Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Seeking “conversations for accountability”: Mediating the impact of non-
governmental organization (NGO) upward accountability processes
Gloria Agyemang, Brendan O’Dwyer, Jeffrey Unerman, Mariama Awumbila,
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AAAJ
30,5 Seeking “conversations
for accountability”
Mediating the impact of non-governmental
982 organization (NGO) upward
accountability processes
Gloria Agyemang
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
Brendan O’Dwyer
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jeffrey Unerman
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK, and
Mariama Awumbila
Department of Geography, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how upward accountability processes can be enabling in,
or constraining to, the effective deployment of development aid funding.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper derives its primary insights from in-depth interviews and
focus groups with non-governmental organization (NGO) fieldworkers working and delivering development
aid in Northern Ghana. It analyses inductively the perspectives of fieldworkers to explain their experiences of
upward accountability.
Findings – The fieldworkers’ perception of upward accountability was mainly one of external control,
in response to which they enacted a skilful form of compliance accountability. This perception of control
failed to stifle their initiative and intrinsic commitment to beneficiaries. The fieldworkers craved
“conversations for accountability”, in which they had a voice in the development of upward accountability
metrics, thereby enabling them to fulfil their sense of felt responsibility to beneficiaries. While aspects of
“conversations for accountability” were emerging in fieldworker-funder interactions, it was unclear to what
extent funders were committed to further advancing them. Overall, the analysis unveils how felt
responsibility mediates for, and partly diminishes, the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness of
upward accountability processes informed by a focus on control.
Originality/value – The authors examine the potential of upward accountability processes using in-depth
analyses of the actual experiences of those involved in delivering NGO services at the grassroots level.
The authors contribute to emerging work in this vein by enriching the authors’ understanding of local
constituencies’ experiences of accountability processes more generally, especially the impact these
mechanisms have on NGO operational activities. The authors also unveil the mediating role fieldworkers’
“felt responsibility” to beneficiaries’ plays in moderating the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness
of upward accountability processes.
Keywords Performance measurement, Non-governmental organizations, Felt accountability,
NGO accountability, Felt responsibility, Upward accountability
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the development aid sector typically
receive funding from a number of governmental and private donors and channel this into
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal providing welfare and other aid services to disadvantaged communities in developing
Vol. 30 No. 5, 2017
pp. 982-1007 countries (Ferguson et al., 2010; O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2010). The scale and potential
© Emerald Publishing Limited impact of this aid is immense. Taking just Official Development Assistance (aid provided by
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/AAAJ-02-2015-1969 governments and other private agencies to support the economic, environmental, social and
Downloaded by University of Ghana At 04:33 17 December 2018 (PT)
political development of developing countries), in 2013, net Official Development Assistance Seeking
from governments of the 28 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic “conversations
Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’) Development Assistance Committee came to for
US$134.8 billion[1] (OECD, 2014). It is widely claimed that the effective deployment of this aid,
often via NGOs, can dramatically alter the life experiences of hundreds of millions of the accountability”
poorest inhabitants in developing countries (Chen and Ravallion, 2008; United Nations, 2011).
Accountability mechanisms and processes are seen as essential to both assessing and 983
enhancing the effectiveness with which this aid funding is spent (Ebrahim 2005; KPMG,
2010). Upward accountability mechanisms involve reporting on NGO actions and outcomes
to providers of funds, and usually follow processes and formats prescribed by NGO funders
(O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2008; Ebrahim, 2003, 2009). Many large NGO funders have
recognized that more effective deployment of their aid funding requires their upward
accountability mechanisms to be flexible enough to allow communication of unexpected
insights from the grassroots levels (where the aid is delivered) and a two-way flow of
information. These funders have made commitments to ensuring that the upward
accountability procedures they require funded NGOs to follow will enable active
engagement with fieldworkers and beneficiaries.
Within this context, the aim of this paper is to ascertain how upward accountability
processes can be enabling in, or constraining to, the effective deployment of development
aid funding. We approach this question from the perspective of the experiences of
grassroots fieldworkers in interacting with upward accountability mechanisms in varying
situations, and in seeking to adapt to these processes in a manner that will enable them to
deliver the most effective services to the communities they serve.
More specifically, to address this aim we present and analyze the results of a field study
conducted among 30 non-governmental development organization (NGDO) fieldworkers
working and delivering development aid within impoverished communities in Northern
Ghana, West Africa. These fieldworkers are the key individuals involved in deploying and
assessing the use of development aid at local community/grassroots level (Awio et al., 2011).
The data analysis focuses on the experiences of the fieldworkers regarding the upward
accountability processes they use to communicate their performance to funders and the
impact these experiences have on their work with NGO beneficiaries. We focus in particular
on the fieldworkers’ experiences of funders’ upward performance reporting requirements,
and the perceived impact compliance with these requirements has on the on-the-ground
effectiveness of NGO development interventions.
The paper contributes to the literature by extending and developing prior research
investigating NGO upward accountability processes. Prior research has questioned the
ability of upward accountability processes to enable more effective as opposed to efficient
spending of aid funding (Everett and Friesen, 2010; O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2007, 2008;
Rahaman et al., 2010). It is often claimed that upward accountability operates in an overly
constraining manner thereby rendering assessments of and improvements in, aid
effectiveness more problematic (Awio et al., 2011; Ebrahim, 2009; Rahaman et al., 2010).
However, researchers have only recently commenced examining the potential of upward
accountability processes using in-depth analyses of the actual experiences of those involved
in delivering NGO services at the grassroots level – where the degree of adaptation of NGO
provision to local contexts is experienced in practice, and where much of the knowledge for
upward accountability processes is generated (see, Awio et al., 2011; Dixon et al., 2006).
We contribute to this emerging work by deepening our understanding of local
constituencies’ experiences of accountability processes more generally, in particular the
impact these mechanisms have on their operational activities.
The findings of this study unveil continuing tensions between funders’ desires
for global control and learning, and the need for local flexibility by fieldworkers
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AAAJ (Hall, 2014; Rahaman et al., 2010). Fieldworkers were frustrated by the perceived limited
30,5 reciprocity in information sharing between funders and NGDOs within upward
accountability mechanisms. They craved what Fry (1995) terms “conversations for
accountability” where they were offered a voice in co-constructing and evaluating
performance metrics with funders that could align funder aims with both their
“felt responsibility” to serve beneficiaries, and their on-the-ground experiences. While the
984 upward accountability processes were often experienced as controlling, the expectation
from a policy and academic literature perspective that this could stifle individual
fieldworker initiative was not borne out by our analysis. Rather, the fieldworkers were
stimulated by their strong sense of felt responsibility towards beneficiaries (Ebrahim, 2003;
Fry, 1995; O’Dwyer and Boomsma, 2015), and skillfully worked with and around the formal
upward accountability processes in order to adapt to local contingencies while complying
with the funder accountability requirements. In vocational-type roles, such as those often
undertaken by NGDO fieldworkers, individuals may feel more intrinsically responsible for
their actions and actively seek to find ways of working around accountability processes that
seem misguided. Our analysis suggests that a sense of felt responsibility towards
beneficiaries may mediate for, and even diminish the perceived negative impacts of
mandatory upward accountability processes on aid effectiveness.
Our analysis also uncovers how fieldworkers are highly pragmatic in the manner in which
they work around upward accountability requirements. Because the discipline of reporting
against pre-determined measures cannot be avoided, as funders have the power to dictate
activities, fieldworkers constantly seek to devise local solutions to absorb the challenges created
by funder reporting requirements. In effect, the fieldworkers are shown to possess a certain level
of agency in that they also have power, in certain circumstances, to create workable solutions in
subtle ways to manage their performance. Paradoxically, these solutions often draw upon the
nascent enabling characteristics of upward accountability processes. Coupling a more enabling
upward accountability with the felt responsibility of fieldworkers within “conversations for
accountability” was widely viewed as crucial to further enhancing the effectiveness of aid
delivery. Some funders were beginning to tentatively embrace aspects of “conversations for
accountability” through their apparent willingness to engage in forms of “committed listening”
to fieldworkers during performance evaluation processes. While fieldworkers reflected
positively on this development, these interactions remained a long way from fulfilling the
idealized “conversations for accountability” they aspired to.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, we discuss the funding of
NGDO activities and the corresponding upward accountability processes that this entails,
especially with respect to external performance assessment. Within this section we consider
conceptually how the academic literature has analyzed the possible responses made to
upward accountability processes as fieldworkers experience these processes. Second,
we outline the research method and provide the contextual background for the study.
