Ensuring Non-Governmental Organizations Accountability - Literature review Example

Issues in ensuring NGO Accountability Ensuring NGOs Accountability Alarming publicized scandals on lack of transparency in Non-Governmental Organizations [NGOs] have consequently increased concerns of accountability for the last two decades ( Ebrahim,2003). According to Ronald, (2015) accountability is the act of monitoring and assessing individuals or organizations and holding them responsible for their actions. Lack of accountability may erode public confidence, bearing in mind that NGOs count on donors for funds, while donors put faith in NGOs for their reputation. Basically, a clearly specified mission in NGOs and a transparent internal management system free from secrecy, discrimination, bribery, conflicts of interest, favoritism and all other unethical practices is what is required to meet accountability. Ebrahim,(2003) reports that nearly 50% of NGOs exaggerate claims to legitimacy that may probably be based more on a belief in value driven organizations than on authentically assessing and monitoring of their achievements. Thus, it is evident that NGOs are experiencing difficulties in demonstrating their impact and quality with high ethical standards in their work. Therefore this paper seeks to examine how NGOs can address the challenge of ensuring accountability. Accountability Mechanisms Research conducted on the response of development NGOs challenges shows a number of activities within specific organizations that addresses their own programs and governance, and a number of NGOs who are cooperating on standards and ethics. Conversely, there is still alot to be done, with the accountability of organizations in the sector as a whole to various areas appearing to be inconsistent (Bendell,& Unies, (2006). There are five broad categories of accountability mechanisms that can be used by NGOs to ensure accountability. They include, reports and disclosure statements, performance evaluation and assessments, participation, self-regulations and social auditing. Among this mechanisms there are those that are processes and those that are tools. In simple terms, accountability tools are techniques used to achieve accountability. Jordan, (2005) reports that tools are stakeholders oriented that have significant influence on an NGO eg a donor or a government regulator. They are applied over a limited period. Often they are repeated and can be documented .For example disclosures and financial reports can be documented and repeated annually or semi- annually over the years. Also, evaluations of performance are carried out at the end of a particular venture and documented as an evaluation report. However, process mechanisms are more comprehensive than tools. Jordan, (2005) reports that mechanism such as participation and self –regulations emphasizes on course of action instead of a particular end outcome or result. The five mechanisms are discussed in greater details below. Reports and Disclosure Statements There remains a problem for many NGOs main pillar of organizational accountability that is: information transparency. Drawing from the illustration, as reported by Bendell& Unies,. (2006). Out of 200 Philippine NGOs who were asked about their finances only 20% responded . It could be argued that reports and disclosure statements are the frequently used tools of accountability and are often required by federal governments in some Nations(Ebrahim,2003 ) It is necessary for Non-Governmental Organizations which are nonprofit making seeking federal tax exempt, to provide quite detailed financial reports, programs and organizational structure. This will in turn help to ensure that the organization deals with activities primarily for charity, education, religion and scientific purposes. In the United State for example, the state law requires all nonprofit organization to provide annual financial reports thus ensuring accountability. Such legitimate disclosers enable some percentage of accountability to donors and members (Jordan, 2005).Besides the legally required reports, funders require consistent reports from organizations that they fund. NGOs should provide detailed quarterly and annual reports on the physical achievements for example an NGO based on promoting agriculture in a certain area should report on the number of irrigation systems built, numbers of increased harvest and land afforested. Performance assessment and evaluation This is among the broadly used tool of ensuring accountability, there are two types of evaluation: Internal and external evaluation. Funders should always conduct external evaluation at the end of a program or a grant period and also apply midterm assessment as well. Such assessment helps to evaluate whether and to what degree program aims and objectives have been met (Ebrahim,2003).These evaluations may center on short-term outcomes of NGOs interventions ( i.e ‘’activities’’ for example number of schools built and number of children immunized ) or long-term and medium-term results (i.e ‘’ impacts’’ for example enhancement in agriculture , education, etc). Internal assessment can also be useful in promoting accountability whereby NGOs staff measure their performance and progress either towards internal objectives or towards the mission of externally funded projects. There are still significant challenges to NGOs evaluations that I will discuss below. However some NGOs have successfully adapted to internal evaluation standards to ensure high quality assessment. For instant Oxfam GB has established progress Evaluation Standards which directs Oxfam’s policy on how to go about program evaluations, and how to answer to evaluation results (Harvey,& Marongwe, 2006). Assessments have the capability of aiding wider organizational change, in particular through organizational learning and capacity building. For example the Evaluation group of UN have established a system used as a guidance for assessing according to standards, code of conduct and guidelines for ethics and norms. The evaluations in all department in UN is based on these standards. Therefore, they combine all evaluations and submit jointly to the funders. . Ebrahim,(2003) reports that donations would be well spent in assisting NGOs develop and test with diverse techniques of evaluation than in- taking a huge number of impact studies centered on methods used recently. This conclusion points out the potential of evaluation and assessment tool being used as a tool for learning