NGO Accountability and Evaluation

1
NGO Accountability and Evaluation
2
Why Accountability Now?

• Growing dependence on public money
• Favored child of official aid system
• Growing visibility and influence
• Tightening resources
• Growing advocacy activities
• Beyond the magic bullet mindset
• Freer climate post Cold War
• Practicing what NGO preaches

3
Accountability

• Answerability to those in higher authorities
• Holding actors responsible for their actions
• Responsible for ones actions
• Answering to stakeholders (LB) for the results
  and impact of performance
• Stakeholders directly or indirectly affected by
  projects

4
Classification of Stakeholders

• Patrons official funding agencies, international
  and bilateral donors, and host governments.
• Clients local NGOs, partner organizations,
  grassroots organizations, beneficiaries, and, in
  its broadest sense, the community.
• Peers fellow NGOs and affiliate members
• Themselves board, volunteers, staff

5
Verification of Accountability

• Freidrich (1935) and Finer (1941) Debate
• Freidrich Internal accountability
• Limitations of external accountability methods
• Imposing requirements and rules on organization
• Emphasizes internal accountability self-control
• Finer External accountability
• Subject to abuse of power
• Marginalized population
• Importance of external control

6
Multiple Dimensions of Accountability

• Hierarchical/Bureaucratic Accountability
• Based on a popular notion of Weberian bureaucracy
• close supervision for compliance with directives
• Formal rules and procedures
• as an instrument of organizational and managerial
  control
• Annual review and written report

7
Legal Accountability

• carry out tasks in accordance with constitutional
  principles, laws or contractual obligations
• Emphasize oversight and monitoring by external
  parties
• Legally binding behaviors
• Authorized by law to work on behalf of official
  funding agencies
• Donor requirements

8
Political Accountability

• Central to democratic process
• Emphasizes responsiveness to constituents needs
• Satisfaction of key stakeholders
• Verified through the ballot box
• NGO advocacy activities
• Do NGOs possess legitimacy to act on behalf of
  marginalized population?

9
Professional Accountability

• Emphasizes individual responsibility and internal
  accountability mechanisms
• Relies less on formal oversight
• on professionalism and professional standard
• Peer review process
• Self-monitor and regulation
• Expertise of NGO workers
• Humanitarian code

10
Moral and Ethical Accountability

• Internally based
• Based on the commitment to do the right thing
• Moral and ethical obligations to act and make
  decisions in the interest of marginalized
  population and the public
• Standards of good behavior arise from conscience
• concerns for the general welfare
• Altruistic drive

11
Current Theories of NGO Accountability

• Multidimensional Accountability
• Each dimension of accountability
• Is suitable to each group of stakeholders
• Patron
• Peers
• Themselves
• Clients

12
Multidirectional Accountability

• Alan Fowler
• Long chain of resource flow, multiple objectives,
  demands, multiple institutions, sectors
• Respond to different requests
• Top down and bottom up
• Dictated by context advocacy, emergency, or
  development activities
• Complication of the international aid system

13
Upward vs. Downward Accountability

• By Michael Edwards and David Hulmes
• Two directions of NGO accountability
• Based on ability to impose sanction and
  performance impact
• Upward accountability to patrons
• Downward accountability to clients
• Overaccountability vs. underaccountability

14
Contingency Theory

• By David Brown and Julie Fisher
• INGO accountability is not a fixed notion
• Operates in a much more dynamic environment
• Different kinds of information and feedback are
  needed for different audiences
• contingent upon both the demander and the context
  of the demand
• Donors formal requirements, standardized

15
Accountability vs. Evaluation

• Accountability broader concept
• Accountability strengthening performance
• Evaluation and monitoring mechanisms to generate
  data
• Participatory evaluation
• Benchmarking
• Difficulties in evaluation work
• Organizational learning

16
Managerial Challenges

• Time
• Money
• Resources
• Apparent results vs. long-term impact
• Measurable objective NGO goals
• Accessibility
• Whose indicators to use?