2017 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

We were given the mission to create a platform that will encourage people to report corruption and quantify incidents involving corrupt practices in Lebanon with the ultimate aim of raising the public debate and exert public pressure for change and reforms. Corruption in Lebanon is everywhere. It lives in an economy of its own feeding on everything; and as a result, the fight against it seems hopeless. But the truth is, corruption acts exactly like a private business: The more you buy from it, the more it grows. And so we wanted corruption to go Bankrupt. We started with a guerilla campaign with wall tags and posters advertising for driving licenses, official papers, etc. On these tags and posters there was only a phone number available. A week later, in the middle of Beirut, a shop called “The Country’s Corner Shop” opened. In this shop you could buy everything from a driving license, to a working permit, to free votes. Simultaneously, we launched our online movie that brought to life the reality of the “Country’s Corner Shop” while ending with a call to action, inviting people to close the shop. Once people started reporting and numbers started to show, a “Stop the Shop” car started going around the country and parking in front of the most corrupt entities to sustain the pressure and ensure continuous engagement. - To date, 2185 corruption reports were made online with the corruption value reported exceeding 3.7 Billion Lebanese Pounds (USD 2.4 Million). The data gathered allowed SED to issue 5 Industry Reports . All reports are being used as a source of reference by the media and several banking authorities . - Sakker el Dekkene was featured 210 times through different media outlets reaching an impressive USD $2,538,817.00 of Earned Media . In a country of 4 million, the campaign got 54,596,182 impressions . SED also managed to recruit 487 volunteers in 3 months only . Most importantly, SED has started to influence institutional changes: SED signed an MOU with the Ministry of Economy, got the Minister of Finance to accept to disclose his assets to them and were asked to endorse the development of a fully digitized and corrupt free police station.