Defining standards for doing good: Examining NGO accountability

1
Defining standards for doing good Examining NGO
accountability

• Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre
• Department of Political Science
• George Washington University

2
Overall aims and research questions

• Examine how perceptions of NGO performance
  evolved in the humanitarian sector
  
• Interested in accountability for what
• Investigate three failures in international
  response Biafra, Rwanda, Kosovo, to examine how
  these perceptions changed

3
Overall aims and research questions

• Investigate how perceptions of NGO performance
  shaped the development of transnational
  self-regulatory accountability institutions such
  as Sphere, HAP-I and the Quality Project
• Institutions vary in how they approach
  accountability
  
• Contestation regarding standards for humanitarian
  action

4
Overall aims and research questions

• Aim to clarify the benchmarks and standards used
  to assess NGO performance
  
• Aim to tease out what distinguishes the NGO
  sector from other sectors
  
• Aim to detail the dynamics of NGO governance

5
Presentation of findings to date

• Data point 1 The rise of an accountability and
  evaluation culture shaped NGOs and others
  perceptions about NGO performance.
  
• 24 year period from 1969-1993 only 17
  accountability institutions founded in
  humanitarian sector
  
• 13 year post-Rwanda period 59 accountability
  institutions founded
  
• Rwanda is the watershed event that highlights
  shifts in expectations of NGOs

6
Presentation of findings to date

• Linked to changes in standards for humanitarian
  NGOs
  
• Shift from view of humanitarian aid as charity to
  more complex notions of aid with a regard for
  long-term impacts
  
• Discussions of the international responses to
  Rwanda and Kosovo highlight this shift

7
Presentation of findings to date

• Data point 2 NGO self-perceptions about their
  performance during the Rwanda crisis sparked
  increased attention to accountability

8
Presentation of findings to date

• NGO self-assessments
• Led to great soul-searching, absolutely gripping
  pain for years to try to work out what we can do
  collectively as international organizations to
  make sure that the failures did not happen
  again.
• Guilt was a big factorNGOs took on all of that
  guilt, guilt as members of the humanitarian
  community or the Westquality of our response
  could have been better but we did respond and
  stayed.

9
Presentation of findings to date

• Data point 3 Of all the possible responses to
  failures, accountability emerges as the solution
  to problems in the NGO sector
  
• NGOs pursue accountability institutions
  collectively for the first time
  
• NGOs focus on issues of accountability over other
  issues such as capacity building, coordination
  and access
  

10
Presentation of findings to date

• Data point 4 Debates about accountability and
  standards for humanitarian action reflect
  conflicting notions of the role of NGOs as
  service providers versus moral leaders in
  international society

11
Implications and Next Steps

• Provide further understanding of the role of NGOs
  as moral leaders.
  
• Clarify accountability for whatthis will allow
  NGOs to further improve the quality of
  humanitarian assistance.
  
• Streamline accountability programs
• Deduce appropriate benchmarks for performance

12
Implications and Next Steps

• Inform the on-going design of accountability
  institutions
  
• Clarify core concepts and principles of
  humanitarian action
  
• Increase dialogue among competing groups

13
Implications and Next Steps

• Next steps
• Potential follow-up presentation at the next
  Roundtable or InterAction annual meeting
  
• Explaining the emergence of accountability clubs
  in the humanitarian sector the role of context
  and shifting standards. In Nonprofit
  Accountability Clubs Voluntary Regulation of
  Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Organizations. Mary
  Kay Gugerty Aseem Prakash (eds.) Cambridge
  University Press, forthcoming.