Global Integrity is embarking on a five-year collaboration with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to generate original data on a range of governance issues across all 54 African countries. This data will strengthen future iterations of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, an index based on four main categories: Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development.

We are excited to report that in May we launched the Africa Integrity Indicators (AII) in 52 countries using the Indaba fieldwork platform. Undertaking research of such magnitude has its challenges, such as the inequality of access to Internet and in some cases electricity shortages on the continent, but we have now connected with and trained all 52 lead researchers from our Cape Town office.

We are very appreciative of our lead researchers enthusiasm for applying the Global Integrity expert assessment methodology in the field and look forward to reviewing original data from 123 indicators as it comes in over the next couple of months.

Part of our goal is to create a community of research and development practitioners across the continent, to broaden and to strengthen the reach of African-owned data sources in the global research community. Our researchers will also help build stronger research networks for future Global Integrity endeavors.

We are now moving into the next phase of the project, finalizing our peer reviewer recruitment. The call for contributors has been reopened for peer reviewers, but if you applied previously there is no need to reapply. Reviewers (both national and regional) are qualified experts who will review the draft indicators and provide critical commentary to strengthen the final data for each country. All contributing experts will use Global Integrity’s easy-to-use web-based platform (the Indaba fieldwork platform) for submitting and reviewing content.

To learn more about the requirements for working with Global Integrity on this project, please review the Fact Sheet below. We warmly invite colleagues who have worked with Global Integrity before to apply. If you are interested, please apply online no later than 30 June 2012 by visiting http://www.tfaforms.com/217820. All contributing team members will be compensated for their participation in the fieldwork.

FACT SHEET

Who We Are Looking For: We seek qualified and motivated experts to perform fieldwork in African countries. We are inviting interested researchers, social scientists, attorneys, and academic experts from any country with expertise in governance to apply online at http://www.tfaforms.com/217820 no later than 30 June 2012.
 
Timing and Necessary Availability:

Peer and regional reviewers will begin reviewing AII data collected through 123 indicators in August 2012. The reviewers will have one month to review and submit comments.  Reviewers must be able to submit their comments within the space of a month, upon receipt of the indicators from lead researchers.

Country Coverage: 52 African countries. At this time, we are not working on Sudan and South Sudan.

Compensation: We compensate all of our contributors for their efforts. Global Integrity generally contracts with individuals, not institutions, and final payment schedules and deadlines are agreed upon in a contract before work commences. We anticipate being able to compensate reviewers approximately US$300 for each country assessment they review (some reviewers, in particular regional reviewers, will review more than one country assessment).

Who We Are: Global Integrity is an international, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to tracking governance and corruption trends around the world. We work with local in-country experts to combine journalistic reporting with in-depth data gathering to produce actionable analysis to arm decision makers — including donors, government officials, investors, journalists, and grassroots advocates — with evidence-based strategies for promoting good governance reforms.  

For additional information about us, including our fieldwork methods, funders and other projects please visit https://www.globalintegrity.org.

— Erica Penfold and Dadisai Taderera

— Image Credit: Monika Shepard