Asia Society India Centre sat down with Narayan Adhikari, co-founder and South Asia representative of Accountability Lab. A passionate advocate for governance reform and civic accountability, Adhikari has spent over a decade working to combat corruption and strengthen democratic institutions in South Asia. In this conversation, we explore Adhikari’s personal journey, the pivotal moments that shaped his commitment to accountability, and the challenges and opportunities in driving systemic change in complex governance landscapes.

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work? Give us a sense of your personal journey, why corruption, civic accountability, the field that you've worked in—how did that originate and how do you keep pushing for change in contexts where these are big issues and big questions?

My name is Narayan Adhikari and I work with the Accountability Lab as a co-founder and its South Asia representative. I'm also a very proud member of Asia Society as an Asia 21 Young Leaders Fellow. I had a great experience and excitement and fun with all the fellows. Unfortunately,  I could not attend [the Summit] in person, but I'm looking forward to hearing more about the stories and outcomes that are going to be shared over the time. Thank you again for this conversation.

I think what you mentioned in your question is very, very important for me and my personal journey. I was born in the mountains where you couldn't expect to have all these facilities, from electricity to toilets or even finding better schools or better health posts—these were dreams that never came. 

Coming from an agrarian background, a family and society, till today, where I am running a non-profit that works largely around governance and accountability—it's a long journey.

From my childhood, I was a carefree child, but always questioned the existing realities. For example, if there's no safe drinking water, I would always ask why there's no water. If there's no school running, even on school days, I would always ask my teachers and my parents why school was not running and why schools were used by political parties to run campaigns. And when you got sick, when you were not getting good hospitals or you had to walk a long distance to get to those services, I used to always ask this question: why are these things not there for citizens? As the citizen usually gives a mandate to somebody through elections, but they forget to fulfill their duty of serving the citizen. I engaged in child clubs and youth clubs, and during my education, I was learning about how a system should work to provide better services to the citizen, in a more participatory, more democratic and through a more good governance approach. This is what my journey is about.

After I graduated, I thought there was something good, something cool, something interesting that we needed to start. One idea would be to engage with young people who were looking for opportunities to change society but were not getting such opportunities. I saw a lot of talent among lots of young people coming from different backgrounds, but the opportunity wasn't there. With Accountability Lab, almost 12 years ago, we thought to create opportunities for young people, particularly, and the civil society and citizens, in general—an opportunity for them to co-create ideas. And that is very contextual and powerful in making their society a better place to live. 

Was there a moment, an instance where something sparked in you that made you think 'accountability' is this way of engaging with the systems in society? Because a lot of people might go in different directions sometimes.

Just to give you one example, I still remember one day when I was around 14 or 15 years old, and my mom took me to a health post because I was sick. The health post did all this checking and then they gave us some prescriptions. We had to go to buy medicines  from the private pharmacy. But those medicines, which I later came to know were supposed to be free (because it was the kind of medicine the government provided freely to citizens). However, the health post officials and management were actually selling these medicines to the private pharmacies and the private pharmacies were then selling it to the people like us. So, I clearly saw how corruption was affecting people.

I was not that seriously sick. It was not really an emergency. But I would imagine that if you have a woman about to deliver a baby and she was not getting good medical services, she would die and the baby would die and there would be a disaster for families. I have heard a lot of stories like this … I could relate my small experience of how a public official who is supposed to provide services with accountability and honesty, was not actually doing that and, thereby, affecting the citizen badly.

There are other stories. You go to a lot of public schools in Nepal, even today, they are not functioning well. The kids are running around, they don't have good infrastructure, they don't have a library, they don't have drinking water. But a lot of money goes there. The Ministry of Education has put in a lot of money for building school infrastructures and supporting teaching aid materials. But you don't actually see it. That's a very, very common thing that you see in my part of the world, particularly in Nepal and South Asia.

When I was a kid, I did not know all this, but then I went for higher study abroad and came back. I was approached by the community, by people who used to send their kids to a primary school. They did not have a toilet for the kids and they did not have a library. Nothing was there. But the school was there, there was a teacher, and they were getting good salaries. So the community invited me to build toilets...  They thought that I could do something to help them. So I mobilised my friends and networks and was able to raise some resources. I went back to that community and was able to contribute, even if it’s in a little [way], as a token, to help these kids get drinking water and use toilets. We built toilets, we built drinking water facilities, and we also established a small library. This was something that gave me a lot of understanding of how a system fails and how these things are not working.  

At the same time, it gave me an opportunity to see that I should be working more in these sectors, and on how we can use the individual honesty, individual power and then relations and communities, together, to build a system that is more transparent and accountable.

