The meaning of accountability

Here's a classic article on the meaning of 'accountability' as it applies to a range of players in world politics.

Grant and Keohane argue that forms of accountability of an institution can be split between

1. Participation: performance is evaluated by people affected by use of power by the institution
2. Delegation: performance is evaluated by people entrusting the institution with power

The authors identify three components of accountability: standards, sanctions and information. It is difficult to pinpoint the use of any of these components when it comes to international development NGOs. Neither the poor nor donors effectively hold them to account.

Institutional mechanisms are particularly weak in terms of information:

Crucial to the efficacy of an information system for controlling abuses of power is that control over it not be limited to power-wielders and the entities that originally authorized their actions. On the contrary, the system should be open to new groups, seeking to provide information relevant to the question of whether power-wielders are meeting appropriate standards of behavior—–and to make that information widely available...Furthermore, the costs of providing information through web sites are now so low that it is difficult to use cost or inconvenience as an excuse; people around the world are increasingly used to being able to get the information that they want almost instantaneously...NGOs must also be increasingly transparent if they are to remain credible.

Teach a man to fish

Here's an interesting piece by Nik Kafka, director of the agricultural network Teach a Man to Fish.

In it, he bemoans the lack of engagement of development charities with new social enterprise models:

The direct result of our extraordinary creativity in raising huge volumes of donations at home is that it cramps entrepreneurial flair, and reduces the incentives to find better models for creating social change overseas.

It's not that UK development NGOs are not capable of being entrepreneurial, far from it. When it comes to fundraising no avenue is left unexplored - you can't walk down a street or open a magazine these days without being tapped for direct debits or the occasional goat!

But UK development NGOs seem to have far less appetite for designing new business models for social change and taking them to scale.

The way to develop this appetite is to change the way development agencies are evaluated. Instead of being measured on their inputs (e.g. 'cash raised' or 'projects undertaken') they must be more robustly measured on outputs (e.g. 'increase in beneficiaries' annual income' or 'educational levels added'). Then they will have to seek out new models to reach these goals.