Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts

TAI brings donor members together with the belief that deeper collaboration and learning can increase our collective impact - helping change the way the transparency and accountability field works and improve the lives of people around the world.

Our Model for Field-Level Progress

AT EVERY STAGE, WE MONITOR AND EVALUATE WHAT WORKS, WHEN, HOW AND WHY.

  • Learning
    • CONSOLIDATE
      evidence base
    • FACILITATE
      knowledge exchange
    • GENERATE
      new insights on content and practice
  • Collaboration
    • ALIGN
      strategies and funding
    • LEVERAGE
      rapid response and collective voice/resources
    • REDUCE
      transaction costs and test new approaches
  • Impact
    • INFLUENCE
      grantee behavior
    • BUILD
      evidence base
    • STRENGTHEN
      collective action
Download our full 2020-2024 Strategy

WE BELIEVE

Concrete gains can be made by bringing together different strands of the global transparency and accountability movement.

PATHWAYS TO CHANGE: AMBITIOUS + CONCRETE

TAI member donors each have their own theories as to how change happens but we share a common thread. TAI helps track evidence and foster reflection upon core paths to change.

Download the members’ PATHWAYS TO CHANGE MAP or explore the blocks below to learn more about the contextual factors, actors and influences surrounding transparency and accountability efforts.

Global Influences

What international norms have been discussed, built and agreed upon - and how do they influence behaviors at country level? We explore the role of:

• International norms and standards
• Global multi-stakeholder initiatives and their national chapters

Questions Related To:

Accountability actors

What is the evidence that providing information or data produced by (inter)national bodies influences or enables accountability actors within the government to monitor government performance, sanction or reward performance, and manage expectations of
citizens (and government) of their duties, responsibilities, and performance standards?

What is the evidence that providing information or data produced by (inter)national bodies influences or enables accountability actors outside the government to monitor government performance, sanction or reward performance, and manage expectations of
citizens (and government) of their duties, responsibilities, and performance standards?

 

Government officials

How do government officials directly use information or data that is produced without going through any other accountability actors?

Accountability Actors

Who is empowered to push for accountability? Accountability actors have a central role in determining institutional behavior, as well as prevailing attitudes. They include:

• Within government: lawyers, judges, auditor generals, parliamentary committees.
• Outside of government: media, journalists, CSOs, local chapters on INGOs. Some of these are “infomediaries” – i.e. focused on transmitting information to be relevant/accessible.

Questions Related To:

Citizens

What is the evidence that providing information or data influences citizens to behave as accountability actors (citizens monitoring, protesting, non-compliance), and do they act as individuals or in collectives? In particular, does citizen behavior include the use of the information itself?

 

Government officials

What is the evidence that information or data is used by accountability actors inside the government (e.g. judges, parliamentarians, anti-corruption agencies, etc.) to hold government officials (includes elected, technocrats, front line service providers) accountable through sanctions or legal action?

What is the evidence that information or data is used by accountability actors outside the government (e.g. media, journalists, lawyers, CSOs, etc.) to hold government officials (includes elected, technocrats, front line service providers) accountable by monitoring, changing expectations of responsibilities, or scrutinizing performance?

Civic space: Rule of law, FOI, freedom of assembly, media & other freedoms, protection of constitutional rights

  • Monitoring
  • Sanctioning (within government actors only)
  • Changing expectations / attitudes of responsibility of performance among citizens and officials

Citizens

Citizens have a key role to play in defining the culture of civic engagement, but within different contexts, their voices may be heard or silenced. We consider the factors that affect citizens’ inclinations and commitments to engage, as:

• Voters
• Accountability actors

Questions Related To:

Government officials

Do citizen accountability actions result in changes in behavior of government officials?

How do citizens exercise their voice as voters?

 

Free and fair elections, history of civic organization and state response

Government Officials

Government officials are tasked with implementing programs that translate public resources into programs that improve people’s well-being.

How are they held accountable when they don’t deliver? We consider in the case of:

• Elected officials
• Technocrats
• Front-line service providers

State capacity: Government holding government accountable; tax collection infrastructure; degree of clientelism, etc. 

  • Policy making
  • Policy implementation
  • Fiscal management
  • Service delivery
  • Binding rules and regulations
  • Financial allocation to accountability systems
  • Functional monitoring systems
  • Credible sanction / reward systems

PERSPECTIVES

What does it mean to support donor collaboration?

Check out our the 6Cs of delivering for our members.