Closing the Loop

We facilitate meetings to enable communities to voice their concerns and find solutions. During these meetings, members will elect community monitors that will be trained by us. These monitors then collect data on the transparency, participation and effectiveness of development projects. Evidence will be shared and validated with stakeholders through community meeting and DevelopmentCheck, our online tool for community feedback on projects. If they uncover problems, the monitors will work with contractors, local government and the community to fix these problems, thereby closing the loop.

At Integrity Action we want to change the negative impact that corruption, fraud and mismanagement can have on development projects, thereby affecting vital development outcomes such as to education, water, healthcare, roads and social services. We want to guarantee that citizens have better services but are
also empowered to ensure that policies are appropriate, information can be trusted, and that fewer public funds are wasted. We do this through our Community Integrity Building (CIB) approach which involves community monitors collecting data on the transparency, participation and effectiveness of development projects in their communities. This information is subsequently shared with a Joint Working Group (JWG). JWG are a collaborative forum bringing together community representatives, local authorities and potentially other stakeholders such as contractors to jointly learn, review findings and develop practical solutions to problems initially identified by the local communities. Using this approach we ensure that that the feedback provided is integrated into a process and triggers an informed, appropriate 
response to resolve an identified problem.

Once the community has identified priority projects, the trained community monitors then make information requests, collect data on development projects through site visits, where they take photos, assess the project against the contract and/ or plans (if available), conduct beneficiary surveys, share their results with stakeholders and work with them to address any problems found. Our partners use DevelopmentCheck.org, our online community monitoring tool, to share their findings on development projects and engage authorities to resolve problems and therefore better meet communities’ needs. They enter data through the online questionnaire, upload photos, videos and project documents. Once verified, this information is publicly available and shared in community forums and by community radio. Project data and case studies are also shared through social media, including Facebook and YouTube. We are further exploring ways to link DevelopmentCheck.org with e-government tools, such as data portals, online budget monitoring, and e-procurement sites. Finally, we have developed a smartphone application to allow real-time reporting on these projects. This data provides evidence to generate pressure for improved services and projects.

Case Study: Kyrgyzstan
Larisa Kuznetsova and Sulaimanova Suimkan were both trained as community monitors as part of Integrity Action’s work in Kyrgyzstan. They have since been using their training to address inadequacies in the provision of services for people with disabilities in Osh. In 2012, along with other monitors they analysed the way the city served people with disabilities. Sulaimanova Suimkan said, “We identified many cases where people didn’t know about their right to benefits. For instance the parents of a disabled child should receive benefits if their child has had a disability for over a year, but many parents don’t know about this.” They shared their findings with the local Joint Working Group (JWG) that was established under Integrity Action in Kyrgyzstan to bring together local government workers, elected members, government suppliers, CBOs and active members of civil society including youth committees. The JWG held three meetings in the latter part of 2012 to agree an action plan to address the issues and hold local government accountable for the lack of provision for people with special needs.The JWG created a booklet providing important information about the different benefits disabled
people were entitled to. The booklet also featured the addresses of all organisations and institutions that offer services in Osh. Before this booklet was produced, people with disabilities could not easily find out their entitlements and many were forced to pay bribes to receive benefits. Now they know where to access documentation and which institutions to contact about services. As a result the number of people who pay bribes for access to services has reduced. Larisa has also used what she learned to successfully apply for a $25,000 grant to establish a health and fitness centre for people with disabilities. The centre opened in July 2013 and provides users of the centre access to specialist treatment. Staff at the centre also provide advice on benefits and services that people with disabilities can access.

Case Study: Kenya
A 30-year wait for access to clean water has finally been resolved in rural Kenya. Integrity Action worked with local partners to establish a Joint Working Group (JWG) of residents and local government workers who were mobilised to urge their area MP to secure funding for local boreholes.
Basic training on legal and Constitutional rights by local Integrity Action partner, the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ), was key.
‘ICJ gave us tools so we knew how best to demand better services from our officials,’ says community monitoring chairman Stephen Chaka. ‘Before, we were afraid to approach the government ministers, but because we learnt about our rights, we were able to start getting results.’
Six boreholes have been drilled and four solar-powered pumps and two hand pumps have been installed. The women and children’s arduous 10km trip for water is now a thing of the past

Institutionalisation of our Community Integrity Building approach. We would like to see adoption of our approach at national level. We have had some success with this in Palestine, Indonesia and Afghanistan but being able to mainstream the approach in more countries, and at policy and national level would dramatically increase the impact of our approach, thereby improving the lives of millions of people in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Communication, inform some of our own tools & resources, and sharing it with our partners.

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All data/feedback is verified and published by us and we work with country partners to engage local, national and international authorities to ensure the identified problems are resolved to the community’s satisfaction and a fix can be achieved. Achieving a 'fix' is in fact the resolution of a problem to the satisfaction of the main stakeholders, in our case, the providers of the data/feedback. This feedback is used in Joint Working Groups where feedback providers are present. So they see how that information is used and brings positive change. Ultimately, this means that citizens have better services but are also empowered to ensure that policies are appropriate, information can be trusted, and fewer public funds are wasted.