Third, we present the case analysis. The final section summarizes and discusses the case
analysis and considers the wider implications of the study’s findings.
Upward accountability processes and NGDO performance assessment
NGDOs and their relationships with funders
NGDOs typically receive aid funding from different sources and use this to provide welfare
and other aid services to impoverished communities in developing countries. Funders[2]
include donor agencies such as global and private foundations that often provide grants for
which NGDOs have to apply. Funding also derives from bilateral and multilateral agencies
where two or more countries finance development aid activities together. A typical example
of a bilateral agency funding NGDO is the Danish International Development Cooperation
(DANIDA) which spent 15 billion Danish Krone (US$2.98 billion) on development assistance
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in 2011 (DANIDA website, accessed 10 November 2014)[3]. Often, local community-based Seeking
NGDOs receive this funding once it has been channelled through large International NGOs “conversations
(INGOs). These INGOs commonly have intermediate-level country offices and managers in for
developing countries to distribute the aid funding to grassroots NGDOs (some of which will
be part of an INGO, some of which will be independent from an INGO). The key individuals accountability”
involved in deploying and assessing the use of this funding at the community/grassroots
level are NGDO fieldworkers, the focus of this study. 985
Given the large sums of money allocated to development aid, there is significant interest
among funders in assessing the extent to which this aid has been efficiently and effectively
deployed, especially as funders are also accountable to their donors and taxpayers. There is
ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of development funding in order to be
accountable to stakeholders and NGDO accountability reporting for the use of aid resources
forms an important part of this evaluation of use of resources by funders. This reporting,
through which NGDO recipients of funding report back to funders about their use of funds
represents an upward accountability process (Ebrahim, 2002, 2003, 2005; O’Dwyer and
Unerman, 2007). As the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
states in its evaluation manual:
In general terms, what an evaluation for accountability seeks to find out is whether the
organizations that are responsible for the evaluated intervention have done as good a job as
possible under the circumstances. This means trying to find out if, and to what extent, the
intervention has achieved the results that it was intended to achieve or that it could reasonably
have been expected to achieve (Molund and Schill, 2007, p. 14).
One of the key purposes of upward accountability processes, from the perspective of
funders, is to evaluate whether the aid interventions have achieved pre-specified targets.
Upward accountability allows for the external oversight and control in order to rationalize
performance (Najam, 1996; O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2008; Roberts, 1991). The emphasis on
disclosure and oversight suggests that upward accountability systems are often described
as coercive or punitive (Ebrahim, 2005, 2009; Ebrahim and Rangan, 2010; Ferguson et al.,
2010; Hall, 2014; Najam, 1996; Rahaman et al., 2010). An overt focus on control and
justification discourages the sharing of key contextual information regarding factors that
might enable more informed assessments of the long-term effectiveness of the nature and
focus of aid delivery. Information which could lead to a potential re-orientation of funders’
focus and objectives is not shared (Ebrahim, 2005; Ferguson et al., 2010).
Funders, however, also seek to learn about the contextual issues that impact on the
achievement of targets (Hall, 2014). For example, DANIDA (2006) explicitly states that a key
goal of monitoring and evaluation is for internal learning at all levels, programme level, and
project level, organizational level and country level (DANIDA, 2006, p. 12). This suggests the
need for an upward accountability process that will encourage local NGDOs to develop and
share solutions to problems and improvements (Free, 2007, p. 923). Fieldworker suggestions
for improvements to indicators, work processes and the focus of their work are valued by
funders as part of a two-way dialogue aimed at continually improving the impact of
development interventions and the ability of the system to support these improvements.
Ebrahim (2009) refers to such accountability systems as adaptive accountability systems.
An example of this is the UK Department for International Development (DFID) explaining
what evaluation involves: using evaluation to discover what is working in development and
what is not, identifying better ways of doing things, allowing for corrections to programmes
to improve effectiveness and ensuring that lessons are learned (DFID, 2005). More recently,
several funders, particularly large bilateral development agencies such as DANIDA, DFID
and SIDA have started to implement such upward accountability processes that are
primarily underpinned by this learning evaluation logic (see Hall, 2014).
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AAAJ Prior work suggests that fieldworkers are likely to react positively to formal upward
30,5 accountability requirements if they feel they enable them to perform their work better
(Elbers and Arts, 2011; Ebrahim, 2002). Negative perceptions are deemed likely when the
systems are perceived as an attempt by funders to control their effort (see Jordan and Messner,
2012, p. 546; Jørgensen and Messner, 2009; O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2008). Research has
shown that accountability has an external control dimension as well as an internal response
986 dimension (Ebrahim, 2003, 2009; Fry, 1995; Kearns, 1994; O’Dwyer and Boomsma, 2015;
Najam, 1996). The external control dimension reflects the organization (i.e. the local NGDO)
being “held responsible for actions” by funders, whilst the internal dimension relies on the
accountees “taking responsibility” for their actions. How upward accountability processes
impact upon the work of NGDO fieldworkers is important because of the need to ensure that the
holding to account, i.e. the control elements, are undertaken in a manner that does not jeopardize
fieldworkers taking responsibility for performance. In this paper we seek to gain a better
understanding of fieldworkers’ experiences of upward accountability in their relationship with
funders. In particular we concentrate on ways in which they take responsibility, working within
the external controls associated with upward accountability processes.
NGDO accountability: external controls and internal responses
Whilst the broad notion of external accountability has been widely studied, there is less
work that analyses the internal organizational responses to external accountability
pressures. Several studies explain the multiple and diverse ways in which accountability is
construed and understood by managers and officers (Fry, 1995; Kearns, 1994; Mulgan, 2000;
Roberts, 1991; Sinclair, 1995). For example, Sinclair (1995) considers how Chief Executive
Officers in the Australian public sector established their accountability to themselves and
others. She drew on the multiple ways in which the concept is defined and understood in
order to demonstrate the structures (or forms) of accountability (i.e. the controls, audits) and
the personal discourses of fear, anxiety and vulnerability associated with accountability.
Kearns (1994) offers a two-by-two matrix framework for analyzing the accountability of
non-profit organizations that considers the external control dimensions of accountability
and the possible internal responses to these dimensions. The external controls associated
with accountability include the explicit or implicit generation of performance standards by
principals. The responses to these controls by agents may be tactical or strategic. Kearns
identifies four possible responses to implicit and explicit controls within accountability
processes. Compliance accountability represents a reactive, tactical response to external
controls involving completely adhering to the imposition of explicit standards of
performance by an outside agency. Negotiated accountability arises when accountability
standards are implicit and emerge from shifting societal expectations thereby allowing for
some reactive, tactical actions by agents through negotiation with principals regarding the
standards to which they will be held to account. Professional/discretionary accountability
embodies a proactive, strategic internal response to external controls. This form of
accountability involves agents responding in a discretionary manner to both perceived
societal expectations and professional norms, irrespective of immediate threats or sanctions
from the external environment. Kearns (1994) contends that this form of accountability
encompasses the “ethical action” of “doing the right thing even when the right thing is
technically unenforceable” (p. 189). Finally, anticipatory/positioning accountability involves
agents seeking to anticipate the formulation of new standards in order to position
themselves for compliance or even seeking to play a part in constructing the standards they
consider are likely to be enacted.
