View allAll Photos Tagged Accountable
Mayor Bill de Blasio signs an NYPD accountability package, a comprehensive set of reforms including Intros 487-A, 536-B, 721-B, 760-B, 1309-B, 1962-A, after helping paint the new Black Lives Matter mural in the Bronx. Morris Avenue between 161st and 162nd Street, Bronx. Wednesday, July 15, 2020. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
This photograph is provided by the New York City Mayoral Photography Office (MPO) for the benefit of the general public and for dissemination by members of the media. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products or promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the City of New York, the Mayoral administration, or the de Blasio family without prior consent from the MPO (PhotoOffice@cityhall.nyc.gov). Any use or reprinting of official MPO photographs must use the following credit language and style: “Photographer/Mayoral Photography Office”, as listed at the end of each caption.
After giving a very insightful lecture on information management and the US occupation of Iraq, Mark Bernstein holds up the iPhone while answering a question about the kinds of government accountability that result from widely-available cameras.
Mayor Bill de Blasio signs an NYPD accountability package, a comprehensive set of reforms including Intros 487-A, 536-B, 721-B, 760-B, 1309-B, 1962-A, after helping paint the new Black Lives Matter mural in the Bronx. Morris Avenue between 161st and 162nd Street, Bronx. Wednesday, July 15, 2020. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
This photograph is provided by the New York City Mayoral Photography Office (MPO) for the benefit of the general public and for dissemination by members of the media. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products or promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the City of New York, the Mayoral administration, or the de Blasio family without prior consent from the MPO (PhotoOffice@cityhall.nyc.gov). Any use or reprinting of official MPO photographs must use the following credit language and style: “Photographer/Mayoral Photography Office”, as listed at the end of each caption.
Mayor Bill de Blasio signs an NYPD accountability package, a comprehensive set of reforms including Intros 487-A, 536-B, 721-B, 760-B, 1309-B, 1962-A, after helping paint the new Black Lives Matter mural in the Bronx. Morris Avenue between 161st and 162nd Street, Bronx. Wednesday, July 15, 2020. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
This photograph is provided by the New York City Mayoral Photography Office (MPO) for the benefit of the general public and for dissemination by members of the media. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products or promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the City of New York, the Mayoral administration, or the de Blasio family without prior consent from the MPO (PhotoOffice@cityhall.nyc.gov). Any use or reprinting of official MPO photographs must use the following credit language and style: “Photographer/Mayoral Photography Office”, as listed at the end of each caption.
As a successful two-term governor, Jeb Bush made a significant and positive impact on education in the state of Florida. Governor Bush visited the Council on Friday, September 21, 2012 to speak to the importance of raising expectations for our students, holding schools accountable, rewarding great teachers, and harnessing technology in order to educate and prepare all of America’s students for leadership and success in the 21st century economy.
The Center For Total Health, Washington DC
May 24, 2017
The Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) and the American Cancer Society join forces to showcase how coverage and accountable healthcare systems can improve survival and reduce morbidity for people living with complex conditions like cancer. Better Together Health 2017 featured stories of medical excellence and patient-centered care delivered by CAPP’s organized systems and medical groups, plus an exciting policy keynote and panel discussion featuring national physician leaders, policymakers and patient voices.
DISCHARGE OF OIL PROHIBITED -- THE FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ACT PROHIBITS THE DISCHARGE OF OIL OR OILY WASTE INTO OR UPON THE NAVIGABLE WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES, OR THE WATERS OF THE CONTIGUOUS ZONE, OR WHICH MAY AFFECT NATURAL RESOURCES BELONGING TO, APPERTAINING TO, OR UNDER THE EXCLUSIVE MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES, IF SUCH DISCHARGE CAUSES A FILM OR DISCOLORATION OF THE SURFACE OF THE WATER OR CAUSES A SLUDGE OR EMULSION BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE WATER. VIOLATORS ARE SUBJECT TO SUBSTANTIAL CIVIL PENALTIES AND/OR CRIMINAL SANCTIONS INCLUDING FINES AND IMPRISONMENT.
Op 9 juni 2017 vond in de Tweede Kamer in Den Haag de tweede editie van Accountability Hack plaats, een hackathon waar met open data de prestaties van de overheid in kaart worden gebracht. Accountability Hack is een initiatief van de Algemene Rekenkamer en de Tweede Kamer samen met het CBS en de ministeries van Binnenlandse Zaken, Buitenlandse Zaken, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu. De hackathon werd georganiseerd in samenwerking met Open State Foundation. Kijk voor meer informatie op accountabilityhack.nl/
So I am just putting this here because I obviously need to put on my big girl panties and be accountable for actions, or maybe more accurately my inactions?
