OJU ELERI: The radio program holding power to account in Osun State

In an effort to fight government corruption, an initiative called Tracka monitors public spending allocations and holds town hall meetings in communities across Nigeria to educate residents about the budgeting process. The organization has engaged 967 communities and helped hold officials accountable for projects that were funded but never completed, such as an electricity substation in Kawu.

The UDEME Monitor program trains student journalists to track and report on transparency and accountability around publicly-funded projects. The team has produced roughly 1,000 stories exposing corruption and gaps in implementation and has worked directly with community residents to raise awareness around procurement processes.

Reduce corruption by making public data accessible and transparent. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, information about public works projects is available online, so excess spending is hard to hide. Meanwhile in Brazil, an observatory analyzes government expenditures and investigates suspicious transactions. Credit card expenditure fell by 25 percent after the data was published.

Justice40, created through a sweeping executive order during President Joe Biden’s first term, is designed to ensure communities deemed disadvantaged receive at least 40% of the benefits of federal climate change and environmental investments. While no single tally of Justice40 spending or its benefits is available thus far, the White House Environmental Justice Scorecard says more than 500 projects have been funded through its efforts.

Human Development Initiatives trains community members to monitor school infrastructure projects eligible for government education funding and gather information to present to the state board when projects are not completed. As a result of the community tracking efforts, several schools have received significant upgrades.

The Udeme project trains student journalists to track government constituency projects and write investigative reports holding officials accountable when planned projects are stalled or poorly executed. The participants, called U-monitors, also meet with local community members to inform them about the budget process and help them track constituency projects themselves.

The Resource Center for Human Rights and Civic Education has trained more than 250 youth to help fight government corruption by tracking abandoned infrastructure projects and confronting officials with their findings. Since 2020, 126 abandoned projects have been tracked, and 78 of those have since been completed.

Media Rights Agenda helped a community in Lagos, Nigeria, submit Freedom of Information Act requests to draw attention to the community’s lack of basic amenities like roads and clean water. When government organizations ignored the requests, the organization took legal action and released a documentary about the issue to gain public support.

In the past 150 years, Finland has gone from famine-ridden to renowned as one of the world’s strongest democracies with leading global rankings in health, education, and innovation. Culture is key to this transformation. Finns are both self-reliant and highly cooperative with a long history of putting independence, freedom, and opportunity for all people front and center in policymaking.

Some cities are requiring companies that deploy personal delivery vehicles, or PDDs, to collect and share data around sidewalk accessibility to highlight areas in need of repair or improvement. In Los Angeles, the data helped spur the installation of three curb ramps in an area that previously had none, and some municipalities are even drawing revenue from PDD companies to support infrastructure improvements.