Compliance accountability is associated with imposed accountability regimes (Ebrahim,
2003, 2009; Edwards and Hulme, 1996; Najam, 1996; O’Dwyer and Boomsma, 2015). NGDO
upward accountability demands may lead to compliance where NGDO fieldworkers
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consider the processes to be mandatory, perhaps because they contain explicit performance Seeking
standards aimed at external control. On the other hand, where the performance standards “conversations
contained within upward accountability requirements are implicit and imprecise, there may for
be opportunities for a negotiated accountability response whereby NGOs engage in dialogue
with funders over the nature of the performance standards they must comply with. accountability”
More strategic responses arise when NGOs, or in our case individual fieldworkers,
have internalized professional standards and some notion of “doing the right thing” even 987
where there is no pressure from the external (funding) environment. Professional/
discretionary accountability may even arouse anticipatory/positioning accountability as
NGOs seek to “play a meaningful proactive role in shaping and defining the standards they
believe will eventually be imposed” (Kearns, 1994, p. 180; O’Dwyer and Boomsma, 2015).
Kearns (1994) provides an analytical frame for considering the reactive and strategic
responses non-profit organizations may make in response to governmental demands in
the context of a developed economy such as the US. Kearns’ (1994) discussions primarily
concentrate on the external/societal control of non-profit organizations. While Kearns
(1994) addresses controls and accountability from an organizational point of view, in his
discussion he refers to what managers do in response to external controls. We recognize
that our empirical context is different and thus not all the elements of Kearns’ (1994)
framework necessarily apply. For example, given the roles of the fieldworkers, they may
be restricted in undertaking aspects of the strategic moves suggested by Kearns (1994).
Despite this, however, key aspects of the framework enable us to examine both the
internal responses and the external controls associated with NGDO accountability in the
context we examine.
We also recognize that the accountability processes examined in this paper occur in a
developing country context with fieldworkers responding to upward accountability
processes derived from external funders based in developed economies. Local NGDOs and
their external funders exist and operate within a power imbalance context and the upward
accountability reporting practices can “entrench the[se] power relations” (Dar, 2014, p. 135;
Najam, 1996; Edwards and Hulme, 1996; Unerman and O’Dwyer, 2006) making negotiation
between local NGDOs and their funders problematic. Complying with upward
accountability requirements is also often seen by NGDOs as necessary for developing
trust with their funders and is often taken to be the key response to upward accountability
requirements (O’Dwyer and Unerman, 2008). Our mobilization of Kearns’ (1994) conceptual
insights enables us to conduct a more nuanced analysis of the range of possible responses.
Conversations for accountability. Fry (1995) shifts the emphasis of accountability as an
external form of control to consideration of how individuals working in organizations
themselves may behave because of an intrinsic concern to be accountable. Employee actions
are deemed to derive from a deep acceptance of responsibility, or a “felt responsibility”
which is intrinsic and subjective and possesses an ethical or value-based dimension
(O’Dwyer and Boomsma, 2015). This contrasts with accountability that is objective, external
and public and represents a form of accountability that employees/agents “experience […]
as meaningful, collaborative and effective” (Fry, 1995, p. 183). To encourage “effective”
performance, Fry (1995) argues that accountability and felt responsibility need to be aligned.
Fry (1995, p. 187) contends that from the agents’ perspectives there are three issues that
shape how accountability is experienced and which influence the extent to which external
accountability requirements and felt responsibilities may be aligned: having a voice (being
able to influence expectations and standards), congruence of intent (the extent to which the
agent sees the requests of the principal as being in the principal’s self-interest or as meeting
the needs of the greater good); and the history of exchange (the fairness and dignity within
the overall accountability process). Fieldworkers, for example, may be provided with a wide
range of contextual information from funders designed to enable them to understand how
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AAAJ their work fits into the bigger picture of a funder’s overall objectives. This would then help
30,5 align how they feel about their responsibilities within accountability processes because they
develop a better understanding of their roles and of how things fit together.
Fry (1995) suggests that this alignment between external accountability and felt
responsibility is more likely where the overall accountability process is constructed
as a form of conversation involving “committed listening” to fieldworkers by funders
988 and NGOs:
Committed listening means listening to the other complain, whine, make excuses, worry, express
doubt and distress without blame, judgement or reproach (Fry, 1995, p. 189).
In the context we study, this involves funders opening up accountability processes by
developing alliances and collaborations with NGO fieldworkers that allow for the
co-construction of measures and reports that are mutually agreed and aligned, as much as
possible, with fieldworkers’ sense of felt responsibility (Fry, 1995, p. 193). These idealized
“conversations for accountability” (Fry, 1995, pp. 189-191) seek to create an “alliance around
accountability” (Fry, 1995, p. 193) (embracing both anticipatory/positioning and negotiated
accountability) that is structured around clarification and articulation of: a request
(from funders) or offer (by fieldworkers) to perform some services, a public promise or
commitment by fieldworkers to perform to a mutually agreed standard, required
interactions to complete the promised work, and recognition and acceptance that the
promise has been satisfactorily fulfilled arising from discussions (between beneficiaries,
fieldworkers and funders). Fry (1995) claims that through these “conversations for
accountability” both principals and agents (funders, NGDOs and their fieldworkers) become
more active and energized.
O’Dwyer and Boomsma (2015) develop Fry’s felt responsibility notion by conceptualizing
“felt accountability” as a voluntary response to missions that are motivated by the ethical
values of individuals working within an organization. They argue that with felt
accountability there is less concern about how funders or principals impose accountability
but rather with how accountability can be used to develop a shared vision within an
organization; a perspective aligned with Kearns’ (1994) notion of professional/discretionary
accountability. Employees/agents feel an intrinsic responsibility to answer to their own
values, mission and culture. O’Dwyer and Boomsma (2015) suggest that felt accountability
prospers when a “conversation for accountability” process occurs, in which: there is less
pressure to meet external accountability demands; employees are given a voice to contribute
towards developing mutually agreed expectations, and evaluations occur in informal ways
and through dialogue.
In sum, there are many accountability forms that NGDO fieldworkers may experience in their
relationships with NGDOs and funders. They may embrace outright reactive compliance with
external funder demands or engage in efforts, when permitted, to co-construct accountability
requirements in collaboration with funders. In certain circumstances, the resulting requirements
may align, to some degree, with the fieldworkers’ felt responsibilities. A “conversations for
accountability” process involving committed listening by funders is offered as an idealized
process through which fieldworkers might best realize this alignment. We mobilize the
conceptual notions introduced above to frame our efforts to understand howNGDO fieldworkers
experience and operate within upward accountability processes.
Research method
The Ghanaian context
This study specifically examines fieldworkers’ experiences of upward accountability
processes in the Northern Ghana context. Ghana is located on the west coast of Africa,
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English is its official language, and its population was estimated at 24.2 million in 2010 Seeking
(Ghana Statistical Service, 2014). In 2010, Ghana received Overseas Development Assistance “conversations
of almost US$1.8 billion from development partners – including Canada, USA, UK, Denmark for
and the International Development Association. There is intense NGO activity in
Northern Ghana, especially in and around the capital city of the region, Tamale, which has accountability”
been labelled “the NGO capital of Ghana” given the large number of INGOs operating from
there (Porter, 2003; Townsend et al., 2004). NGO activity focuses on assorted areas including 989
health, education and agriculture and poverty reduction programmes using micro credit
schemes are prevalent. While poverty levels have fallen considerably in the past decade,
about 30 per cent of Ghanaians live on less than US$1.25 a day. The Northern region, with a
population of almost 2.3 million, is the most impoverished. For example, key development
indicators, such as child under-nutrition and adult literacy rates are lowest in this region,
indicating a significant degree of underdevelopment and poverty (Ghana Statistical Service,
2014). The Northern region provided an ideal field study site to examine issues of NGDO
accountability given the range of development issues requiring attention and the clustering
of a large number of diverse INGOs and local NGDOs in the area. Furthermore, competition
for donor funding in the Northern region is intense, thereby providing an opportunity to
examine in detail NGDO fieldworkers’ experiences of upward accountability in a context
where donor power appears prevalent.
