Transcript The Global Accountability Project Good Governance and Accountability in the Nonprofit Sector

Good Governance and Accountability
in the Nonprofit Sector
The Global Accountability Project
Monica Blagescu
2 December 2004
Balancing levels of accountability
Government Agencies
The public at large
International humanitarian NGO
Trade-unions
Community alliance
Mission
Board/Council
Various departments
Local CSO (partner)
Local associations
Affected populations
Forces shaping the debate
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Global decision making increasing
Mediated representation
National Governments
 The nonprofit sector, CSOs
Independent citizen action (the “global associational
revolution”)
Visible social justice movements at local, national,
regional and global level
Unprecedented interconnectedness, capacity to
exchange information and communicate
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The GAP Model
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Accountability: power relations between various
actors which interact or affect each other
Stakeholders at the forefront of the debate: internal
and external
Accountability at policy and project levels
Accountability: inwards, upwards, downwards
An accountable organisations takes active and
proactive steps to address the needs of its internal
and external stakeholders and perform according to
its mission.
Who is accountable to whom and for what ?
The Accountability Framework:
basic, widely applicable elements
Complaints and
redress
Evaluation
Transparency
Participation
The Accountability Framework
• Self-assessment and training tool
• Peer assessment tool
• Tool for beneficiaries
The Global Accountability Index
• specific areas for improvement within the
accountability of the assessed organisations
• best and worst accountability practices
• a global perspective on accountability trends
and challenges
Key Challenges
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Challenges
• Rhetoric versus practice
• Lack of power and political will to lack of resources
• Context-driven practices
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Making the normative case
• Positive and negative effects
• Linkages between accountability and performance
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“Embeddedness” at different levels
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Capturing lessons learnt
• Diversity of contexts and diversity of nonprofit sector –
is there a one size fits all conceptual framework?
• The accountability debate of nonprofit organisations
that operate in politically sensitive countries
• Incentives versus “punishment” for non-compliance
• Building a culture of organisational learning
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