than just for performance and impact valuation. One of the biggest challenge that NGOs face in assessment and evaluation is the fact that funders base funding on how “successful’’ a project is ,thus rewarding NGOs that abide to particular and proven product-based methods to progress while punishing those which try to take the risk to test and come up with more innovative and uncertain process-based approaches . While satisfying funders needs for information NGOs end up producing irrelevant information for internal decision making. Another challenge that small NGOs face is that they are forced to stretch their limited funds and stuff to work on the evaluation reports thus crippling some projects. (Ebrahim,2003). Additionally, a lot of work is compounded by funders requesting for different information in their assessments. Jordan,( 2005) suggest that donors should agree on a universal set of requirements for all assessments by NGOs Participation Participation is a process rather than a tool. This make it a different accountability mechanism from evaluation and reports .According to Rahman, (2014) participation is a principal of accountability that includes listening and incorporating the opinions of people who we seek to help. Public projects should include more participation from the community benefiting from them.( Rahman,2014). NGOs should embarrass participation as a method of ensuring accountability so they can be efficient in serving the community. NGOs should take responsibility of ensuring that communities and other key stake holders participate meaningful at the entire stages of the program right from the beginning where the program’s activities are planned then to the implementation and even in the post activities of evaluation and monitoring. Involving the public in projects helps in mobilizing resources, this includes using the under-utilized labor and original knowledge. In the long run more task are done with the same budget. Participation may act as an instrument of innovation since it may help design more valuable programs. Participation maintains that the felt needs are attended (Rahman,2014). Community contribution results to project suitability to the communities’ needs. In addition participation builds up a sense of ownership among beneficiaries. Ebrahim,(2003) observed that participatory actives in groups can ignore the views of the less dominate members for example women and children. Thus promoting inequality that already exist in today’s society. For NGOs to understand participation it is necessary for them to examine the levels of participation (Atack, 1999).In regards to this, Anstein created a model to explain participation .He basically formulated a ladder to explain public participation. The ladder is commonly used to measure beneficiary involvement in community based development projects. Below is the ladder of participation figure. The lowest part of the ladder is manipulation and therapy .The two of them represent the non- participation levels. Here, the main goal is not to involve people in planning and overseeing programs but to aid the influencers to train or educate the people involved. In the information, consultation and placing phase the participants can have the information and air their views .in the placing phase participants can be put in the committee and help in making decisions. Partnership enable participants to take decisions in combined collaboration of participants’ .This way power sharing is enabled. Delegating power phase is when the public have majority seats in the committee thus enabling them to make most decisions. The top phase is citizen control when the public have power to control the organization. A good example of how more significant participation can be is the review of two USAID funded projects wheeled by Children/US and Johns Hopkins university .The intentions of the both projects was to increase community participation in healthcare by forming partnerships between customers and service providers. The project involved the community in developing service aims and mission while working closely with the service providers. A project established in Bolivia came up with a health information system which makes use of non-complicated forms, maps ,and graphics to support members of the communities and service providers to work in collaboration in decision making, assessing progress and organizing work. In the second project in Peru it was learnt that clients held back utilizing the reproductive Health care facilities because they were not treated right by the healthcare practitioners. Due to this, the project facilitated discussions between customers and service providers in order to improve strategies of utilization of the reproductive health facilities .Therefore this illustrations proves that it is possible for NGOs to collaborate with the government and the public through participatory appraisal. Self-Regulation Self-regulation is defined as the enlargement and way of implementing standards and codes of conduct in an organization (Saito, Yogo, & Sugimura, 2004). The goal is to develop tools which can oblige the organizations to deliver quality indications to the investors. Growing criticism and many others factors putting pressure on NGOs has led them to be more accountable towards investors and within the organization. One of the noticeable means of doing so is to develop self-regulatory within the organization. According to MANO a non-profit organization and Bond UK has developed a guide for the operations in NGO(Awuah-Werekoh, 2015). This guide called ‘standard of excellence’ aims to restore the integrity of NGO by guiding their finances, the process of recruitment, governance, public implication and honesty. The benefit of the standards is to provide guidelines about the configuration, actions and the responsibilities of NGO’s panel managers to handle the problems of employee with the cases related to integrity, sincerity and conflict of interest. By stand to the self-regulatory NGO’s are doing good housekeeping to the eyes of the investors. In fact, implementing standards in NGO’s is a way to bring lucidity in these organizations which are accused with corruption and misconduct, it improves the quality of the service and has the possibility to improve the performance of NGOS’s and reassure the donors about good management within the organization. Also, self-regulation has been initiated for decades in many organizations to attract and increase public trust and their