The research process
As the research objectives for this study focussed on understanding NGDO fieldworkers’
experiences of upward accountability processes, an interpretive, qualitative research
approach was adopted as this emphasizes the description and an understanding of the
meanings individuals assign to processes (Cooper and Morgan, 2008; Doz, 2011;
Prasad and Prasad, 2002). The empirical data were collected and initially analyzed
throughout 2007 and 2008.
We conducted in-depth, semi-structured individual and group interviews with
30 community-based NGDO fieldworkers[4]. We specifically focussed on interviewing
fieldworkers in NGDOs addressing health, education, agriculture and general poverty
reduction as these are widely deemed to be the most pressing areas in need of development
in Northern Ghana. A letter was sent to the executive directors of 31 NGDOs operating in
these development areas in the Tamale region inviting them to participate in the study.
In total, 11 NGDOs responded positively. The sample selection was purposive in that the
focus of the study was on NGDOs that worked directly with beneficiaries (Patton, 2002).
Consequently, interview material from one NGDO that did not work directly with
beneficiaries but rather acted as an umbrella NGDO allocating funding was excluded
from our analysis. Overall, the analysis in the paper is derived from 30 fieldworkers in
11 NGDOs (see Table I).
The participant NGDOs had differing structural characteristics. Some were local
branches of INGOs, some were local partners working for and with the local branches of an
INGO, and some were small independent local NGDOs. Despite these differences, all the
NGDOs in the sample received their core funding from either international bilateral agencies
or other international non-governmental sources. Bilateral agency funders of the NGDOs
referred to by participants included United States Agency for International Development,
DANIDA (the Danish government’s international development aid agency), DFID (the UK
government’s DFID), SIDA and Irish Aid (the Irish foreign aid development agency).
Non-governmental funders included Oxfam UK, Oxfam Novib (The Netherlands) and
The United Nations Children’s Fund. Funding for services was generally received by
the managers of the NGOs and disbursed to the fieldworkers for their work activities at the
grassroots level where we conducted our interviews.
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AAAJ
30,5 Number of fieldworkersNGDO code Type of NGDO Core activities interviewed
NGDO A Local small independent Micro credit 3
NGDO B INGDO (local branch) Agriculture 1
NGDO C INGDO (local branch) Mental health 3
NGDO D INGDO (local branch) Child sponsorship 4
990 NGDO E Partner of local INGDO Water and sanitation 3
Table I. NGDO F INGDO (local branch) Child literacy education 4
Non-governmental NGDO G Local small independent Muslim education 3
development NGDO H INGDO (local branch) Support for disabled 3
organizations NGDO I Local small independent Poverty reduction 4
(NGDOs) participating NGDO J Partner of local INGDO Agriculture 1
in the study NGDO K Local small independent Micro credit 1
Semi-structured, in-depth face-to-face interviews were chosen as the core research method as
they offer an effective way of gaining deep meaning and understanding from individuals
working in the field (Patton, 2002). All except one of the 30 fieldworkers interviewed were
Ghanaian nationals (the exception was a Canadian national). Almost half of the fieldworkers
had been educated to at least undergraduate level in Ghanaian universities in areas such as
agriculture, development studies and engineering. Two had been educated to graduate level
in Denmark and the USA. The remainder had completed their senior high school (“senior
secondary school”) education. We found the fieldworkers to be both articulate and highly
analytical. Some have suggested that in Northern Ghana, because fieldworkers are “often
urban educated elites” this may impact on their relationships with beneficiaries as well as
their views of funders and their requirements (Porter, 2003). In our interviews, however, we
found them to be critical, and yet also sociable and hospitable. Furthermore, as we unveil
later in our case narrative, they also showed a deep interest in the welfare of beneficiaries.
In 8 of the 11 NGDOs the fieldworkers attended the interviews in groups (comprising three
or four fieldworkers) and these engagements therefore took the form of group interviews
(Agyemang et al., 2009a; Kitzinger, 2004; Morgan 1996)[5].
The interviews were conducted through the English language in the NGDO offices[6] in
the field by two of the authors, both of whom are Ghanaian nationals. They were assisted by
a male Ghanaian postgraduate student who took detailed notes. Extensive efforts were
made to create a non-threatening, open atmosphere throughout the interviews. For example,
the fieldworkers were reassured of the interviewees’ independence, guaranteed anonymity
and reminded that they would have an opportunity to discuss the preliminary findings of
the study in a subsequent workshop. They reflected carefully on the questioning and
probing and appeared sincere and comfortable when speaking of their individual
experiences. They seemed anxious to assist with the project and carefully led both
interviewers through a large range of documentary evidence both during and after the
formal interviews. This evidence included all of the accountability reports the fieldworkers
regularly completed for funders as well as case studies outlining their key interventions[7].
Extensive probing of fieldworker perspectives occurred throughout the interviews[8].
The interviews lasted from 45 to 90 minutes and were audio-recorded with the advance
permission of the fieldworkers and subsequently transcribed. Detailed notes were also taken
during the interviews by both interviewers.
The field notes and transcriptions were later analyzed to ascertain common themes in
relation to the fieldworkers’ experiences of the upward accountability processes and the
performance assessment requirements therein. As the data from the fieldwork was collected,
it was analyzed inductively, first by the two interviewers and later by all four researchers.
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We continually sought out unexpected and contradictory evidence or opinions in the Seeking
empirical data (Patton, 2002; Silverman, 2010). A set of codes based on the main questions “conversations
and sub-questions contained in the interview guide was developed (Huberman and Miles, for
1994; Ryan and Bernard, 2003). These codes were subsequently re-analyzed and eventually
collapsed into the following broad themes: routine compliance, absence of critique, positive accountability”
story reporting, fear of funding curtailment, selective reporting, working under constraints,
and pressures and tensions of reporting. 991
These themes formed the basis of the preliminary descriptive analysis of the findings.
We subsequently presented this interim analysis at a feedback and clarification workshop all
four authors held with 24 fieldworkers (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). The workshop was organized
to be highly participative. After an initial presentation of the preliminary findings of the study
by one of the authors, the fieldworkers, in their groups, were invited to review and comment on
these findings. A member of each group then presented their views to all participants of the
workshop, which led to a lively forum and plenary discussion. Comments from this workshop
were fed into the empirical analysis in order to refine aspects of the preliminary analysis.
Subsequent analysis drew on the comments from the feedback workshop and focussed
more specifically on interpreting the main themes in the context of an initial theoretical
framing which informed an earlier version of this paper. An on-going iterative process of
listening to the interview data on the tape recordings, reading and re-reading the
transcriptions and referring back to the core literature driving the study (latterly focussed
especially on Fry (1995) and Kearns (1994)), an understanding of the how the fieldworkers
experienced the upward accountability processes emerged (Locke, 1996). Whilst the
research study did not aim to understand accountability processes from the perspective of
the funders, in analyzing our data for this paper we were interested in reflecting on the
views expressed by the fieldworkers about their funding relationships. However, in order to
gain a better understanding of the expectations of funders with respect to the upward
accountability processes, we selected two key funders who were consistently referred to by
our fieldworkers – DANIDA and DFID – and undertook a detailed analysis of their
monitoring and evaluation processes, drawing on key documents from their websites. This
helped inform our overall analysis of the fieldworkers’ experiences of upward
accountability. Continual redrafting, reanalysis and interaction between the data and core
informing literature was undertaken to craft the case analysis presented in the next section.
Experiencing upward accountability processes
This section presents the case narrative. First, it identifies the different types of upward
accountability processes that fieldworkers experienced. It then provides an analysis of their
perceptions of these processes and, in particular, their efforts at managing upward
accountability processes that they felt were controlling.
