Money, people or mission? Accountability in local and non-local NGOs

Abstract

Little is known about how ownership affects accountability in non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article explores differences between locally- and non-locally-owned NGOs in South Africa. Our data suggest that locally-owned NGOs more often claim to implement downward and internal accountability mechanisms, while non-local NGOs more often claim to implement upward accountability mechanisms. Bigger NGOs also perform better at downward and upward accountability mechanisms than smaller ones. The data suggest there is much these organisations can learn from each other to strengthen their accountability mechanisms. Furthermore, assuming there is a positive relationship between local ownership and development effectiveness, these findings may have important implications in furthering effective development interventions.

Keywords:

• Upward accountability
• downward accountability
• internal accountability
• non-governmental organisations
• South Africa
• local vs non-local

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers as well as Marc Jeers and Jonathan Makuwira for their useful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

Notes

1 O’Dwyer and Unerman, “The Paradox of Greater NGO Accountability.”

2 Notable exceptions include: Bebbington, “Donor–NGO Relations and Representations of Livelihood in Nongovernmental Aid Chains”; Fruttero and Gauri, “The Strategic Choices of NGOs”; Khan, “Accountability of NGOs in Bangladesh A Critical Overview”; Igoe, “Scaling up Civil Society.”

3 Graham, “Toward a Conceptual Expansion of Ownership and Post-2015 Global Development Policy”; Aid effectiveness is concerned with improving the quality of aid and its impact on development; see OECD/DAC, “The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action.”

4 Arensman et al., “Does Local Ownership Bring about Effectiveness?”

5 Habib and Taylor, “South Africa. Anti-Apartheid NGOs in Transition.”

6 Pallas and Guidero, “Reforming NGO Accountability”; Berghmans et al., “What Is Negotiated in Negotiated Accountability?”; O’Dwyer and Boomsma, “The Co-Construction of NGO Accountability.”

7 Bovens, “Two Concepts of Accountability: Accountability as a Virtue and as a Mechanism,” 946.

8 Berghmans et al., “What Is Negotiated in Negotiated Accountability?”; Bovens, “Two Concepts of Accountability: Accountability as a Virtue and as a Mechanism.”

9 Najam, “NGO Accountability.”

10 Bovens, “Two Concepts of Accountability: Accountability as a Virtue and as a Mechanism.”

11 Najam, “NGO Accountability.”

12 Christensen and Ebrahim, “How Does Accountability Affect Mission?”

13 Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice”; Murtaza, “Putting the Lasts First.”

14 Ebrahim, “Placing the Normative Logics of Accountability in ‘Thick’ Perspective.”

15 Brown and Moore, “Accountability, Strategy, and International Nongovernmental Organizations”; Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice”; Christensen and Ebrahim, “How Does Accountability Affect Mission?”

16 Fowler, “NGO Futures”; Lang, NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere; Mohan, “The Disappointments of Civil Society.”

17 AbouAssi, “Hands in the Pockets of Mercurial Donors”; Christensen and Ebrahim, “How Does Accountability Affect Mission?”

18 Najam, “NGO Accountability.”

19 Gray et al., “NGOs, Civil Society and Accountability.”

20 Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice.”

21 Jordan and van Tuijl, NGO Accountability.

22 Lewis and Madon, “Information Systems and Nongovernmental Development Organizations.”

23 Ebrahim, “Information Struggles.”

24 Schmitz et al., “Accountability of Transnational NGOs.”

25 Mir and Bala, “NGO Accountability in Bangladesh.”

26 Agyemang et al., NGO Accountability and Aid Delivery; Edwards and Fowler, The Earthscan Reader on NGO Management; Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “Enhancing the Role of Accountability in Promoting the Rights of Beneficiaries of Development NGOs.”

27 Boomsma and O’Dwyer, “The Nature of NGO Accountability: Conceptions, Motives, Forms and Mechanisms.”

28 Mercelis et al., “Beneficiary Participation in Non-Governmental Development Organisations”; Wellens and Jegers, “Beneficiaries’ Participation in Development Organizations through Local Partners”; Wellens and Jegers, “Beneficiary Participation as an Instrument of Downward Accountability.”

29 Assad and Goddard, “Stakeholder Salience and Accounting Practices in Tanzanian NGOs”; Bawole and Langnel, “Downward Accountability of NGOs in Community Project Planning in Ghana”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “The Paradox of Greater NGO Accountability”; Walsh, “Obstacles to NGOs’ Accountability to Intended Beneficiaries”; Wellens and Jegers, “Beneficiaries’ Participation in Development Organizations through Local Partners.”

30 Jacobs and Wilford, “Listen First: A Pilot System.”

31 Unerman and O’Dwyer, “On James Bond and the Importance of NGO Accountability.”

32 Schmitz et al., “Accountability of Transnational NGOs.”

33 Jacobs and Wilford, “Listen First: A Pilot System.”

34 Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment.”

35 Burger and Owens, “Receive Grants or Perish?”

36 Agyemang et al., NGO Accountability and Aid Delivery; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “The Paradox of Greater NGO Accountability.”

37 Burger and Seabe, “NGO Accountability in Africa.”

38 O’Dwyer and Unerman, “The Paradox of Greater NGO Accountability.”

39 AbouAssi and Trent, “NGO Accountability from an NGO Perspective.”

40 Brett, “Participation and Accountability in Development Management.”

41 Ellerman, “Helping Self-Help”; Jacobs and Wilford, “Listen First: A Pilot System”; Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment”; Mercelis et al., “Beneficiary Participation in Non-Governmental Development Organisations”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “From Functional to Social Accountability.”