I have several projects that I have started and not finished, and they really need to be finished. I hate craft guilt.
So I am laying all out here for every one to read maybe it will give me a boot in the ass and get me working on things that I have been outting off.
* #1 on my list: I REALLY really need to finish up the blocks for my very patient bee block partners. I am disgustingly over do especially considering that my month was the 1st month and they all got theirs to me in a timely fashion.
*Harry Potter Swap that I am doing with one of my best buddies Jeni! (this is pretty lax though)
*Finish up this ukulele bag. Just need to attach the back and bind the edges.
*Get this queen size quilt quilted and bound for my awesome friend Carrie.
*finish up this nightmare Galaga quilt for my husband that has been sitting in the naughty pile for over a year now.
So there you have it. Not a very big list but they are pretty big projects, I think.
Time to buckle down and get it done, Amanda!! ok done now. :)
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Accountability Windmill desktop print image: Jump-start each day with a 5"x7" framed desktop print in every work area. This easel-backed framed desktop print has a matching motivational poster.
Op 9 juni 2017 vond in de Tweede Kamer in Den Haag de tweede editie van Accountability Hack plaats, een hackathon waar met open data de prestaties van de overheid in kaart worden gebracht. Accountability Hack is een initiatief van de Algemene Rekenkamer en de Tweede Kamer samen met het CBS en de ministeries van Binnenlandse Zaken, Buitenlandse Zaken, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu. De hackathon werd georganiseerd in samenwerking met Open State Foundation. Kijk voor meer informatie op accountabilityhack.nl/
For love of money.....
40th 'anniversary' of ALEC, the innocuous sounding American Legislative Executive Council at the Palmer House hotel in downtown Chicago on August 8th, 2013.
For love of greed.....they:
influence state governments and members of the national government, some of whom are also members of ALEC in favor of an extreme right-wing, pro-corporation, anti-popular agenda like....
cutting social security, extending sequester cuts that hurt the poor, elderly, minority, disadvantaged, and voiceless ( like Meals on Wheels for home-bound seniors, and Head Start programs for children ), promoting climate change denial, enacting stand your ground laws, and encouraging union-busting tactics like ending collective bargaining and 'right-to-work' laws, And, lest we forget, working for the passage of new voter ID laws, which would effectively disenfranchise, the poor, minorities, and the elderly.
In this year alone the group or its members, have sponsored 71 bills protecting corporations from being accountable for anyone's injury or death, 139 bills for the privatization of public education, and 104 bills to diminish or eliminate collective bargaining.
ALEC is mostly funded by the billionaire Koch brothers who also fund/funded the Tea Party.According to the Koch brothers the minimum wage should also be eliminated because " the minimum wage prevents people from starting their own businesses." So let's do away with the minimum wage and all so-called 'entitlement programs'. What they neglect to mention of course is that they - and there are quite a few others like them both in politics and out - are exceeding joyful at accepting government subsidies for their businesses that run into the millions of dollars.
For love of money.......
The Center For Total Health, Washington DC
May 24, 2017
The Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) and the American Cancer Society join forces to showcase how coverage and accountable healthcare systems can improve survival and reduce morbidity for people living with complex conditions like cancer. Better Together Health 2017 featured stories of medical excellence and patient-centered care delivered by CAPP’s organized systems and medical groups, plus an exciting policy keynote and panel discussion featuring national physician leaders, policymakers and patient voices.
The Center For Total Health, Washington DC
May 24, 2017
The Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) and the American Cancer Society join forces to showcase how coverage and accountable healthcare systems can improve survival and reduce morbidity for people living with complex conditions like cancer. Better Together Health 2017 featured stories of medical excellence and patient-centered care delivered by CAPP’s organized systems and medical groups, plus an exciting policy keynote and panel discussion featuring national physician leaders, policymakers and patient voices.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill serves as the top-ranking Democrat, today unanimously approved three McCaskill-backed bills to save taxpayer dollars and strengthen accountability. The bipartisan pieces of legislation prohibit bonuses for employees who commit serious misconduct, target misuse of government purchase and travel cards, and make it easier for agencies to solicit feedback from taxpayers.
Click HERE for more photos from today’s committee meeting.
