Accountability depends on evidence.
Evidence depends on investigation.
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Harm is evolving faster than the systems to investigate and address it.
Even well-documented harm too often carries little consequence for those who enable, tolerate or profit from it, and little remedy for those affected.
The Yellow Notebooks is an independent initiative dedicated to investigative capacity and to understanding whether the accountability ecosystem is equipped for this reality. It explores what it will take to ensure independent investigative capacity can be sustained and strengthened as the information environment, technology and structures of power continue to change.
Conversations
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Learning from people who have investigated, documented, or pursued accountability across places and issues.
Consequences
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What happened afterwards? What changed? What worked, what failed, and why?
Resources
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Methods, tools, guides and reading to strengthen the practice of investigation and accountability
Investigate
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Field observations, inquiries, and reporting on how power, technology, information, and institutions shape what can be uncovered and acted upon.
23.1%
drop in international aid in 2025 — the largest annual fall ever recorded
OECD preliminary 2025 ODA data2,253
land and environmental defenders have been killed or disappeared since 2012
Global Witness50
number of countries that
have seen academic freedom decline over the last decade
Academic Freedom Index / V-Demworld’s population living under closed, repressed or obstructed civic space
Civicus Monitor72.4%
Systems causing harm are scaling faster than systems investigating and stopping them.
That is why independent investigation matters — and why the ecosystem that makes it possible must be bolstered and protected.
The problem
The systems capable of producing harm are evolving faster than the systems capable of investigating it and ensuring accountability.
Independent investigations remain one of the most powerful tools for uncovering abuse, testing competing claims and establishing credible evidence. But investigations alone are not enough. Too often, well-documented harm carries too little consequence for those who enable, tolerate or profit from it, while those affected are left without meaningful remedy.
At the same time, the conditions that make credible investigations possible are under pressure. Long-term funding is declining. Investigators face growing legal, digital and political risks. As investigations become more difficult, the wider accountability ecosystem must do more to protect the people, methods and institutions that make rigorous investigation possible.
Strengthening accountability therefore means investing not only in investigations themselves, but in the ecosystem that enables them—and ensuring that credible evidence is used to secure accountability, remedy and lasting change.
New technologies, open-source methods, data analysis and artificial intelligence are expanding what investigators can find, verify and understand. But tools do not replace the need to ask the right questions, test competing explanations, understand context and engage directly with people affected by harm.
The work that grounds accountability—sustained investigation, journalism, field presence, first-hand evidence and meaningful engagement—is under pressure as box-ticking is on the rise, and at precisely the moment it needs to be strengthened.
This is a moment to reinforce the investigative foundations of accountability—and to ensure that strong findings are carried forward into decisions, consequences and change.
The solution
Strengthening accountability means investing in—and protecting—the investigative foundations on which it depends.
That means supporting the conditions that make credible investigation possible: funding, field presence, first-hand verification, trusted relationships, sufficient time and funding, security and care.
Investigation requires genuine questions, evidence that is tested rather than merely gathered, attention to competing explanations, and conclusions proportionate to what the evidence can sustain.
It also involves people affected by harm, as well as investigators who may themselves face pressure, threats, trauma or isolation through their work. Investigative integrity therefore depends not only on individual skill, but on the institutions, leadership and cultures surrounding an investigation.
Technology, artificial intelligence, satellite imagery and remote analysis can greatly expand what investigators are able to find, connect and verify. But they cannot replace context, judgement, trusted human relationships or direct engagement with lived reality.
Serious investigations require continuity: the ability to preserve knowledge, maintain relationships and follow patterns across years, sectors and geographies. They also require collaboration. Journalists, researchers, technologists, open-source investigators, lawyers, civil society organisations and affected communities increasingly need to combine different forms of knowledge and expertise.
If power has become more complex, accountability must become more capable of turning evidence into consequence, remedy and change.