I received an early copy of the above infographic from the awesome peeps behind El Gherbal. I thought it’d be the perfect chance to introduce you to this groundbreaking initiative and their first, incredibly diligent and detailed 150+ page report on the cooperation of different public institutions with the new “access to information” law passed in Lebanon last year (RLAW).

What’s Gherbal?

Gherbal Initiative (GI) is a non-profit civil company founded in 2017.

Their stated mission is to push for transparency and accountability in Lebanon. Gherbal means “sift” in Arabic, which is what they plan to do with the data they collect, analyze and visualize.

GI’s founder tells me that the initiative is built on the belief that democratization of data can act as an catalyst in the fight against corruption. The plan is to collect and convert complex data sets into easily, freely accessible engaging visuals that can help better frame public discourse and ideally lead to concrete political action.

Their first monumental task was on the access to information law passed in February 2017. Below is a video that briefly explains the RLAW, and subtly critiques its shortcomings.

The Report

Honestly, I was blown away. Took me a full 2-days of going through it all and pondering each of the data sets and corresponding visual representations. The work was incredibly diligent and painstaking, and not all the findings were as terrible as you imagine. Some institutions and individuals in the public domain were actually cooperative with information requests, although just about a quarter of the ones GI contacted.

You can download and read the FULL report in English here.

Examples of What’s in the Report

Visuals about responses or lack thereof.

Timelines of the various institutions, if they replied at all, and if they did so within the legal deadline.

Actual responses they received.

I Love This

Many of the fights we’ve had against the status quo, often fell short for one main reason: lack of data. Even when there was data, it was hard to break it down into something usable for the majority of us who don’t have the expertise, or time, to decipher the legalese and bureaucratic procedures that are often thrown in front of taxpayers requesting information. GI did that for us, and I hope to see more of their work in the near future, which is very valuable ammo in advocating for proper change and an end to rampant corruption in our country.

Many times, we complain that the law isn’t being applied, without ever trying to make use of it ourselves. It’s awesome GI didn’t sit aside, and decided to actually give the chance to over 130 institutions to comply with the new law, and some actually did. After all, how can we expect them to do the law, if none of us are trying to use it?

I hope GI continue this awesome initiative, and look forward to seeing their next comprehensive report. I highly recommend you check out their website (EN/AR) here.