I was reading one of the articles that are on your website where you talked about how the Lab combines "innovative ideas and ways of working, while also challenging power structures and unjust systems at the same time." You talked about two pillars: community and agency. Is there a core strategy close to your heart, at this time, which is a way of innovatively tackling corruption and promoting integrity? Is there something right now that you feel like really works or has worked in your experience?

I think one of our innovative approaches in tackling corruption is definitely Integrity Icon. We used to call this Integrity Idol, but then American Idol kind of claimed these words—now we call it Integrity Icon.

So, the Accountability Lab, in general, works with networks, supporting champions of governance whether inside or outside government, whatever their initiative for good governance [may be]. We create a network of champions within and outside government. We create programs that they benefit meaningfully from, champions that celebrate them, or, on the most basic and the least formal level, we give them physical space to operate their initiatives and for connecting them with like-minded people in our network.

I think [Accountability Lab’s] basic idea is about working with individuals. Like when I talk about agency, as you mentioned, the thing is to focus on individuals that are pro-reform and are able to take risks and have ideas and want to create some solutions in a positive, inspiring and collaborative way.

But that individual aspiration, idea and energy needs to be connected to create larger communities. Then we can expect collective reforms. Then it becomes a real power to hold the power holders accountable.

Two of the network's measures, campaigns that began in Nepal, are Integrity Icon and Civic Action Teams: 

The Civic Action Teams, we call it CivActs, is a network of local champions and local leaders coming from different backgrounds. You have innovators, civic change-makers, activists, you have accountrepreneurs, you have social entrepreneurs, in some cases you have young politicians.  We use these innovative methods to bring people and power-holders close together. I think we see, a lot of times, people calling each other [out] without developing empathy and humility. So they are more like antagonists. We wanted to bridge that in a way that helps to both understand the realities and also build a high level of trust, while being open to conversation. Without naming and shaming, rather to sort of highlight the ways that they want to co-create solutions together, from different sectors. Mostly between the government and citizens and the government and civil society. 

This was innovative in a number of ways. I would say that there was a wall that stood between the government and civil society, between the government and the citizen. Integrity Icon, for example, broke this wall. It provides recognition because everybody loves recognition, everybody loves appreciation. It provides recognition and support for exceptional public servants who work in often challenging circumstances. It could also work to inspire cultural change in their spheres of influence. There are individuals who've been working day and night maintaining their personal integrity and accountability, fulfilling their duties and making sure that they are continuously supporting their citizens. 

I think we have those people. The circumstances they work in are very challenging, because, overall, the system is corrupt. The system has a lack of trust and does not function. Knowing that the system is not working and is not inclusive, you still have certain individuals who are going beyond and above, putting citizens at the centre. These are role models. These Integrity Icons are like that.

Now, they are working as a community, we call them Integrity Icon alumni. And there are open government champions, for example, across the countries, as part of the Civic Action teams. They are working as a community. You have individual agency, but these individual agencies connect as a community so that the community functions as a solid unified voice.

It also creates an integrity network of public servants across departments. You can imagine like in South Asia and India, there's a lot of things that you keep hearing: that there's a lack of coordination and communication between different departments. They don't really listen to each other, they don't really help each other. But through this Integrity Icon community, and including young public servants who are interested in finding new solutions to the world’s problems across departments and regions, we could support each other and inspire a new generation of young people to join public service.

And you mentioned innovation, for example, Accountability Incubator. Traditionally, we have been fighting corruption in very traditional ways, which is very siloed, which includes finger-pointing, naming and shaming, which uses institutions and enforcement, the rule of law. I think we need these at some point, but that's not enough.

How long do we continue going after corrupt individuals? Or continue investing in creating institutions and rules and new laws that are not necessarily working or that are not necessarily resonating? How do these laws actually speak about the generation's aspirations and voice?

To build that aspiration of the citizen, and to align this voice and aspiration with policy, as well the institutional mechanism, we need honest individuals who could actually bridge this gap. It could be inside government, outside government, in civil society, in the private sector and in politics. So this is where, I think, we need innovation. So we invite innovation from the people, we provide them training and mentorship, and make them ready to challenge power structures and unjust systems at the same time. 

People want to be part of our journey. And this helps us create a community and agency. That's how I have defined and aligned community and agency… Integrity is cool. But at the same time, it's very challenging. And it's very risky. You are spotlighting somebody in the name of Integrity Icon. But society, in general, is not ready yet to accept the idea of integrity and accountability. Because society has been broken and has a perception that corruption is kind of a natural phenomena. 

So by spotlighting persons as people with integrity, you are putting them in a vulnerable situation and at risk.

How we tackle this is by creating a community of Integrity Icons, and some other people who believe in this. These people, when they need support, they get support from these communities. They need to be continually motivated, and supported, as we need their power, collective power, to push for reforms. Irrespective of whether they are a junior official working in a health post, or a chief or a joint secretary working in the ministries, or an agriculture expert.

