Increasing strategic accountability: a framework for international NGOs

The accountability of international development NGOs (INGOs) has attracted a great deal of interest from academics and development practitioners. INGO accountability falls into two categories: practical accountability (for the use of inputs, the way activities are performed, and outputs) and strategic accountability for INGOs' performance in relation to their mission. This article presents a conceptual framework for exploring INGO accountability. It is based on information collected through a literature review and semi-structured interviews with representatives from 20 UK-based INGOs. The research found that INGOs tend to use a number of quality-assurance mechanisms to achieve ‘practical’ accountability. However, it is suggested that this kind of accountability will not necessarily enable INGOs to achieve their missions to alleviate poverty and eliminate injustice. Furthermore, the predominant use of practical accountability has led to a number of gaps in INGO accountability. It is suggested that, like the term ‘participation’ before it, accountability has been co-opted for its instrumental benefits to INGO project performance and management. It is argued that if INGOs are to achieve their missions, this will require more ‘strategic’ forms of accountability, geared towards fundamentally changing those social, economic, and political structures that promote poverty.     

The rise and fall of donor funding for advocacy NGOs: understanding the impact

NGOs in Asian countries often experience fluctuations in funding because of the constantly shifting priorities of their international donors. Without domestic sources, Asian NGOs are forced to re-align their priorities with donor interests in order to compete for funding. In the case of advocacy NGOs, the resulting asymmetry in donor–grantee relations often leads to a crisis of legitimacy and deteriorating effectiveness for the NGO. Because of the political nature of advocacy work, these NGOs must maintain a reputation for independence and legitimacy if they are to be influential in the political process. This article analyses the impact of fluctuating international donor assistance to advocacy NGOs in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand, and offers recommendations for donors. While donors have spent significant resources on building the capacity of advocacy NGOs in South-East Asia, funding trends usually undermine the effectiveness of their grantees long before funding is ended.     

Participation: the ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era

Participation was originally conceived as part of a counter-hegemonic approach to radical social transformation and, as such, represented a challenge to the status quo. Paradoxically, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ‘participation’ gained legitimacy within the institutional development world to the extent of achieving buzzword status. The precise manipulations required to convert a radical proposal into something that could serve the neo-liberal world order led to participation's political decapitation. Reduced to a series of methodological packages and techniques, participation would slowly lose its philosophical and ideological meaning. In order to make the approach and methodology serve counter-hegemonic processes of grassroots resistance and transformation, these meanings desperately need to be recovered. This calls for participation to be re-articulated within broader processes of social and political struggle in order to facilitate the recovery of social transformation in the world of twenty-first century capitalism.     

The F-word and the S-word – too much of one and not enough of the other

This article questions the growing use of the term ‘faith-based’ in development policy and practice. It is argued that it homogenises people in minority migrant and developing-country contexts and excludes many who are working for human rights and social justice from secular perspectives, thus providing an unsound analytical base for policy. Against the background of the ‘war on terror’, the author also examines the differences in US and British development policy arising out of the term ‘faith-based’.     

NGOs: between buzzwords and social movements

The associations that the term ‘NGO’ has acquired in development discourse need to be critically analysed in relation to practice on the ground. Drawing on an analysis of the rise of NGOs in Palestine, the author suggests that the development of the NGO movement served to demobilise Palestinian civil society in a phase of national struggle. Through professionalisation and projectisation brought about by donor-funded attempts to promote ‘civil society’, a process of NGOisation has taken place. The progressive de-politicisation of the women's movement that NGOisation has brought about has created a vacuum that has been increasingly filled by the militancy of the Islamic Movement (Hamas). As this case shows, ‘NGOs’ may be a development buzzword, but they are no magic bullet. Rather than taking for granted the positive, democratising effects of the growth and spread of NGOs as if they represented ‘civil society’ itself, this article contends, a more critical approach is needed, one that takes greater account of the politics of specific contexts and of the dynamics of institutionalisation.     

Women and NGO professionalisation: a case study of Jordan

This article examines the impact of NGO professionalisation on the recruitment of NGO staff. Based on an in-depth survey of employees in 20 advocacy NGOs in Jordan, it demonstrates the gendered impact of professionalisation. The majority of NGO employees are highly educated women, often Western-educated, who work in NGOs primarily for career opportunities and because they are attracted by the NGO's goals. In contrast to existing literature, this article argues that gender considerations, such as job flexibility to accommodate household duties, play less of a role in determining the reasons why women seek work in NGOs and their degree of job satisfaction.     

Reflections on relationships: the nature of partnership according to five NGOs in southern Mexico

This article is based on interviews with several staff members of NGOs located in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, regarding partnerships between them and their funding sources, such as foundations or agencies of the North that do or support development work in the South. The motive behind the interviews was an interest in the word ‘partnerships’, in particular strategic ones. Do partnerships exist now and, if they do, what does it mean for the NGOs to have a partnership with a funding source? The general conclusion was that strategic partnerships have indeed existed in the past, and may again emerge in the future, but that currently they exist only sporadically, given the distinct ways of viewing and carrying out development work within NGOs on the one hand, and foundations or agencies on the other.     

Talking of gender: words and meanings in development organisations

This article reflects on the vocabulary commonly used within development organisations to communicate about ‘gender and development’. It argues that the relevant terminology, though frequently used, remains problematic. Some terms are almost entirely absent, while others are used loosely and inappropriately – with the subtleties of carefully developed and much-debated concepts often lost. Terms such as ‘empowerment’, ‘gender’, and ‘gender mainstreaming’ which originated in feminist thinking and activism have lost their moorings and become depoliticised. Despite these problems, there are indications that debates and language may be taking a more radical turn with the acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the practices of gender mainstreaming, the deepening of interest in the notion of empowerment, and the explicit adoption of a human-rights language.     

