Accountability as a practice: a case study of a nongovernmental development programme in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

The number of empirical studies focusing on NGO accountability practices remains limited. This paper responds to this gap. It presents the accountability practices identified in an empirical study of a nongovernmental development programme in Tanzania. Drawing on data collected through field work and analysed through coding, visualisations, and detailed descriptions, this study observed how practices constituting this development programme were held together by accountability practices. This paper analyses these accountability practices: (a) prescribing–reporting–verifying, (b) measuring, (c) contracting, and (d) capacity building, learning, and acting together. It demonstrates how these accountability practices facilitate the coordination of this development programme.

KEYWORDS:

• NGO
• local NGO
• international NGO
• governance
• accountability
• practice theory
• ethnography

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the staff members of GLOBE Tanzania and its collaborating local NGOs for their valuable time, discussions, and openness. In addition, we would like to thank Joke Vandenabeele and Maarten Simons who supervised this research project and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For reasons of anonymity, all references to the organisation have been anonymised and codenamed.

2 Materials constitutive of this accountability practice are: the bodies of local NGO staff, of the GLOBE Tanzania monitoring and evaluation officer, of the GLOBE Tanzania programme coordinator, of the GLOBE Tanzania finance team, tools and standards required by the donor, GLOBE Tanzania organisational policies, procedures and tools, reports, the general programme plan, the general programme budget, money, financial reports, narrative reports, narrative plans, and the saving and crediting training manual. Competences shaping this practice are: writing skills, reporting skills, accounting skills, knowledge of English, insight in policies and regulations, procedural quality, planning skills, designing skills, monitoring skills, and the capacity to adapt and adjust. Meanings are: goal-orientedness, control, compliance, accountability, compliance, control, dependency, systematicness, objectivity.

3 Materials in this circuit are: monitoring tools (e.g. a registration tool, a quality check list, the management information system tool), the internet-based data management system, the bodies of the GLOBE Tanzania monitoring and evaluation officer, and the bodies of the local NGO’s M&E staff. Competences are: data collection skills, data interpretation skills, data management skills, measurement skills, insight in qualitative and quantitative measurement methods, visualisation skills, and research skills. Constitutive meanings are objectivity, systematicity, scientificness, knowledge creation, evidence informed decision making, robust evidence, goal-orientedness, ongoing learning, effectiveness, efficiency, and quality.

4 The materials that explicitly suggest “contracting” are: the contract and its annexes, the bodies of the signatories to the contract as well as money. These materials are complemented with competences such as knowledge of the contract and its annexes, insight in terms and conditions of the contract, negotiation skills, monitoring skills, and knowledge of English. Relevant meanings are collaboration, compliance, control, dependence and independence, accountability.

5 The relevant elements that shape and support this circuit are the following. Qua materials, there are nonhuman materials such as the voluntary saving and crediting manual; the hotel and office where different actors regularly meet to discuss, to be trained, and to make decisions together; and the learning plan. Human materials are: the community members, local leaders, the GLOBE Tanzania programme coordinator, staff of the local NGO, government representatives, the GLOBE Tanzania monitoring and evaluation officer, and other GLOBE Tanzania staff members. The GLOBE knowledge sharing and learning manager can also play an important role as he is involved in collecting lessons learnt and communicating them to others. Competences that are part of “acting together, learning and capacity building” are the capacity to learn, the capacity to develop and maintain good relationships, knowledge of the voluntary saving and crediting manual and methodology, the capacity to be trained, capacity building skills, social and communicative skills, the capacity to form a group, facilitation skills, knowledge of Swahili (and of English), team work skills, collaboration skills, as well as awareness of power relationships. Meanings that shape this circuit are: goal-orientedness, dealing with complexity, accompaniment and guidance, ongoing learning, empowerment, collaboration, connectedness, learning, and team work.

6 “When the old pattern – the old context – is particularly powerful, no significant change is possible, because the organization ends up trying to do new things in old ways” (Ramalingam et al. 2008, 40).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mieke Berghmans

Mieke Berghmans teaches at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. She has several years of practical experience in nongovernmental development work, having worked in INGOs as a programme coordinator, consultant, and field worker. In 2018 she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on accountability in INGOs.