Accountability has become the central issue of our time. Developmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have persistently advocated that global institutions should become more transparent, accountable and democratic. Global institutions, states and the private sector, on the other hand, have recently started to ask for greater accountability and transparency of NGOs’ activities. It is unanimously agreed that accountability is a necessary component of developmental aid, since it is tied to the overall effectiveness of the aid. However, the current debate on accountability brings to the foreground different perceptions amongst Donors and NGOs concerning “Accountability” and “Development”.
As the NGO community has stated repeatedly accountability consists of five different dimensions: 1) who, 2) to whom, 3) for what, 4) how and 5) with what outcome. This means that accountability can be divided into: 1) upward Accountability (trustees, governments, international financial institutions) and 2) downward Accountability (members and people affected).
Donors ask for NGOs’ greater upward accountability, meaning that NGOs must prove to donors the efficiency of their work. The “accountability tools”, which are usually applied by donors focus on NGOs’ operational capacity, the existing management structure, performance measurements as well as accounting practices (e.g. annual reports, financial accounts, performance assessments, independent evaluations, audits, etc.). However, donors’ focus on efficient performance favors mainly single issue and direct-service NGOs at the expense of other developmental work. For instance, development projects, which address poorer social groups, entail a higher risk and are usually less efficient. Advocacy work is difficult to budget for and evaluate. Developmental work, which has a political nature, does not fit any evaluation standards (contrary to development work with short-term priorities). Upward Accountability to donors leads also to the increased professionalization of NGOs. This has a strong impact on smaller, less professional NGOs, which have neither the skills nor the money to cope with the “accountability tools”. It is therefore not surprising that larger organizations usually support the development of accountability standards, while small and medium organizations are afraid of their restricted capacity. However, the sustainability and heterogeneity of the developmental NGO sector depends on the formation of new bodies especially on the local level. Finally, upward accountability favors the centralization of NGOs’ management. This hinders the diffusion of organizational learning and weakens thereby the democratic accountability of NGOs.
NGOs on their behalf have argued that accountability means: 1) meaningful participation by diverse stakeholders, 2) ongoing learning and reflection, 3) efficient use of resources, 4) sustainability and long term impact. Participatory approaches have been for many years a key strategy of NGOs to improve the effectiveness of their work. Thus, NGOs focus primarily on the quality of their relationship with the intended beneficiaries and perceive accountability not as an end in itself, but as a means for longer term objectives (development and social change). NGOs have responded to the question of accountability by developing codes of conduct and minimum standards of performance. However, NGOs make a clear distinction between self-developed systems (e.g. Humanitarian Accountability Project) and formal external systems.
In the present period donors lead the debate on Accountability. Donors usually argue that NGOs have a preferential treatment, because they are nonprofit organizations, meaning they are not under scrutiny like enterprises and they are not accountable to any democratic electorate, unlike governments. It is high time, donors argue, to end this imbalance Already the private sector has developed certificate standards to “certify” NGOs (e.g. Société Générale de Surveillance markets the “SCS Solution” to governments and donors). New websites by enterprises (e.g. NGO Watch) publicize incidents of corruption and inefficient work by NGOs. Pressures are increasing on the NGO community to adopt accountability standards. This trend is accentuated also by the existing developmental discourse on “good governance”. The strong emphasis on effective institutions and regulations is overshadowing other important factors of development. Accountability is necessary to enhance the impact of development aid however, accountability alone is not sufficient to reduce poverty. Thus, the debate on accountability standards is tied not only to different perceptions of accountability, but also of development. This renders the feasibility of forming a multi-stakeholder collaborative framework on accountability quite questionable.