“We need to do all we can so taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars aren’t going to waste—and I’m proud to come together with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to help hold government more accountable to the people,” said McCaskill, former Missouri State Auditor. “There are many areas where we can and should work hand-in-hand to find solutions to common problems, and I’m committed to doing exactly that.”
The following bills unanimously passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today and now await approval from the full Senate:
• The Federal Agency Customer Experience Act rolls back federal regulations that make it difficult for agencies to get feedback from the public concerning their satisfaction with agencies’ performance. McCaskill introduced the bill with Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma.
• The Stop Improper Federal Bonuses Act prohibits bonuses to government employees who have engaged in serious misconduct. McCaskill introduced the bill alongside Republican Senators Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Dean Heller of Nevada.
• The Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act cracks down on waste, fraud and abuse in federal agency travel and purchase cards spending. McCaskill joined Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Senator Tom Carper of Delaware to introduce the bill.
Since her time as Missouri State Auditor, McCaskill has been a leading voice in Missouri and Washington for cutting wasteful government spending. In addition to the bills that passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today, McCaskill also introduced the Eliminating Government-Funded Oil-Painting (EGO) Act with Republican Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Deb Fischer of Nebraska to prohibit federal dollars from being used for lawmakers’ portraits. McCaskill has also targeted waste, fraud, and abuse by expanding whistleblower protections to government contractors, subcontractors, and others who the federal government directly or indirectly hires through bipartisan bills that have been signed into law. During her first term in the Senate, McCaskill waged a successful six-year effort to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in wartime contracting.
Army Disaster Personnel Accountability and Assessment System (ADPAAS)
In the event that a manmade or a natural disaster affects the
Soldiers, civilians and dependents assigned to the 1st Mission Support
Command, Commanders Representatives (COR) must commence accountability
and assessment process using the procedures established by the ADPAAS.
This is to ensure the wellness and status of the 1stMSC personnel to determine the need for assistance. This is also done to safeguard our capabilities from the effects of a natural or manmade disaster; in order to deploy capabilities in support of civil authorities within Puerto Rico to assist.
From 29 August thru 8 September 2011, the ADPAAS Team (Ms. Mercedes Torres
Medina (ADPASS Manager) and SFC Luis A. Camacho Leon (ADPASS Alternate
Manager) visited the US Army Reserve units throughout the island and trained 38 Commanders' Representatives (COR).
These COR are the Subject Matter Experts at the Regional Support Group/Bn/unit level and are capable to train their Soldiers in the use of the ADPAAS. If necessary they can train and assign other COR’s as well.
At the end, the Army Disaster personnel Accountability and Assessment System is another way through which the US Army Reserve in Puerto Rico and the 1stMSC takes care of its soldiers, civilians and family members.
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
The Center For Total Health, Washington DC
May 24, 2017
The Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) and the American Cancer Society join forces to showcase how coverage and accountable healthcare systems can improve survival and reduce morbidity for people living with complex conditions like cancer. Better Together Health 2017 featured stories of medical excellence and patient-centered care delivered by CAPP’s organized systems and medical groups, plus an exciting policy keynote and panel discussion featuring national physician leaders, policymakers and patient voices.
Accountable Care Organizations and Competition Policy
January 24, 2011, 12:00pm -1:30pm
To view a video of this event, click here: http://www.americanprogress.org//events/2011/01/aco.html
The Affordable Care Act provides an opportunity to create integrated, cost effective, high quality health care systems for Medicare recipients—and eventually all Americans—through the creation of Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs. One of the most challenging questions facing ACOs is how to provide integration without sacrificing competition and the decreased cost and increased quality it produces. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice have already been carefully scrutinizing these issues. Will some ACOs threaten competition and eventually raise costs for consumers? To what extent can ACOs overcome the barriers set up by current antitrust regulation? How should the lessons from health care reform educate the role of antitrust enforcement and regulation? How should we approach health care antitrust issues in an era of ACOs?
We were joined for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Accountable Care Act in a way that enhances competition, provides better care, and lowers costs.