Types of upward accountability processes
Two main types of performance reports were produced by the NGDO fieldworkers as part
of their upward accountability processes: disclosure reports and performance evaluation
(and assessment) reports. According to the fieldworkers the main audiences for these reports
were overseas funders (see Table II). The fieldworkers were required to provide these reports
to evidence how much funding they received, how it had been used, what benefits derived
from its use and what lessons could be learned from the work they completed.
There were two types of disclosure reports – annual and interim reports. Each year all
NGDOs produced an annual summary report of their activities showing operational and
financial performance. Interim reports were commonly required every quarter and included
details of funds received and indicators of their utilization. Both the interim and annual
reports focussed first on quantitative performance indicators such as: the number of clients
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AAAJ
30,5 Quantitative KeyFinancial performance Written stakeholder
Accountability mechanism information Narrative indicators or oral Frequency focus
Disclosure reports
Annual reports Yes Yes Yes Written Once Range of
stakeholders
992 Interim reports (see Table III) Yes Yes Yes Written Monthly, Funders
quarterly,
and half
yearly
Performance evaluations (and assessments)
Table II. Assessment reports Yes Yes Yes Written Continuous Funders
Disclosure reports Evaluation reports Yes Yes Yes Written At the end Funders
and performance of a project
evaluation (and Final project report Yes Yes Yes Written At the end Funders
assessment) reports (see Table IV) of a project
visited (micro credit NGDOs (designated NGDO A and NGDO K (see Table I)); the number of
beneficiaries receiving capacity building training (micro credit, agriculture and water
and sanitation NGDOs (A, B, J, K and E); the number of patients visited (health NGDOs
(C and H)); the number of health outreach meetings held (health NGDOs (C and H)); the
number of women paying credit back on time (micro credit NGDOs (A and K)); and student
attendance, enrolment and progression figures (education NGDOs (F and G)). Both types
of disclosure report allowed significant scope for reporting a narrative summary of
achievements and explicitly encouraged discussions of problem areas where activity targets
had not been met as well as the “lessons fieldworkers had learned” from undertaking the
activities (see Table III). For example, fieldworkers in NGDO F included the following
narrative summary of achievements in one of their interim reports:
Every six months health and nutrition assessments are conducted on 8,400 enrolled children. 1,420
children are given one meal a day when in school […] 673 parents and children were introduced to
Early Childhood Development to properly give their children a good foundation for their physical
and mental development.
Many of the lessons fieldworkers had learned were reported as operational issues they had
encountered. For example, an NGDO working in the health sector with mentally ill patients
(NGDO C) reported the following:
Our work has equally shown that to be able to engage in work is a form of therapy that quickens
and deepens the stabilisation of the mentally ill and this has been demonstrated in the horticultural
Instructions for completing the form: please keep as brief as possible. Provide key information that may
have a bearing on NGO work
Sub-heading Commentary
Activity Capacity building workshop: assertiveness Training
Objective To build the capacity of 100 women in a selected community
Table III. Target group Women’s groups
Example of Challenges Late disbursement of funds
commentary in an Outputs Number of women trained
interim report Indicators Photographic evidence of workshop
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project […]. Our work has equally shown that having become stabilised they and their carers need Seeking
some support to start life afresh […]. Our work with our partners has also shown that people and “conversations
organizations are willing to support the mentally ill […]. The huge demand created from our
consultation, education and awareness-raising activities has outstripped the resources available. for
As a result of this there is pressure on [name of NGDO C] to meet the enthusiasm that stabilised accountability”
people have in wanting to do something for themselves (NGDO C Project report to Funder).
Performance evaluation (and assessment) reports were required at specific stages during 993
the life of individual projects. Performance evaluation reports were typically written at the
end of a project or at the end of a funding stream, and represented final summative reports
to funders (see Table IV). Performance assessment reports were written on an on-going
basis and were much more comprehensive than annual or interim disclosure reports.
These reports concentrated on the extent to which predefined project aims and objectives
were being achieved. Both reporting types explicitly encouraged explanations of the
context in which projects were undertaken together with reasons why projects were
proving successful or otherwise. Significant attention was afforded to encouraging the
reporting of issues surrounding project or aid sustainability and the extent to which any
“learning” had emerged from undertaking the projects. This was consistent with an
apparent overall aim among several funders of obtaining evidence of broader, longer-term
impacts of projects. It was made clear in all of these reporting requirements that
contextualization of indicators was important to funders’ assessments in order to enable
them to learn from the fieldworkers’ experiences. The scope provided for this form of
reporting represented an explicit invitation to fieldworkers to think and report more
broadly about the work they were undertaking in order to contribute more widely to
improving the effectiveness of development interventions. This desire to embed a
“learning evaluation” logic (Ebrahim, 2009; Hall, 2014) within upward accountability
processes was also evident in much of the funder documentation we studied. Documents
from DFID, for example, suggested that they were deeply interested in the lessons to be
learned from projects and programmes:
The lessons learning process involves openly documenting and disseminating experience for all
development partners, so that this information can be transformed into knowledge over time, and
then inform the design of future activities. In order to improve the collective performance of the
international development community, lessons learned may inform future strategic planning and
performance management internally, or inter-organizational planning. In the short-term, lessons
learned may help development partners to make specific decisions, such as whether to extend a
project, or how to amend a particular policy that may be inhibiting the sustainability of the activity
(DFID, 2005, p. 11).
Headings in report Example of content included
Introduction How report was developed; staff retreat, partnership review and reflection;
team members; length of project
Political, economic and social Ghana named as a member of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries
changes
Progress against project aims Aims identified; tables provided summarising NGO interventions; each
and objectives objective defined and progress analyzed; learning highlighted for each
objective
Financial summaries Expenditures by activities
Administration and Details about the NGDO Table IV.
management A final project
The future of the programme Plans for the future; direction of new work evaluation report
Challenges Resource constraints; limited capacity of partners; poor road networks exemplar
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AAAJ Nevertheless, despite this distinct impression given by funders suggesting that a
30,5 learning logic underpinned their upward accountability processes, the perceptions of
fieldworkers, drawing on their extensive experience in the field, indicated that in practice
these processes were more often seen to be overtly controlling. We explore these perceptions
in the following sub-section.
994 Perceptions of being “held to account”: tactical compliance
The majority of fieldworkers were concerned with what they considered restrictions imposed
on their work by the requirements of funder performance reports. They were especially
concerned about a focus on short term, highly specific activities and outputs which were
frequently imposed in a top-down manner. While many acknowledged the aforementioned
flexibility offered in reports through the provision of scope for contextualizing reported
indicators, in practice they felt that funders focussed exclusively on the quantitative
performance indicator requirements. In effect, to them, funders were merely concerned with
external control (Kearns, 1994) and their key response was to comply. As one fieldworker
working in child sponsorship noted, precise reporting against indicators was essential if
funding streams were to be maintained and beneficiaries’ needs protected:
If you don’t meet the [funder’s] exact request in your reporting, they will get fed up and they will
cancel their funding and drop the children […]. The child and the community will lose. So, we must
always make sure we meet the [funder’s] request (NGDO D – child sponsorship).
Fry (1995) suggests that the extent to which accountability operates to monitor or enable
work depends on how principals (in this case, the funders) value the work being undertaken.
Many fieldworkers complained that the reporting requirements often failed to appreciate the
on-the-ground realities they faced daily. Complying with the requirements of upward
accountability, while necessary, was frustrating for them as the accountability requirements
did not show that funders had a clear understanding of the developmental work they were
undertaking. Several fieldworkers spoke of the slow nature of the development process and
of how deficient beneficiary capabilities triggered drawn-out decision-making processes
“that [they] could not easily change”. This “reality” contrasted with the “quick fixes” (NGDO
B – agriculture) that, in their view, were frequently required by funders. Working with
slow-moving local community processes while having to report within very strict timescales
was especially frustrating:
Now the funds usually come and you have a certain time within which you need to give reports on
output. Yes, we have been given the funds and in six months’ time we expect some results.
[Regardless] of the fact that you work with institutions that you don’t [have] control over, there may
be decision-making processes that you cannot easily change – you have to work within them […].
