Accountability Lab Launches 2019 Integrity Icon

-Rebrand And Launch Of 2019 Campaign  
Accountability Lab Liberia, a non-profit organization working in the fields of active citizenship and good governance, has rebranded its principal public service campaign. Integrity Idol has been renamed Integrity Icon. 

In addition, the organization is proud to launch the 2019 Integrity Icon campaign. Nominations opened this week at www.integrityicon.org/liberia.

Integrity Icon is a campaign that the Lab has run since 2014 after launching in Nepal. The grassroots program celebrates public servants of integrity and has since expanded to Liberia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Mali, Uganda, South Africa and most recently, Mexico.

The campaign invites the public to nominate outstanding public servants in various government sectors who demonstrate honesty and integrity under difficult circumstances. It also aims to reframe debates around corruption by ‘naming and faming’ honest civil servants, rather than naming and shaming wrongdoers. The Lab than works with institutions, builds coalitions for reform and encourages young people to serve with integrity.

As the profile of the campaign has grown, it’s become necessary to differentiate its public image. Founder and Executive Director of Accountability Lab, Blair Glencorse, says the decision was endorsed by the organization’s global board of directors’ earlier in May. ‘’Integrity Idol has grown tremendously and at this point we want better governance everywhere. This rebranding will also allow us to ensure continuity across countries as the campaign grows to new places and with new partners,” Glencorse says. ‘’As in previous years, Integrity Icon will culminate each year with a public vote for the winners and will be complemented by a variety of impactful youth fellowship programs, including a film fellowship that produces short films on the finalists in each country, and an integrity fellowship through which young people serve with the Integrity Icons,” he adds.

According to Accountability Lab Liberia Country Director, W. Lawrence Yealue, II, the rebrand “renews the commitment of the Lab to create a more transparent and accountable society”.
“It is critical that we create a positive narrative around issues of integrity in this country. Too often we focus on the problems. This campaign is about identifying role-models with positive, collective solutions to the challenges we face as a nation,” he adds.
Research from the Lab’s impact survey has shown that programs like this go a long way towards supporting positive behavioral changes and shifting social norms, especially where integrity and accountability are concerned. The survey also recognizes “building communities of change-makers’’ as one of the Lab’s key strengths, a job the organization hopes to refine with Integrity Icon.