I think that we need to be very, very careful. And that's one of our challenges, which we constantly face. You get a lot of pushback against these ideas of integrity, and the Integrity Icons, because the larger society still believes in shortcuts and corruption and following the flows. But these people are running against the flows. Somebody who is running against the flow needs more courage, more support and more claps. This is also why we are creating a community. That's why this community and agency relation and alignment is very, very important.

That's a point well made. I think this connects to the shift, now, toward leadership. What according to you makes a good leader?  

This is an interesting question and quite challenging. I think there are a lot of definitions, but what I believe is someone who leads from behind and is selfless. This is something that I learned through my own journey. Especially in the last decade, when we started Accountability Lab. It's not always about being at the front as a leader. You got to be behind, supporting others. 

I always try to create opportunities for my team, for my communities, my staff at all levels, so that they can build knowledge and confidence, and they can go beyond what they are doing as a manager or coordinator. For me, what I believe is that everybody is a leader, everybody is a change-maker. If we want to see everybody as a change-maker and everybody as a leader, we have to push them from behind and support them, so that they build their confidence and believe in their power.

The first question we always ask in our team meetings is: what are we learning? It's a key, key strategic thing for us, to create space for others to flourish. To be creative, and be wild and mad even, right? Let them be wild and mad. Let them be crazy sometimes. They don't have to always just follow the flows or just be nice, in terms of what the organization's mandate is. Let your own team ensure that they learn from each other and innovate, from what they are doing and innovate within the team. I think to really create that environment is very, very important. And as a leader, that is what I believe. I always try my best to continue supporting them from behind and to be selfless.

Considering that there are so many intricacies in South Asia in the kinds of experiences that occur across the different countries, the different regions, here, there's often a lack of available conventional wisdom and conversation about leadership and problem solving in this context. So it can be difficult and a challenge to adopt mainstream ideas to work through these situations, which might require more culturally specific solutions. As a leader, what has that experience been like? Addressing those moments where the conventional wisdom isn't mapping on to on the ground reality?

I think it is quite challenging. But what is important is, first, as a leader, are you ready? Are you ready and willing to accept the social norms, and to also accept that various perspectives and the beliefs that are coming from outside your own predefined perceptions and narratives? 

I think moving beyond your comfort zone and being ready to be in the communities, and having that empathy and humility is very important. And this journey takes time, it's not easy, but it's fulfilling. Every generation, every society or every community has their strongly defined systems of beliefs and norms and social values. Going against those values or going against those norms is going to be counterproductive. I would say not trying that, but rather being more widely supportive and contextual in creating deeper conversation, and building trust in that process. When you are trying to create something and you're trying to build something as a new narrative, for example, let's say 'integrity is possible', 'integrity can be built.' But you can’t build it overnight. Where society is not ready yet to understand the value of integrity, given how society has been behaving, within and outside, for many years, a hundred years.

Finding ways where you can create that contextual conversation without being prescriptive is very, very important. And then, finding the ways that you can be a catalyst. Kind of sparking and innovating ideas. Rather than prescribing or defining or coming with something which may not resonate with what a community is looking for. I think there's wisdom in conversations and ideas and values—our difference. So understanding these differences and finding where one can be more relevant, in terms of putting your core values and principles into this conversation, is very, very important. It could be on an individual level or it could be at the organizational level. Like, with Accountability Lab, whenever we try a new thing with a new community, we always follow our values: first, integrity, and accountability, collaboration, innovation, and humility.

Then, we learn how to use and practice these values in relation with the community, recognizing their norms, their values. I think it takes a lot of time, energy and effort, but the simplest way is [asking]: do you have the power to listen, the power to observe, and can you build empathy and humility over time? And then: Do you have the courage to take some level of risk? Because you are a change-maker. You are a leader. You cannot always be nice and calm and humble. If you see that something is not working well, you want to intervene. But how do you intervene? You need a team, you need innovative ideas, you need a community to support, and you need to invest and go beyond your comfort zone.

How would you say that mentorship contributed to your development, as an emerging leader, years ago and how do you feel about mentorship now?

When I became a member of Asia 21, it was a time when we had emerged from a massive devastation, an earthquake. We were badly affected. I lost some of my family members, they were injured and a lot of my community, where we used to work, was devastated. It was not easy for us. Our mandate was to work on accountability and governance; we never had a mandate nor had the resources to support people who did not have food to eat.