42 Mercelis et al., “Beneficiary Participation in Non-Governmental Development Organisations.”

43 Wellens and Jegers, “Beneficiaries’ Participation in Development Organizations through Local Partners”; Murtaza, “Putting the Lasts First”; Najam, “NGO Accountability”; see also Cooke and Kothari, Participation, for a critique of participatory approaches in development.

44 Banks et al., “NGOs, States, and Donors Revisited”; Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “Enhancing the Role of Accountability in Promoting the Rights of Beneficiaries of Development NGOs.”

45 Jacobs and Wilford, “Listen First: Practical Ways.”

46 Lloyd, “The Role of NGO Self-Regulation in Increasing Stakeholder Accountability.”

47 O’Dwyer and Unerman, “From Functional to Social Accountability”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “Enhancing the Role of Accountability in Promoting the Rights of Beneficiaries of Development NGOs.”

48 Najam, “NGO Accountability.”

49 Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice,” 814.

50 Boomsma and O’Dwyer, “The Nature of NGO Accountability: Conceptions, Motives, Forms and Mechanisms.”

51 Smillie, The Alms Bazaar.

52 Foreman and Money, “Internal Marketing”; Piercy and Morgan, “Internal Marketing – The Missing Half of the Marketing Programme”; Rafiq and Ahmed, “Advances in the Internal Marketing Concept.”

53 Sargeant, Marketing Management for Nonprofit Organizations.

54 Sargeant et al., “Operationalizing the Marketing Concept in the Nonprofit Sector.”

55 Boomsma and O’Dwyer, “The Nature of NGO Accountability: Conceptions, Motives, Forms and Mechanisms,” 171.

56 Ibid.

57 Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment.”

58 AbouAssi, “Hands in the Pockets of Mercurial Donors.”

59 AbouAssi and Trent, “NGO Accountability from an NGO Perspective.”

60 Brown and Moore, “Accountability, Strategy, and International Nongovernmental Organizations.”

61 Schmitz et al., “Accountability of Transnational NGOs.”

62 Unerman and O’Dwyer, “On James Bond and the Importance of NGO Accountability”; Ebrahim, “Accountability Myopia.”

63 Newell and Bellour, “Mapping Accountability.”

64 Burger and Owens, “Promoting Transparency in the NGO Sector.”

65 Fabbris, “Measurement Scales for Scoring or Ranking Sets of Interrelated Items.”

66 Mccarty and Shrum, “The Measurement of Personal Values in Survey Research.”

67 Zellner, “An Efficient Method of Estimating Seemingly Unrelated Regressions and Tests for Aggregation Bias.”

68 Continuous variables are represented by the centre of their class. For the last class, the lower bound was used. For example, for NGOs 50 years or older, 50 was chosen. The results are robust to the different specifications tested for the last class. We are therefore confident that choosing the lower band of the last class rather than a higher number does not affect the results.

69 Jacobs and Wilford, “Listen First: A Pilot System.”

70 Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment.”

71 Burger and Owens, “Receive Grants or Perish?”; Unerman and O’Dwyer, “Theorising Accountability for NGO Advocacy.”

72 Bendell, Debating NGO Accountability.

73 Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice.”

74 Ibid.

75 Assad and Goddard, “Stakeholder Salience and Accounting Practices in Tanzanian NGOs”; Ebrahim, “Accountability in Practice”; Gugerty, “The Emergence of Nonprofit Self-Regulation in Africa”; Jordan and van Tuijl, NGO Accountability; Kilby, “Accountability for Empowerment.”

76 Agyemang et al., NGO Accountability and Aid Delivery; Ebrahim, “Accountability Myopia”; O’Dwyer and Unerman, “From Functional to Social Accountability.”

77 Bendell, Debating NGO Accountability.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Winston Hyman van Zyl

Winston Hyman van Zyl, prior to completing his masters in Development Studies, founded and played a managerial director role in TransCape NPO since 2004. This NGO is active in the deep rural areas of the Eastern Cape in South Africa, the previous Transkei homeland. TransCape has been assisting the local Xhosa people living in the area with addressing development challenges such as lacking education opportunities, health services and income opportunities. Hyman served on TransCape’s board during this time and is currently the chairperson of the Wild Coast NGO Forum. He was partner founder and manager of a small tourism business in the same area. He is currently developing an NGO offering other NGOs consultancy services regarding information system management and information and communication technology.

Frederik Claeyé

Frederik Claeyé is Associate Professor at Lille Catholic University. He obtained his PhD from Middlesex University Business School (London). He holds a Chair in Enterprise and social impact business and is visiting professor at Nelson Mandela University (South Africa). He is member of Lille-Economie-Management (LEM UMR CNRS 9221). His research agenda focuses on the role of organisations in international development and aid in developing nations. His current interests include management in Africa, NGO management, social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial action at the base of the pyramid (BoP).

Véronique Flambard

Véronique Flambard is a senior lecturer at Lille Catholic University and research associate at LEM (UMR 9221). She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Quebec at Montreal. This research was conducted when she was still responsible for the Human Capital, Accountability and Creative Economy Chair. She would like to thank Fondation de la Catho de Lille and BNP for supporting research at Faculty of Management, Economics and Sciences at Lille Catholic University.