International volunteering for development and sustainability: outdated paternalism or a radical response to globalisation?

This article discusses the history and evolution of international volunteer-sending agencies and volunteers as a response not only to symptoms but also to causes of global poverty and inequality. It considers how international volunteers might be defined, what makes their role different from other forms of overseas development assistance (particularly their contribution to capacity development), and the positives and negatives that may accompany those differences. It also reflects on international volunteers' suitability as contributors in the transition to a globally more ecologically sustainable state, presenting some insights from volunteers and other stakeholders.     

菲律宾的非政府组织

本文分析了菲律宾作为拥有全球第三大非政府组织(NGO)的发展中国家,其非政府组织的缘起、总体情况及其发展趋势,并认为目前菲律宾NGO对国家和地区政策的影响仍然不大,但通过市民社会与国家的互动,有可能在国家政治生活中发挥更大的作用并影响政治决策。     

The Capacity-building Paradox: using friendship to build capacity in the South

This article proposes a theoretical framework, the Capacity-building Paradox, which defines individual relationship work as the basis for capacity building. It explains why capacity building has hitherto been largely unsuccessful. ‘Relationship work’ is central to the functions of practitioners. It consists of both ‘dependent work’ and ‘friendship work’, the latter synonymous with capacity building. To do relationship work, practitioners require power, in order to overcome environmental obstacles. Financial resources emerge as the predominant environmental influence, often prompting practitioners to use dependent work rather than friendship work. This results in a reduction in capacity and does not contribute to sustainable development. Most of the current literature provides organisational and institutional tools for capacity building. While there is an increasing recognition of the centrality of personal relationships in this work, there is as yet no theoretical framework within which to locate it. The article presents original research into people's experiences of capacity-building work in a development context and proposes a conceptual model that may have important implications for capacity-building practice.     

The emergence of a fourth pillar in development aid

Development co-operation has traditionally been the playing field of governments, multilateral institutions, and established development NGOs. In the past decade, however, other actors in Northern countries (such as businesses, migrants' organisations, professional groups, and schools) have shown active interest in development-related activities. Although they do not belong to the epistemic community of development specialists and are often overlooked in the discourse and literature on development co-operation, their number and importance are growing. These novel approaches to development co-operation give rise to some important reflections about their methodologies, potential impact, and fundraising. Based on the authors' experiences and research in Belgium, the article raises some issues about what they term the fourth pillar of development co-operation, with the aim of stimulating the academic and policy-oriented debate.     

Best of practices?

In this brief critique of the idea of ‘best practice’, the author argues that good practice is not replicable or uniform; it cannot be reduced to its component parts for replication elsewhere. Furthermore, the criteria for what constitutes ‘best practice’ are at best unscientific and tend to discourage diversity and local experimentation.     

Structures,values, and interaction in field-level partnerships: the case of UNHCR and NGOs

This article discusses the process of transforming partnership from a conceptual framework into a practical, operational framework for field-level interaction among humanitarian organisations. The authors approach this transformation from the perspective of the core values of the partnership concept and the ability of field workers to behave in ways that are consistent with these core values, illustrated by an empirical study of the relationships between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and NGOs in a refugee-assistance programme in northern Uganda. The authors connect inter-organisational structures with the role of people charged with making partnership work, concluding that the structures and context in which individuals operate make it impossible for them to ‘act out’ the core values of partnership. By identifying the major challenges to creating field-level, operational partnerships, the authors offer lessons for current and future partnership-building initiatives, such as the Global Humanitarian Platform.     

Diasporas as ‘agents of development’: transforming brain drain into brain gain? The Dutch example

This article is based on research that explored and analysed the potential role of diasporas in development aid in the Netherlands. The research adopted the hypothesis that development agencies could benefit from the knowledge, skills, and views of diasporas as ‘agents of development’ and thereby make aid more effective and sustainable. Data were derived from semi-structured interviews with representatives of diasporas residing in the Netherlands; Dutch NGOs selected by the Dutch government for their capacity-building programmes; official donors, namely the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken); and international organisations, such as the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Secondary data were derived from a literature review.     

Towards a policy framework for the empowerment of social movements

As they move from responding to needs and demands to a more rights-based approach, some French NGOs are rethinking both their areas of work and their ways of working. ‘Empowerment’ has become a key concept in this changing context, although it is sometimes difficult to know how best to apply it and understand what it really means in an NGO setting. This article shares some thinking on empowerment, analysing its ‘object’ (individuals, organisations, networks, or movements) and the ‘process’ through which it is realised. Drawing on the author's own experience and on a brief literature review, it is illustrated by the examples of the international disability and US gay rights movements.     

Mediators or partners? Practitioner perspectives on partnership

Partnership has become a key word in the jargon of international development. This article presents the results of research into the perspectives of Cambodian and Filipino NGO workers on their funding relationships. Largely confirming the negative literature about partnership, practitioners generally expressed a view that their relationships with funders are not consistent with the rhetoric of power sharing and collaboration that often accompanies discussions of the subject. In spite of this, practitioners articulated a desire for collaborative relationships with Northern organisations, ideally with a greater focus on the local context and personal relationships. Practitioners believe that an important part of their role is mediating development in order to make it more relevant and responsive.     

Listen First: a pilot system for managing downward accountability in NGOs

This article reports on a research project intended to develop systematic ways of managing downward accountability in an international NGO. Innovative tools were developed and trialled in six countries. The tools comprised a framework, defining downward accountability in practical terms, and three management processes. They were successfully used to (a) encourage staff to improve downward accountability in ways relevant to their context; (b) hear beneficiaries' assessments of the level of accountability achieved and the value of the NGO's work; and (c) generate quantified performance summaries for managers. Taken together, they form a coherent draft management system. Areas for further research are identified.