Op 9 juni 2017 vond in de Tweede Kamer in Den Haag de tweede editie van Accountability Hack plaats, een hackathon waar met open data de prestaties van de overheid in kaart worden gebracht. Accountability Hack is een initiatief van de Algemene Rekenkamer en de Tweede Kamer samen met het CBS en de ministeries van Binnenlandse Zaken, Buitenlandse Zaken, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu. De hackathon werd georganiseerd in samenwerking met Open State Foundation. Kijk voor meer informatie op accountabilityhack.nl/
and i'm back.
when you've been "robust" for most of your life like i have, your weight is your albatross. and at this point in my life, having a weight loss goal as one of my resolutions AGAIN makes me kind of feel like a loser and a failure in spite of any and all of my accomplishments. but we all have our weaknesses. and i feel better about mysef when i at least try.
on the positive side, i'm 6 lbs lighter than i was on january 1, 2009. and it so easily could have gone the other way and more. and i only gained one pound over the holidays. it's that time in france that really fucked me up. oh well.
so here i go again. a fresh start.
feel free to join me.
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Danielle Carnival, The Biden Foundation
The Center For Total Health, Washington DC
May 24, 2017
The Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) and the American Cancer Society join forces to showcase how coverage and accountable healthcare systems can improve survival and reduce morbidity for people living with complex conditions like cancer. Better Together Health 2017 featured stories of medical excellence and patient-centered care delivered by CAPP’s organized systems and medical groups, plus an exciting policy keynote and panel discussion featuring national physician leaders, policymakers and patient voices.
This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-925
NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Security of Radiological Sources at U.S. Medical Facilities
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- Presidio employees conduct gravesite accountability at the Presidio of Monterey Cemetery in April as part of an Army-wide effort to bring graves record keeping into the 21st century.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Tonya Townsell, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
An international civil society coalition - including International Rivers, Amazon Watch, the International Accountability Project, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement - has launched a new effort to shift global energy finance towards clean energy solutions for the poor.
The Power 4 People campaign is part of the global month of action, Reclaim Power and supports the Global Indigenous Peoples' Day of Action on Energy. An international day of action on Power 4 People took place on October 12, 2013.
Photo by Zachary Hurwitz
For more information, go to: www.internationalrivers.org/node/8091
Women’s groups in Sierra Leone receive cash grants to help them with their work. By monitoring the transfer of money, we ensured funds reached their intended destination.
U.S. Ambassador Richard Olson joined State Minister for Information Syed Sumsam Ali Shah Bukhari in congratulating Pakistani journalists on the important work they do to advance Pakistan’s democracy. More than 70 journalists from various TV, radio, and print outlets across Pakistan gathered in Islamabad for a three-day media summit. The journalists are alumni of a U.S. government-funded exchange program known as the “U.S.-Pakistan Professional Partnership in Journalism.”
“The U.S. government strongly supports a vibrant and independent media in Pakistan,” said Ambassador Olson in his remarks at the opening ceremony of the media summit. “A free press is the cornerstone of any democracy. It provides the information and facts needed for the people to hold their government accountable.”
The U.S.-Pakistan Professional Partnership in Journalism was established in 2011. It is administered by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). After two weeks of orientation in Washington, DC, Pakistani journalists spend three to four weeks working as staff reporters at news outlets across the United States. The program also brings U.S. journalists to Pakistan for a two-week orientation on Pakistani politics, society, and the economy through site visits, interviews, and interactions with journalists, officials, and ordinary Pakistanis. Currently, a group of seven U.S. journalists from print, television, radio, and online media is in Pakistan from January 20 to February 3.
The three-day alumni media summit in Islamabad includes panel discussions with media professionals, breakout sessions on topics such as conflict-sensitive reporting and social media, and a “train-the-trainer” workshop for highly-motivated alumni who will share what they learn with other journalists in their communities.
The U.S. government invests nearly $30 million annually in exchange programs with Pakistanis. More than 1,000 Pakistanis participate in various high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional U.S.-sponsored exchange programs each year.
Journalists interested in applying for the U.S.-Pakistan Professional Partnership in Journalism should visit the U.S. Education Foundation of Pakistan (USEFP) website for more information: www.usefpakistan.org/
Governor Hogan Signs an Executive Order Regarding School Accountability Initiatives. by Joe Andrucyk at Governors Reception Room, 100 State Circle, Annapolis MD 21401
2021-06-08: On screen, (1st row, L-R) Theo Chiviru, Development & Governance enthusiast Zimbabwe Patriot; Joe Powell, Campaigner for democracy and open government, Co-founder Kensington Against Dirty Money, Obama Leader; (2nd row, L-R) Maureen Kariuki ,Senior Regional Coordinator, Africa and the Middle East, Open Government Partnership (OGP) and Evelynne Change,
Chief Governance Officer at African Development Bank during the virtual Open government and Accountability Webinar.