Quality and accountability
Through our work with members, BOND has developed the position that NGOs deliver quality work- i.e progressive social change- when they engage in internal and external relationships in ways that foster ongoing accountability to their intended beneficiaries.
Quality is driven by the extent to which beneficiaries are the primary actors in these processes of analysis, response and evaluation.
This approach to quality development work has direct implications for the management and oversight of NGO practice.
For NGOs and donors to be able to prioritise relationships with beneficiaries they need to work with organisational systems, tools and processes that allow them to do so. This may be challenging to the NGO sector, requiring re-consideration of exisiting systems and the development of new ways of working.
Within the evolving set of stakeholder relations in the development sector, we can see three drivers of debate about quality in the sector:
a) Values: These are the bottom line for NGOs and are based on the drive to empower poor and excluded people to improve their lives;
b) Stakeholder engagement: NGOs' practice has often been driven by engagement with different stakeholders, and in particular their contrasting accountability demands;
c) External pressure: Usually in the form of adverse publicity in the media or requirements of donors, external pressure has catalysed responses by NGOs, including self-regulation.
BOND is committed to supporting its members on issues of quality and accountability in development work and currently does so through the following ways:
- BOND Working Group on Quality aims to foster learning and new practice on organisational tools and frameworks that prioritise relationships with beneficiaries.
- Organisational Learning Group is a place for exchange, debate and analysis of learning issues that aims for the sector to become more effective by learning from its own and other's experiences.
- Action Learning Sets link to ALS page in Learning and Training with accountability focus.
- Training in the fields of monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, participatory practices, programme management and accountability mechanisms.
- Representing the UK position on NGOs' effectiveness internationally.
- Resources on quality and accountability initiatives in the sector.
- Consultating with UK NGOs, read BOND's survey on Civil Society Organisations' Effectiveness for more information.
