About ALAC

Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres (ALACs) reject the notion that people are apathetic in the face of corruption. Rather, they demonstrate that they will become involved in the fight against corruption when they are provided with simple, credible and viable mechanisms for doing so. Started in 2003 by three National Chapters (NCs) - Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Romania - there are now twenty-three ALACs operating in fifteen countries. The ALACs have received well over 25,000 contacts from citizens. The number of ALACs is expected to increase in the coming years and to spread beyond the Europe and Central Asia region where they were pioneered. Already two ALACs are operating in Africa - in Kenya and Zambia, and soon two in the Americas- in Guatemala and Haiti. ALAC was launched in Pakistan on 25th March, 2009.

The rationale behind ALAC is that the fight against corruption will be more effective if citizens are involved (anti-corruption work not limited to ‘experts’). Secondly, engaging directly with citizens provides a deeper understanding as to how corruption works in practice (information not always available from surveys). Lastly, reflecting the real experiences of people enhances the legitimacy of advocacy campaigns (grounded in the concerns of the population; not just TI ‘opinion’).