Exploring de-facto accountability regimes in Muslim NGOs

Abstract

This paper aims to deepen and advance our understanding of the de-facto accountability processes and practices within Muslim non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We employ a three-fold accountability framework of felt, imposed and adaptive accountability, supported by insight from the Islamic perspective to elucidate our empirical findings. We adopt this framework because it enables us to localise the notions of accountability, allowing a more complete understanding of the de-facto nature of Muslim NGO accountability to emerge within the context of religious ideals and between accountabilities that are externally imposed and those that are internally generated.

Keywords:

• Muslim NGOs
• De-facto
• Adaptive
• Imposed
• Felt
• Accountability

Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful for the helpful comments of the editor Professor Carol Tilt and the two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1 The UK is officially a Christian country, although the last Census in 2011 suggested an increase in the number of respondents who viewed themselves as having no religious affiliation, compared to 2001.

2 We are grateful to one of our reviewers for elaborating on this point.

3 For example, the Fundraising Standards Board, Disasters Emergency Committee, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership, and the Sphere Standards.

4 See, for example ‘rambling about charity overheads’: http://uncultured.com/2010/09/26/rambling-about-charity-overhead/.

5 Cultural identity here refers to the ethnic and/or national background, for example, British individuals of South Asian, African and/or Middle Eastern descent.

6 There are currently an estimated 2.7 million Muslims in the UK, just less than 5% of the total population of the UK, with 47% of these people born in the UK. Of these Muslims, 68% consider themselves to be Asian (MCB, 2015), reflecting the large economic migration wave of the 1950s and 1960s from the South Asian subcontinent.

7 The literature refers to religious organisations rather than religious NGOs as the focus of this literature being predominantly places of worship, such as churches, rather than wider non-profit organisations.

8 In larger charities, the role of the executive committee is similar to that of the board of directors in corporations, with senior managers working beneath them. Trustees play a role similar to non-executive directors, but they are much more proactive and are responsible for advising directors about strategic directions with the responsibility lying with the directors regarding how the strategies are implemented. This role means that trustees are also very difficult to interview because they are often away in places where the majority of the organisation’s activities are undertaken.

9 See Footnote 4.

10 See, for example: ‘Government donation to Muslim Charities Forum denounced as "madness"’ (The Telegraph, 23 Sep 2014); ‘Islamic charities in UK fear they are being unfairly targeted over extremism’ (The Guardian, 22 July 2015); ‘Fear of Muslims tearing British society apart’ (The Telegraph, 5 Oct 2014).