The Non-government Organisation sector has experienced tremendous growth both locally and globally. A massive growth of Non-government Organisations (NGOs) in the past years is changing the institutional landscape of countries all over the world. Also referred to as third sector organisations, non-profit organisations, civil society organisations & voluntary organisations, NGOs are establishing a powerful institutional presence. These organisations are primarily voluntary in nature and tend to engage both their supporters and constituency on the basis of values or some shared interests or concern and have a public benefit purpose. In this pursuit of public benefit purpose, the most important asset of the organisations is ‘public trust’. However, public trust is neither tenured nor permanent. It takes many years of hard work for organisations to build up a good reputation and only one bad move to lose it. Thus, organisations need to exercise the responsibility of being fiduciaries of public trust. The sole mechanism for gaining, retaining and enhancing public trust is accountability. 

Accountability is the basic principle of responsible practice for any institution, be it a public organisation, a private enterprise or an NGO. In case of NGOs, the issue of accountability assumes utmost significance because of the involvement of public funds as well as public trust.

What is NGO accountability?

NGO accountability can be defined as: “The process by which an NGO holds itself openly responsible for what it believes, what it does and what it does not do in a way that shows it involving all concerned parties and actively responding to what it learns.” Slim (2002:12). Accountability is no more a matter of simple financial accounting or reporting to donors about funds received and expenditures incurred. Ensuring accountability of NGOs involves creating conditions that will allow for open expression of views, transparency, free dissemination of information and the rule of law, which is very crucial to the effective functioning of every NGO.

Accountability has two chief purposes

• It monitors whether authority and responsibility delegated to a person or a group of persons are in balance and, if necessary, makes a correction.
• It measures whether expectations of responsibility were achieved without overstepping the limitations of authority, i.e., it determines that goals have been achieved and standards kept within the available resources.

Roles of accountability

• Monitoring the balance of authority and responsibility

This is the first and most important role of the accountability process. At every organisational level, it is important to maintain a balance between authority and responsibility, i.e., balance between what is invested in an individual or a group and what is expected in return.

• Measuring compliance

Accountability measures compliance by ensuring that all reporting requirements are met by the organisation such that all the stakeholders get timely and satisfactory information regarding the organisation’s progress and activities.

• Measuring strategic results

Measuring strategic results refers to measuring the extent to which the organisation is realising its mission. It is a measure of productivity – the degree to which the needs of the target community are being met.

Conclusion

What needs to be underlined here is the fact that the issue of ‘accountability’ goes beyond mere compliance. Accountability is more than anything else an internal issue and has to be dealt with by the NGOs internally. The value and practice of accountability should be ingrained within the organisational system of NGOs in order to ensure the effectiveness of development work, thereby enhancing public trust and credibility of the organisation.

This article is written by Sanjay Patra, Executive Director, FMSF for Raisers' Ask, he can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it