confidence(Saito, Yogo, & Sugimura, 2004). Through the mechanism of self-regulatory NGOs are rising collective comprehension about which should be accepted and how to implement it. Those standards are also a mean which they can hold each other to. Self-regulation is one of the best accountability tool in NGOs providing several advantages: It is an efficient and effective mechanism implementing standards, to demonstrate accountability, lucidity in order to attract funding to support the organization. A tool to increase internal and external confidence about activities lead by the organization. And also improve the cooperation between the participants within the organization. By implementing a clear ideology and guidelines, it elevates standards and develop good practice within the organization. It permits the NGO to be protected from bad habits within the organization attracted by their own interest In countries which the government suspect the activities of NGOs, the self-regulatory standards prevent the organization from tough measures of regulation from the government. Despite several benefits offered by implementing self-regulatory, it is associated with some challenges too. So, it is necessary for NGOs board directors to take into account when preparing self-regulatory standards. Attract and bring together several organizations despite their sizes, activities and capacities to comply in this regulation is challenging. To implement effective self-regulatory standards is also challenging because it requires to build capacity of members and a lot of money in countries when NGOs community are formless. According to several diversities in NGOs community, it is very difficult to rise universal standards for different category of organizations. Therefore, determine which type of performance and accountability system should be implemented it is very challenging. It is sometimes difficult to persuade the members of the organization to be open in sharing information and transparency within the organization. In many countries it is very challenges to enforce self-regulations because of the lack of engagement from those who are leading the organization. On example is the Red Cross Code of conduct, which still an enforcement mechanism because there is not a means the code can be declared. Which conducted IFRC to determine that ‘its involvement to accountability rests weak’. Criticism have also been made about the code of conduct in South African NGO (SANGOCO). In this case, there is no warning about the sanction according to the code of conduct if NGO fails to obey, and up to date there is no prove of any NGO being sanctioned for not complying to the standards Social Auditing Social auditing is a process through which organizations evaluates, reports and enhances its public performance. (Saito, Yogo, & Sugimura,2004). Social auditing incorporates all the accountability mechanisms discussed above. Including: participation, self-regulation, assessing and evaluation and reports and disclosure statements. Many NGOs have not adapted to social auditing (Rahman,2014). NGOs shows public willingness to being assessed by its stakeholders in line with its effectiveness in projects, significance of its works and rationality of its leaders by holding frequent social audits . NGO leaders can acquire additional public legitimacy by conducting social audits. Financial accounting, audits of annual projects and reports conducted by NGOs only focuses on financial transaction .But the undertakings of NGOs are several and some of them do not find their way to financial reports .( Saito, Yogo& Sugimura, 2004)) believes that social auditing demonstrates accountability in the best way since it uses the bottom up approach. Social auditing starts at the activity level it lengthens to the system and progression level right up to the board level. There are several reasons why NGOs should incorporate social audit mechanism as a way of ensuring accountability. To start with, it gives NGOs leaders an opportunity to, screen performance Secondly, social auditing allows views of stake holders including the public, donors and the civil society to be included in reviewing organizational values and objectives. Thirdly, social audit can be used as a tool of planning strategically and learning if the information gathered is used in decision making process. Above all, conducting social auditing facilitates disclosure of information to the public enabling NGOs to gain public reputation. As a way of ensuring accountability, social auditing process should be carried out in a valid and credible manner. Therefore the following processes and principles should be considered: Social auditing should be conducted by an independent board and not by the management of the NGO The auditing team should conduct this process transparently and independently .They should be able to involve the NGO stuff in that they can question them. The process should not overlook any aspect or actives. Auditing should be very open. Findings from the process should be shared to all stakeholders and interested parties Conclusion In conclusion, ensuring accountability should not only be an NGO organizational responsibility but a collective responsibility which needs collaboration of stake holders including the government, communities and donors. A standard regulation in all aspects of accountability mechanism should be incorporated so as to fairly gauge the accountability level of an organization. References Atack, I. (1999). Four criteria of development NGO legitimacy. World development, 27(5), 855-864. Awuah-Werekoh, K. (2015). Accountability systems of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs): case study from Ghana, (September). Retrieved from http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/5829/ Bendell, J., & Unies, N. (2006). Debating NGO accountability. UN. Ebrahim, A. (2003). Accountability in practice: Mechanisms for NGOs. World development, 31(5), 813-829. Cash-Transfer Programme. Overseas Development Institute, London. Harvey, P., & Marongwe, N. (2006). Independent Evaluation of Oxfam GB Zambia’s Emergency Jordan, L. (2005). Mechanisms for NGO accountability. GPPi Research Paper Series, 3. Rahman, M. (2014). The Accountability of non-governmental organizations: A case of Bangladesh(Master's thesis, The University of Bergen). Ronald, Y. (2015). Accountability of NGOs. Saito, K., Yogo, K., & Sugimura, Y. (2004). Rf Module R Eference G Uide. Analysis, (September), 1–16. Read More