Open Gov Stories Open Gov Stories

In celebration of International Women's Day, March 8th 2023, the Open Gov Hub hosted a podcast on the this year's theme: #EmbraceEquity.

Podcast guests:
Jean Scrimgeour (Accountability Lab)
Jahanara Saeed (Open Data Watch)
Blair McQueen (Open Government Partnership)
Podcast host:
Izabela Chmielewska (Global Integrity)

Abigail Bellows (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Jessica Lowing (Open Society Foundations)talk about the nexus of passion and power in the context of community organizing and political activism against corruption. They reflect on why uniting people's voices and building institutional change are critical ingredients in overcoming corrupt systems.

No matter where we're from or what language we speak, we want the same basic things, like food and security. By joining together, citizens can advocate for -- and help enact -- the social contract. And freely "exercise what it means to be human" with collective confidence.

NOTE: This session was originally in May 2019, which was long before COVID-19 has disrupted and tested our world. Yet, a lot of what is said here about working together and anti-corruption certainly resonates today.

Listen in to learn more about this and other #opengov stories on our SoundCloud.

Changing perceptions about revolutionary countries, such as Egypt and Venezuela, can be difficult in America because they are often portrayed in negative light. Nevertheless, people who are rooted in these countries' complex cultures see things very differently.

How deep does solidarity go? What about self-care in the context of difficult political situations and wanting to make social change?

Listen to Nada Zohdy(Director of Open Gov Hub)and Andres Marquez-Lara (Founder & CEO of UFacilitate) as they share stories of their cultural identities and how they arrived at who they are today.

In this Open Gov Story, Sarah Orton-Vipond(Development Gateway) and Mor Rubinstein(360Giving)explore the question: What is the biggest challenge for women working in the field of OpenGov? The short answer: time. They talk about the gender inequality at home with chores and at work, including the Israeli military experience.

Sarah and Mor also talk about the Open Gender Monologues as a therapeutic safe space, as well as the Open Heroines initiative that augments the voices of women in opengov, open data, and civic tech. Learn more here: https://openheroines.org/

In this episode of Open Gov Stories, Mavra Zehra and Edith Mecha discuss the challenges of working in non-permissive environments back home -- in Pakistan and Kenya, respectively -- and how their experiences of the past have led them to work on social issues relevant to their country’s context. They then discuss their role as emerging voices in the developing world – promoting peacebuilding projects in the two countries and what they hope the future will hold for the civic space in there.

Mavra Zehra is a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning fellow at the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI).

Edith Mecha is a former Communications Fellow at TAI.

In this episode of Open Gov Stories, Ola talks with his friend Didi about how exposure to different places at an early age helped motivate his commitment to social change in Nigeria, and how his work as a lawyer in the UK and as a researcher in the US all connect back to open government, youth empowerment and social change in his home country of Nigeria. They emphasize the need to invest in young people, how to change international development system, and how corruption is a great barrier to development and progress in Nigeria and beyond.

Olalaken Oshunkoya is founder of eCove in Abuja, Nigeria and is currently completing his PhD investigating corruption and judicial reform in Nigeria.

Didi Littlejohn is a media literacy advocate, social researcher, songwriter, educator and now analyst based in D.C.