<incom> Keystone, Downward Accountability from NGOs to ‘Beneficiaries’

[Soenke Zehle]

I liked the report because it moves toward an organization-cultural 
definition of accountability, also because it affirms that to define 
accountability is to define development itself, or put differently, the 
accpuntability debate (and its consequences for the NGO-donor 
relationship, for example) is one of the areas where development 
critique becomes very very concrete. At least in theory :)

Here's from the conclusion, Soenke

"Survey Results: Downward accountability to ‘beneficiaries’:
NGO and donor perspectives" Keystone (June 2006)

<http://www.keystonereporting.org/files/Keystone%20Survey%20Apr%2006%20Final%20Report.pdf>

"Improving accountability to ‘beneficiaries’ cannot be the result of 
mechanistic and technical fixes, but rather of organizational rituals 
and processes that, while universally stated, can be contextually and
culturally based.

Accountability to ‘beneficiaries’ implies accountability for results, 
where beneficiary voice is influential in defining and measuring an 
organization’s success. Why is this organization choosing this course of 
action rather than another one? How (with whom) has it defined its 
theory of change and its strategy? Why these indicators of success
rather than others? These important questions relate back to downward 
accountability in the planning and strategy process.

Understanding accountability as an ex-post ‘accounting’ of what an 
organization has already done presupposes that organizations possess a 
unique and fixed understanding of what needs to be done in the first 
place. This is different from defining accountability as implying an 
‘ex-ante engagement’ to understand what needs to be done, and what is 
the best way to do it and assess it, and accounting for that later as a 
means for continual learning about what worked well, what went wrong, 
and why.

These two views presuppose competing world-views about development; and 
who the ultimate ‘agents’ of development are. Organizations that place 
an emphasis on ordinary people’s ability to improve their own lives 
(i.e. human agency) as a driver of development will tend empower the 
constituencies for whom they work and engage them in co-creating action 
as much as possible. This sees accountability as enabling social
capabilities. On the other hand, organizations that tend to think of 
themselves as the agents of development will tend to conceive 
accountability as a process of periodic consultation rather than 
meaningful ongoing engagement and learning that is in itself a
fundamental developmental process.

The survey results also show that the cleavage is not so much between 
‘NGOs and donors’, but rather between those NGOs and donors who see 
development as catalyst for human agency, and those who see it as 
something organisations do for people.

Second, the question of downward accountability must be sensitive to 
power issues. For many, the word ‘beneficiaries’ is problematic in its 
own right. Speaking of ‘beneficiaries’ reinforces the perception of 
people as passive recipients of aid, and altogether works against the 
idea of downward accountability as a rebalancing act. This is also true 
for the use of the term ‘downward’, as it reinforces the idea of power 
asymmetry. While a term like ‘development constituency’ could certainly 
be more appropriate, there is a need discuss concepts and language as 
they shape and are shaped by the accountability debate.

The issue of power can be found right across the web of relationships in 
development. A central theme, for example, is how organizations (both 
NGOs and donors) deal with their own incentives for practicing downward 
accountability when demands from constituencies are weak, or do not 
carry the threat of sanction. This is both true of donors’ 
accountability in relation to their grantees, as it is of NGO 
accountability in relation to ‘beneficiaries’; and for that matter, 
every other intermediate link where there is a relationship based on 
some kind of resource asymmetry. This poses a key research question to 
guide future work: What are the incentives for NGOs and/or donors to 
become more open, transparent and accountable organizations in the 
absence of strong demands from their less powerful constituencies? 
Similarly, it poses a practical challenge for social entrepreneurs in 
how to realign the incentives for NGOs and donors to be more accountable 
in the absence of strong demands by weaker constituencies.

Third, the potential benefits and the practical challenges identified 
for downward accountability signal the need for intermediary 
organizations to enable NGOs and donors to increase the quality of their 
practice and obtain better results. By working within donor-NGOs 
relations, intermediaries could lighten the burdens of ‘upward 
accountability’ while shifting reporting practices in favour of 
learning, reflection and the principles of downward accountability.

[...]

Fifth, there is an important opportunity for donors to advance downward 
accountability more purposefully. They can support the development of 
quality intermediary organizations in this space. They also need to pay 
attention to the resourcing side of downward accountability practices of 
their grantees. They should encourage their grantees to plan and devise 
adequate learning and accountability processes for their projects and 
work. A wealth of research has shown how donors create bureaucratic 
reporting burdens for organizations that distract them from learning 
towards their missions. Donors need reporting. But donors could use 
reporting requirements to encourage organizations to be more accountable 
to those for whom they work, and to recognise and learn from failure. In 
sum, donors can do a great deal to improve the incentives of NGOs for 
downward accountability while making sure this does not duplicate, but 
rather simplify, bureaucratic requirements and transaction costs.

The survey results suggest that donors tend to take for granted the 
issue of downward accountability, assuming that ‘good’ organizations do 
it. There is a striking lack of ‘performance criteria’ that indicate 
whether or not an organization is actually accountable to its 
constituency. The survey suggests that this assumption is unwarranted, 
and that it distorts the idea of performance in favour of more 
positivist or mechanistic views of development."