By the time you work with the community and ensure that the decisions are taken for you to be able
to move, maybe by that time the community would have lost out and they cannot access the
particular funds. So what do we do? […] So, sometimes when donor funds come with stringent
conditions, it is the ultimate beneficiary that suffers (NGDO C – mental health).
Several fieldworkers contended that ways of dealing with particular development problems
were largely pre-determined within reporting requirements that were inherently inflexible.
For example, the water and sanitation NGDO (E) was required to use specific technologies
as its funders thought they were relatively cheap. The fieldworkers maintained that these
technologies, such as hand-pumping equipment, were often unsuitable as local ground
conditions led to wells drying up after a short period. Despite this, performance reports
required data on the use of the specified technologies only. In order to comply, fieldworkers
continued to utilize the technologies even where they were convinced that they were
inefficient and ineffective. Such compliance also had further negative effects with
fieldworkers refraining from reporting the failings associated with the technologies as they
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felt it detracted from their ability to report “good performance” as defined by required Seeking
output indicators – such as the number of hand-dug wells or bore holes. During interviews “conversations
the fieldworkers exhibited considerable astuteness, and explained that these technologies for
wasted the funders’ resources given that a more effective long-term achievement of their
overall water relief aims could be achieved by funding a smaller number of more expensive accountability”
water delivery systems:
For example, if the solution to the water problem in the community is […] a small community pipe 995
system, but the donor says I want to see X number of boreholes or X number of hand-dug wells,
definitely such a community will lose out on that (NGDO E – water and sanitation).
In a bid to be seen to be compliant, they did not share these perceptions with the funders.
Compliance, as suggested by Kearns (1994), was used as a tactical response to the
accountability demands. Additionally, in order to be seen to be compliant the fieldworkers
revealed how they took actions to prioritize the outputs and processes required by funders.
For example, while it was important to give local communities some sense of involvement in
identifying needs, fieldworkers felt constrained by their funder reporting requirements
and frequently steered communities’ perceptions of their needs towards their funder’s
preferred focus:
We go on the radio […]. We do a lot of “sensitisation” – creating awareness for the people – […]
[We hold] community sessions […] We try to help them to come out with their needs
[but, ultimately] we[9] identify their needs and prioritise their needs (NGDO B – agriculture).
The purpose of the sensitisation referred to above was to ensure that the key problems
identified by funders were actually prioritized. This would allow fieldworkers to provide
reports demonstrating compliance even though it made their work more cumbersome.
Kearns (1994) identifies compliance as a tactical internal response made to accountability
demands that operate as external control systems and our analysis suggests that
fieldworkers were continually anxious to exhibit compliance. Clearly, there were power
asymmetries between the funders and NGDOs that meant there were conditions placed on
project design and planning and funding arrangements within the accountability processes
which compelled fieldworkers to find ways to comply with the requirements (Dar, 2014;
Ebrahim, 2009; Hulme and Edwards, 1997; Unerman and O’Dwyer, 2006). Underpinning
these perceptions was a sense that the fieldworkers did not feel that funders entirely trusted
them (or the local NGO). They suggested that too often they were offered a limited voice to
shape expectations and standards even where they felt alternative approaches were more
appropriate and effective. There was little sense of an alliance around accountability
facilitating a conversation involving “committed listening” by funders (Fry, 1995).
Negotiated accountability was, therefore, in many cases, simply not feasible. Despite this,
while prior work suggests that NGO fieldworkers frequently respond to perceived funder
controlling efforts by strategizing in negative and manipulative ways (see Elbers and Arts,
2011), our ensuing analysis reveals how the fieldworkers worked within, and around, these
perceived constraints in a positive, constructive manner. In doing so, they sought to ensure
that the upward accountability requirements could be mobilized to allow them to fulfil,
as much as possible, their widespread sense of felt responsibility to beneficiaries. It is to this
seemingly contradictory response that we now turn.
Felt responsibility and accountability in action
Sinclair (1995) argues that discourses of accountability often illustrate the multiple layers of
meaning, contradictions and tensions associated with the concept. We observed these
layers, in particular the contradictions, among the fieldworkers. Notwithstanding the
widespread perception of inflexibility accorded to many of the performance reporting
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AAAJ requirements and the underlying activities they encouraged, the fieldworkers articulated
30,5 situations where requirements to report on certain indicators actually assisted them in
improving their work by steering behaviour and action in what they saw as sensible
directions. The upward accountability processes which were argued to be constraining, in
terms of the actions they encouraged, were also sometimes seen as “perfectly sensible”
(Sinclair, 1995, p. 228). For example, in the child literacy education NGDO (F) output measures
996 requiring fieldworkers to focus on behavioural changes in children by examining enrolment
rates, drop-out rates, attendance rates and the rate of student progression to further education
were widely praised. The process of gathering information for and writing the disclosure
reports also made certain aspects of the fieldworkers’ work more visible forcing them to
critically assess their operations and to direct resources in a more focussed manner.
The necessity of reporting and explaining variances within disclosure reports often
uncovered previously unknown contextual reasons for deviations and “helped keep
[fieldworkers] on their toes” (NGDO J – agriculture). This assisted them in understanding the
logic underpinning the upward accountability processes they were required to comply with
and, most importantly, enabled them to identify where alterations in their own approaches
might be required:
[One] report was monitoring [standardised] growth […] [the variances reported meant] that I went
to look at how […] the farmers [used] some of the tools they were [provided with] [and] […] whether
they were using the tools properly. If they were not, I made some corrections […]. After that, I wrote
[in the report] whether they actually used the tools to work at all. Did they go to the bush [the farm]
at all […] and did they need and use the input? (NGDO I – poverty reduction).
Despite receiving limited information regarding the rationales underlying many of the
performance indicators, the requirement to focus on certain indicators meant that some
fieldworkers established their own rationales in situations where indicators made sense to
them in their daily work. It was clear that the “world of action” took priority over indicators,
with indicators representing a necessary point of orientation as opposed to an ultimate point
of truth ( Jordan and Messner, 2012). It is within this “world of action” that the fieldworkers
could act and respond to situations on the ground. Even where they found indicators
inappropriate, inflexible or incomplete, they rarely appeared demotivated and their
commitment to contributing to enhancing the effectiveness of their interventions remained
resolute. Hence, the standards and expectations were absorbed and internalized as the
fieldworkers “felt” responsible for their actions (Fry, 1995). Moreover, irrespective of the
exact indicators they had to adopt or the specific work focus of the funding requirements,
they appeared intrinsically motivated to make improvements to their work on-the-ground.
Responsibility for actions (e.g. the fieldworker quoted above states: “I made the corrections”)
and accountability became entangled (e.g., the fieldworker quoted above also states “I wrote
the report”). Feeling responsible was coupled with feeling accountable despite the perception
of control within the upward accountability processes.
Proactive and strategic responses
O’Dwyer and Boomsma (2015) suggest that felt accountability prospers where NGOs face
less external accountability pressures and that this offers the flexibility to develop
accountability processes that suit agreed internal needs. Our fieldworkers’ efforts, however,
often involved working around external accountability requirements. Their overriding
sense of felt responsibility motivated this approach rather than any flexibility offered in the
upward accountability processes. For example, fieldworkers in the mental health, education
and agriculture NGDOs frequently referred to the importance of beneficiary “capacities”;
a term used to refer to perceived levels of literacy and understanding among beneficiaries.
