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.

We can't trust donors...can we?

It's all very well calling for more accountability to donors - but can we trust them to make the right decisions?

New research from the University of Southampton suggests we can. Looking at the results of a large survey, it finds:

• Although only one in ten people give to overseas development charities, the mean amount given per donor was much higher than for other causes. (Table 1)
  
• The distribution of donations towards overseas development is very skewed. The Gini co-efficient is 0.63 and the top 10% of donors account for almost half of the value of all donations. (Table 2)
  
• Although overseas giving is correlated with personal income, it is not when the regression is controlled for variables associated with income such as education. The difference between the controlled and uncontrolled correlation co-efficients is larger for overseas giving than all other causes of charitable giving. (Table 10)
  

In broad terms, this means that most publicly-raised money comes from a very few people (about half the money comes from 1% of the adult population). More than any other cause, the higher the education level of the donor, the more they give.

If donors are such a well-educated and exclusive bunch, why don't we trust them to influence what happens with their money more?

These are the report's authors Professor John Micklewright and Dr Sylke Schnepf:

Hobbs on accountability

The Herald Tribune recently published an interview with Jeremy Hobbs, the executive director of Oxfam International.

In it, he teasingly says: "...if NGOs take over public responsibilities then they would have to be accountable to the public they serve."

Indeed.