict, weak enforcement, or institutional capture – abuses of power are less likely to surface, even as harm escalates.

This helps explain several tensions the CPI brings into view. Some countries score relatively well on perceived public-sector corruption while being implicated in large-scale violence, prolonged conflict, or the systematic suppression of civic and political rights. These forms of harm sit largely outside the CPI’s methodology, yet they are fundamental to how power is wielded and how accountability is denied in practice. At the same time, much corruption operates across borders, through financial systems and secrecy structures that national-level scores do not fully capture.

🔗 Read the full CPI 2025 report:
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025

Accountability Lab Mali | Accountability Lab Mexico | Accountability Lab Pakistan | Accountability Lab Zimbabwe | Accountability Lab East and Southern Africa (ALESA) | Accountability Lab Nigeria

🏗️ WEBINAR: How Ukrainian businesses are advancing integrity and corporate compliance practices during conflict

Join us for on a conversation on the concrete patterns, sectoral dynamics, and the voices of ethical companies, from a report by Accountability Lab and the CGPA - Corporate... Governance Professional Association (CGPA) Ukraine.

The report aims to support a post-war reconstruction process in which business integrity is strategically leveraged to build a more transparent and resilient Ukrainian economy.

🗓️ Tuesday 10 February 2026
🕓 16:00 EEST/UTC+2 on ZOOM
🔗 Register: https://bit.ly/4aDH4l4

🛤️ ONE YEAR ON: Impacts of shrinking aid on local CSOs in the Global South

Twenty two participants from small and medium-sized organisations have shared their lived experience, organizational decision-making, and the longer-term implications for civil society ecosystems one year on ...from last year's US government aid cuts.

Our report captures their realities around institutional strain, ethical trade-offs, erosion of trust, and hard decisions about pivoting towards better funded issues. It also explores how organizations are adapting, what they’re giving up to survive, and how prolonged instability is reshaping civil society ecosystems, often in irreversible ways.

Crucially, CSOs shared recommendations on how donors can best contribute to supporting the development ecosystem as it now stands:

🔲 Prioritise core, flexible, multi-year funding
🔲 Avoid incentivising mandate drift through funding design
🔲 Support representative joint advocacy and ecosystem-level infrastructure
🔲 Treat civic space protection as a funding priority

👓 Get into the details of the full report: https://bit.ly/4bB419H

📣 Accountability Lab is pleased to share that Beloved Chiweshe has been appointed as the Country Director of @Accountability Lab Zimbabwe.

Beloved succeeds McDonald Lewanika, who stepped down in December 2025 to take on the role of Executive Director for @Accountability Lab East and ...Southern Africa (ALESA).

With over 15 years of experience in democracy, human rights, and governance programming, Beloved brings deep institutional knowledge, having previously served as Deputy Chief of Party for the New Narratives for Accountability in Zimbabwe programme and as Programmes and Campaigns Manager at Accountability Lab Zimbabwe.

We thank our partners, stakeholders, and the broader accountability ecosystem for their continued support and look forward to the next phase of Accountability Lab Zimbabwe’s work under Beloved’s leadership.

🔗 Read the full official announcement: https://bit.ly/3LXtbF3

#MakingGovernanceWorkForThePeople #Leadership #Accountability #Zimbabwe

🌱 While the old system has broken down and the new system has yet to emerge, we have an opportunity not just to respond to crisis, but to rebuild the connective tissue that allows societies to adapt, learn and govern themselves. And If philanthropy can fund that tissue – relationships, ...legitimacy, shared infrastructure – then everything else becomes possible.

In a recent conversation on effective philanthropy AL co-CEO Blair Glencorse joined sector experts to explore how donors, whether individuals, foundations, or corporations, can maximize their impact.

The conversation was hosted by the Center for High Impact Philanthropy to launch their High Impact Giving Toolkit which highlights how resilience is collective, and that no organization, donor, or government can go it alone.

▶️ Dive into the full discussion here: https://bit.ly/3NWjCGV

🌱 How are women shaping economic leadership in their communities?

As part of its project “For Effective Mining in Mali,” Accountability Lab Mali is supporting locally led initiatives that strengthen dialogue and accountability in mining-affected communities.

Led by ...Accountapreneur, Kia Sissoko, the project “Future for Women” focuses on strengthening women’s economic autonomy and leadership in the urban municipality of Sadiola.

The initiative works with women to build skills in management, advocacy, leadership, and financial education, while encouraging economic solidarity and collective action. To date, 20 women have strengthened their capacity to advocate for their priorities and participate more actively as actors of local development.

By supporting women to organise, lead, and engage, this work contributes to more inclusive approaches to accountability and development in mining-affected communities.

#AccountabilityLabMali #Accountapreneur #MiningAccountability #SustainableDevelopment