These were, according to fieldworkers, possibly not considered when performance
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indicators were designed externally, but through working closely with these beneficiaries Seeking
fieldworkers developed detailed knowledge of specific needs which they attempted to adapt to “conversations
the reporting requirements. In effect, the fieldworkers used their professional knowledge and for
employed their discretion in interpreting the requirements of funders. Kearns (1994) refers to
professional and discretionary accountability as the situation where people take responsibility accountability”
for interpreting standards of performance and are proactive in doing so. By considering the
needs of the beneficiaries the fieldworkers were evidently seeking to “do [what they saw as] 997
the right thing” (Kearns, 1994, p. 189). In one instance, the child literacy education NGDO (F)
discovered that the education process required much longer periods of training for literacy
class facilitators than the funder reporting timelines allowed. The fieldworkers sought to solve
this problem by extending the pre-training period for facilitators to ensure that they had a
greater impact within the funder training timeline period:
We used to build capacities by training facilitators between January and March. Classes start in
May/June. But the facilitators made it known to us that they would work better if they had a longer
period of training. So, this year we have moved the training start date to November […]. They can now
have 7 to 8months to build up their expertise before the classes start (NGDO F – child literacy education).
To further demonstrate this sense of felt responsibility, other fieldworkers alluded to
constantly scrutinizing their on-the-ground work and gathering and storing key information
to help improve beneficiary lives. In situations where the focus of funder requirements was
considered to be misguided, opportunities for improvement were identified. The information
was used to guide NGDOs’ internal assessments of operational areas that required their
attention irrespective of funder reporting demands, thereby allowing them to improve their
overall work processes’ and the perceived effectiveness with which aid was utilized:
We try to examine what has been the state of [our] work with regards to community mental health.
How many health outreaches have been held in a year? How many life stories have been written,
how well have they been written? You know things like that, and this brings out issues that might
need attention. Some of the information may or may not be required by funders but [we] need that
[information] to implement our programme as well. So for us, it is like an internal programme audit
[irrespective of funder requirements]. Knowledge sharing is very important to us internally and we
have a centre where we upload all our reports even though they are just for internal use [they do not
go to funders] […] we see it like an obligation (NGDO C – mental health).
Being able to account and justify the use of funding was, however, always considered most
important and where internal feelings of responsibility meant taking decisions and
opportunities that fell outside of the funding scope, they were almost never pursued.
Fieldworkers were highly aware of the lack of flexibility in programme delivery and always
sought to position themselves to comply even when they did not agree with the explicit
performance requirements. For example, in the water and sanitation NGDO (E) fieldworkers
were convinced that their primary funder’s preference for supporting rural development
was a sub-optimal use of funding. They argued that the acute need for their services arose in
urban areas like Tamale. However, they were required to undertake and report on the
number of rural development activities only, which they did despite recognizing that
resources could have been used much more effectively in urban development activities:
For instance, this year because of the heavy downpour – the rains – we had problems because we
were supposed to construct 658 household latrines. But because of the nature of the weather – that
was around July, August and September – we could not do anything [in rural regions] […].
If we were going to excavate 658 latrines in [name of urban region] we would have finished it
(NGDO E – water and sanitation).
The fieldworkers recognized that they did not have the power, vis-à-vis, funders to
make strategic decisions to change or redefine programme activities (Kearns, 1994).
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AAAJ Taking independent decisions could impact upon the level of trust the funders may place in
30,5 them. Hence, whatever they felt about the inappropriateness of the external controls, they
were always anxious to demonstrate the care with which they used and accounted for
funding. It was important to them to demonstrate their commitment to transparency and
compliance; a desire derived from a long-standing fear of being viewed as corrupt and
fraudulent by foreign-based funders (Elbers and Arts, 2011; Mohan, 2002; Yarrow, 2008):
998 Information sharing in the reports is very important to us […] [It provides] the paper evidence of
what is going on […]. It helps to build some trust and confidence between them [funders] and us
[fieldworkers] (NGDO C – mental health).
Building trust is an important precursor to gaining influence and this was seen as important
to attain before offering suggestions for change. While Kearns (1994) discusses anticipatory/
positioning accountability as involving agents anticipating the formulation of new
standards in order to position themselves for compliance, in our case, the fieldworkers were
anticipating that compliance could lead to influence.
Fieldworkers constantly had to manage their feelings of responsibility for actions
against this perceived need for compliance. While they largely understood upward
accountability in terms of external controls funders were, as we outlined earlier, also
interested in receiving contextual information that impacted on programme effectiveness.
Contextual reporting was explicitly encouraged by the scope provided for additional
information in many of the required reports. However, fieldworkers often toned down the
significance of this contextual information or failed to report it as they claimed they had
little idea as to what impact it would have or how funders would use it. Several fieldworkers
complained that when they reported against pre-determined indicators funders “never came
back to ask for further [clarifying] information” (NGDO I – poverty reduction) or “d[id] not
account to [them] [or] tell [them] what they use[d] the reports for” (NGDO H – support for
disabled). Feedback about the use and impact of the performance reports represented an
intrinsic reward acknowledging the importance of their efforts and they were therefore
anxious to know how the reports were being used to evaluate their work, in particular the
direct consequences any evaluations had for future funding:
The fact of the matter is that there is no mutual accountability from donor[s] […]. They appear
willing to listen but whether they apply what you tell them is another thing. To say it directly, our
funder in [name of country] has never accounted […] to [us] (NGDO F – child literacy education).
This perception of limited funder reciprocity meant there was a reluctance to report
potentially crucial contextual information. This view may, however, have been misguided
since it is possible that the local NGO managers were made aware by funders of how
contextual information was used. The fieldworkers may not have known what was going on
during the reporting negotiation between NGO managers and funders and therefore
assumed that there was no reciprocity or “history of exchange” of information in a frank,
fair and open manner (Fry, 1995). The issue remains, however, that this widespread
perception of upward accountability as primarily about control meant that creating shared
visions and outcomes through aligning felt responsibility and an enabling upward
accountability in “conversations for accountability” (Fry, 1995) remained elusive.
Tentative steps towards “conversations for accountability”
Fry (1995) suggests embedding accountability in conversations to enable agents and
principals to work together to develop shared visions and understandings of performance.
These conversations for accountability embrace three conditions deemed essential to aiding
the alignment of external accountability and felt accountability: agents having a voice,
congruence of intent, and fairness and dignity in the process of exchange. More recently,
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funder efforts have evolved, albeit tentatively, towards developing such mutual Seeking
explorations. A central feature of this perceived shift was the increased use of informal “conversations
feedback processes and on-the-ground evaluations of fieldworkers’ work, all of which for
fieldworkers welcomed. Given the lack of formal feedback mechanisms, many fieldworkers
emphasized how informal face-to-face channels were essential to addressing the problem of accountability”
limited information exchange in the formal reporting as they offered greater potential for
sharing crucial contextual information and receiving timely, focussed feedback. They 999
contended that these mechanisms were more effective in helping funders “appreciate the
real issues preventing effective development interventions” (Fieldworker comment from the
feedback workshop). Several fieldworkers called for funders’ representatives to visit them
more often “so that they c[ould] see what [wa]s happening on the ground” (NGDO H –
support for disabled) and thereby understand the NGDO operational context better. It was
widely felt that these interactions could also provide fieldworkers with information on the
actual as opposed to the perceived importance funders attached to contextual information
reported alongside required indicators.
Prior to our field work, certain funders had commenced interacting more informally with
fieldworkers. In two cases, evaluations and reviews feeding into performance evaluation
(and assessment) reports were carried out jointly by fieldworkers and funders’ representatives
(NGDO G – Muslim education and NGDO H – support for disabled) thereby allowing
fieldworkers a voice in evaluation. The funder of one of the agriculture NGDOs (NGDO B)
introduced “organizational reviews” using fieldworkers and funder representatives working
together. While the fieldworkers acknowledged that these were not routine encounters and
they were sometimes sceptical about the funders’ intent the face-to-face communication and
relationship building encouraged them to more readily share contextual information that they
had previously hoarded. As these informal processes involved “more [committed] listening
and response from the [funders]” (NGDO B – agriculture) they dampened some, albeit far from
all, of the aforementioned concerns about limited reciprocity by at least offering the potential
to discuss the rationales behind indicators.
