Innovations for Mexico from Africa by Way of Panama

That's not a headline you write everyday. Anyway, from Jorge Luis Sierra:

Media outlets in Panama have begun to develop a unique process in Latin America: citizens denounce instances of crime and corruption anonymously on a website, and journalists investigate them so as to publish reports in three newspapers and two television chains in this Central American nation.

Endorsed by the International Center for Journalists, a nonprofit organization that dedicates itself to increasing the quality of journalism in more than 85 countries around the world, the website www.mipanamatransparente.com has adopted the digital platform Ushahidi, a technology created in Africa to geolocate incidents of violence with the help of citizens.

Employed only by humanitarian organizations, Ushahidi was developed in Kenya and Congo to monitor violent elections, in Atlanta to register crimes, or in Chile and Haiti to facilitate the aid to victims of the disasters caused by earthquakes. But this is the first time that a group of journalists use the same tool to receive citizen reports regarding corruption and delinquency and deepen them with techniques of investigative journalism.

The program is coming to Mexico next.