Up and Down, and Inside Out: Where do We Stand on NGO Accountability?

Hyman van Zyl and Frederik Claeye
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Frederik Claeye: LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This paper brings a review of the literature on accountability in development NGOs with a view to highlighting where we stand. There has been a shift from top-down approaches focussing on upward accountability mechanisms towards a growing literature that theorises and empirically investigates downward accountability mechanisms. This literature theorises a link between ownership of the development process and aid effectiveness. However, little attention has been paid to potential differences in the accountability mechanisms used in locally- and non-locally-owned NGOs. Considering that the members of locally-owned NGOs come from the same culture as the beneficiaries they serve, understanding how local NGOs' implementation of accountability differs from other organisations would shed light on how to secure the trust of the beneficiaries. Such knowledge would assist NGOs globally to overcome the challenges of downward accountability and to enhance aid delivery.

Keywords: Development; NGOs; NGO; accountability; Literature; review; Local; NGOs; Downward; accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-23
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Published in European Journal of Development Research, 2018, pp.1-16. ⟨10.1057/s41287-018-0170-3⟩

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Journal Article: Up and Down, and Inside Out: Where do We Stand on NGO Accountability? (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02108248

DOI: 10.1057/s41287-018-0170-3

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