At that time, it was a bit stressful and challenging for us. People were asking us, What are you doing if you're not able to provide affected people with medicines and water and health facilities? Why are you just asking questions about power and democracy and policies and good governance? Because when there is a disaster, what people need, at first, is food, shelters, medicines and security, which we could not offer. That was a big challenge. Then, this idea of Civic Action Teams re-emerged, out of this reaction we faced in the community. Although we didn't have things to offer, we could make sure that agencies, the government and the international agencies, who were responsible for providing food and water would provide those services. If you don't speak, if you don't advocate for this, they will not, maybe, do it in a way that [the community] wanted services. We wanted to use [the community's] voice, we wanted to amplify their voice to make the government hear their concerns and respond better. The idea of the Civic Action Teams came out of this conversation.

At the same time, I became a Fellow, while having a hard time in Nepal. Connecting with friends across Asia, learning from each other, building that connection and network, finding ways to share your stories and amplify your voice... It was a bit of a retreat, in a very positive way.

Who you tell your stories and how you influence them is through your networks.The work that I'm doing in Nepal, as Accountability Lab, started 12 years ago. And now we're running in almost 40 countries, because we wanted to get the word out and hear the international communities. There's a lot that needs to be done as part of humanitarian assistance in Nepal. I got a perfect avenue to tell this story, to amplify the voice and get support and connections. People were saying 'well done' and that was very motivating and supportive.

Over time, with my Fellows and then, later on, with the new Fellows and the Asia Society team and staff—they were always encouraging and motivating and connected me to the right people to talk to and build networks. 

Later, I nominated a few other Asia 21 Fellows, and luckily they all got selected. I feel that we are growing as a community in Nepal, itself. We have a Fellows' community, these amazing people. Like you said, at the end, how are you mentoring? I think whatever opportunity that I got through Asia Society, as a network and community, I had an equal duty to help others get into this community so that they can also be a champion in their cause. Now, we have five or six members from Nepal. And we were active until a few years ago. Now, we're not that active. But I know three of them, we work closely, and we know each other very well and we support each other very well. We invite each other and help each other's work. 

When I was a Fellow, I met a lot of people from different countries. They had different stories and experiences. Whatever I learned, I am using those networks and learnings and connections in the work that I'm doing. Not just in Nepal, but globally and in South Asia. Like you mentioned in the previous question, as a South Asia representative, I have to work in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and a little bit in India. I think these kinds of exposures helped me to think beyond borders, to think beyond just Nepalese sentiments and mentality. It's giving you [the means] to think beyond who you are, and that connection and courage to work with a larger community. I'm continuously trying to help more young people to be a part of this process, amplifying these opportunities and convincing people how important it is to be a part of the global community.

But at the same time, making sure that who you are, working as a change-maker, doing different things to influence your communities and to influence your leaders, to influence your parties, governments, so that they can make a better decisions in the favor of your communities—that is very important.  

But you need to tell your stories—of who you are and how you are doing—to rest of the world. Because now we are globally connected. How we act locally has to be a global issue as well. Because there are things that we cannot deny. For example, climate change, cross-border corruption. These things are, directly or indirectly, affecting us. Now, we need to be better connected and talk about these issues, to make sure that all the leaders in all these countries are accountable in catering to the needs and the voices of the citizens, irrespective of who they are and where they belong, what nations and what backgrounds. In that sense, I think Asia Society has a greater mandate, and they keep creating opportunities for people to speak, people to connect and people to learn.

Who are some of the Fellows, from your cohort or over the years, whose work and leadership inspires you?

Absolutely, Rajiv [Rajiv Shah, Class of 2006]. He's an American who visited Nepal as a Peace Corps. fellow, and worked in a remote village in Nepal. That was surprising for me, coming from Nepal, also from a rural area. I had not been able to do that that much for my community. But somebody coming from the US, a young person, as a Peace Corps Fellow, was doing a lot of things for the Nepalese communities, uplifting their lives and creating a learning ground opportunity for the rest of the world. His work was very, very inspiring for me.  

We also have hosted an Action Impact Lab, as part of the Asia Society Fellowship cohort in Nepal, where we discussed how we could be better equipped, connected and learn from each other, and do the work that we do collaboratively.

There's another Fellow, whom I always name, Basanta [Basanta Adhikari, Class of 2016]. He became a Fellow a few years after I became a Fellow. He and I have laid a movement in democracy and youth political participation in Nepal together. And he's now running an excellent, beautiful think tank on creating alternative ways of doing and deciding economic liberalisation, democracy and accountability. The very inspiring and thoughtful work that he does helped me to understand how society is actually moving ahead, or moving behind, in terms of thinking and progress on economy and social justice, with accountability and governance. 

There's a lot of others, there are friends. At the same time, it is a challenging [space]. Of course, we are coming from different countries, different backgrounds, multi-languages, and it's not always easy to be connected and to be continuing our work. 

A lot of fellows that we had together, they changed their careers, they changed their jobs. In the meantime, the world had changed and we had COVID. A lot of things have changed. But still, those who are still connected—I know a few people from Pakistan, from Bangladesh and India and other countries—they're doing amazing work.