Increasing fieldworker interactions with consultants operating on behalf of funders also
emerged in the period immediately prior to our field work. For example, fieldworkers in the
disability health NGDO (H) met with different NGDOs and consultants working for funders
to discuss general concerns, aided by interpreters. Within these face-to-face meetings, they
said they felt freer to share information incorporating the contextual challenges they faced.
They also received elaboration on the rationales behind some indicators they had queried.
These channels were also sometimes used as a medium where different fieldworkers’
common concerns could be shared with funders, through the consultants. This allowed
them to give voice to their felt responsibilities and seek out some “congruence of intent”
(Fry, 1995, p. 187) between these responsibilities and the funders’ goals within the overall
accountability process. However, ultimately there was no guarantee that their suggestions
would initiate a substantive funder response:
We [a group of fieldworkers] were all together with the consultants and we realised that most of our
problems, our challenges were about the same and the changes we were suggesting were all
about the same […]. The consultants indicated [that they were not] here to tell [us] that a change c
[ould] be made. They would go back […] and discuss it with the donors and bring back their
comments […]. They also made it easier for us to communicate as they came with a bilingual
interpreter (NGDO H – support for disabled).
In the few instances where funders actively provided feedback to fieldworkers, the
fieldworkers claimed that they had reacted positively and shared additional information.
This apparently helped build tentative levels of mutual trust that were inevitably tempered
by the nature of their prior experiences with upward accountability. For instance,
Downloaded by University of Ghana At 04:33 17 December 2018 (PT)
AAAJ fieldworkers in the NGDO providing basic education literacy to Muslim children (NGDO G –
30,5 Muslim education) indicated how their work had benefited from the introduction of funder
feedback and discussion about their activities. This responsiveness encouraged them to
share contextual information about the changing circumstances facing different families
and how the focus of the funding should be realigned to address them (e.g. by supporting
initial educational “needs assessments” of entire families). The funder subsequently
1000 disseminated the NGDO’s proposals among the education literacy NGDO community which
led to widespread recognition of the impacts of the NGDO’s proposed approach and a
change to the focus suggested by the NGDO.
A fieldworker in the disability health NGDO (H) initially outlined major concerns
regarding the historical lack of feedback his NGDO had received on detailed, contextualized
case studies submitted as part of their reporting. However, he also praised his funders for
eventually, albeit slowly, increasing their responsiveness as they had recently commenced
providing feedback and offering more regular support in response to the key contextual
challenges reported by his NGDO:
You know, we are [now] finally corresponding regularly, and there may be certain area problems,
management problems, financial, anything. So, they [funders] now give some support [to] resolve
any challenges that we may have (NGDO H – support for disabled).
Two funders had commenced more active monitoring in order to directly assess the
effectiveness of NGDOs’ actions (NGDO A –micro credit and NGDO G –Muslim education).
This involved funder representatives visiting local communities to try to ascertain from the
communities and their observations the direct impact the funded NGDOs’ work was having.
While this form of intervention could have been seen as threatening, the fieldworkers in
both NGDOs welcomed it as it allowed them to engage substantively with funders regarding
on-the-ground challenges they faced. This also offered them some possibility of aligning
funder accountability demands better with their felt responsibilities:
The [funder] now monitors a lot. They will even move down into the community without you,
[NGDO A] to check that what you say you are doing in this place is actually happening. We [NGDO A]
are happy with this. You want your funders to monitor. They have to come to the grassroots and see
what we do instead of just sending letters […]. We want them to know that we are actually always with
the people and we are doing what we believe we should be doing (NGDO A – micro credit).
In summary, our case narrative unveils three key issues with respect to the fieldworkers’
experiences of NGDO upward accountability processes. First, fieldworkers’ experiences
created the impression that the processes were primarily aimed at external control and
instigating compliance accountability responses. Second, fieldworkers were frequently
driven by an intrinsic desire to support beneficiaries whatever the perceived demands of the
upward accountability processes. They were pragmatic with respect to their responses and
exhibited a “felt responsibility” to beneficiaries. In order to fulfil this responsibility they
sought to skillfully work with and around the upward accountability requirements in order
to enable a form of felt accountability in which professional/discretionary accountability
motivated anticipatory/positioning accountability. Third, conversations for accountability
were important to fieldworkers in both the development and enactment of upward
accountability processes. The advent of increasing face-to-face interactions between funders
and fieldworkers had begun to facilitate conversations aimed at ensuring that aid resources
were used more effectively. While the fieldworkers reflected positively on these interactions,
they were some way off the idealized “conversations for accountability” conditions proposed
by Fry (1995, pp. 189-191). In particular, the extent to which funders were beginning to
engage in “committed listening” was unclear given that much of the interaction was
occurring after accountability metrics had been developed by funders (with apparently
limited NGDO and fieldworker input).
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Summary and conclusions Seeking
This paper presented the results of a field study conducted among 30 NGDO fieldworkers “conversations
working and delivering development aid within impoverished communities in Northern for
Ghana. Our analysis focussed on the experiences of the fieldworkers with respect to the
upward accountability processes they used to communicate their performance to funders accountability”
and the perceived impact these experiences had on their work with NGDO beneficiaries.
The paper is one of the few studies to examine the potential of upward accountability 1001
processes using in-depth analyses of the actual experiences of those involved in delivering
NGO services at the grassroots level (see Awio et al., 2011; Dixon et al., 2006) and contributes
to emerging work in this vein by enriching our understanding of local constituencies’
experiences of accountability processes more generally, in particular the impact these
mechanisms have on their operational activities.
Our findings suggest that the upward accountability processes were perceived to be aimed
at external control. Despite these perceptions, we did not uncover evidence of “recalcitrant
effort”, nor did we find evidence of mere routine compliance among fieldworkers. A key
feature of the case was the fieldworkers’ commitment to improving beneficiary lives. Our
analysis uncovered an intrinsic sense of felt responsibility (Fry, 1995; O’Dwyer and Boomsma,
2015) to beneficiaries, informed by self-perceptions in which fieldworkers frequently viewed
themselves as change agents. It was underpinned by a combination of a sense of pride,
a perceived common culture and professionalism which motivated fieldworkers to continually
review and improve their work processes and work focus. Felt responsibility mediated for the
control that was seen to underpin the upward accountability processes. Fieldworkers,
consequently, accepted that they had to work with and around the upward accountability
processes if their ambitions to assist beneficiaries were to be realised. Hence, irrespective of
funders’ required work focus and choice of specific performance indicators, the fieldworkers
continually mobilized their local knowledge in an effort to assist in improving beneficiary
lives. Reporting against specific indicators represented merely one possible, albeit vital, means
through which they felt this responsibility might be fulfilled.
Kearns (1994) points to four possible internal responses to external controls, two of which
he considers tactical (compliance and negotiated) and two strategic (professional/
discretionary and anticipatory). Our findings suggest the fieldworkers engaged in
elements of each of these responses, though there was less evidence of negotiated and
anticipatory responses. Compliance was important for trust building which would ensure
ongoing financial support for projects. Professional and discretionary responses were
employed subtly and in ways that enabled fieldworkers to fulfil their felt responsibility.
As fieldworkers, they were less powerful than the senior managers who interacted more
with funders; hence, any strategic moves in response to upward accountability processes
had to be undertaken very cautiously.
Fieldworkers expressed few problems with being closely assessed per se and were
positive about the idea of indicators, especially if they improved their effectiveness. While
many fieldworkers advocated flexibility in upward accountability processes through the
reporting of “stories” which would enrich “abstract” indicators, they were not intrinsically
“anti-indicators” and were open to discovering where indicators could facilitate their
decision making. For them, the ideal of “proof” underpinning the use of indicators and the
ideal of “richness” driving the mobilization of stories were not incompatible (see Hall, 2014).
Hence, while they wanted to be able to flexibly respond to local circumstances, they did not
see this as fundamentally incompatible with the parameters that funders might set. These
findings resonate somewhat with Saj’s (2012) study of a community service organization in
Australia where onerous mandatory external reporting requirements were assessed
rationally by values-driven board members and executives and readily adopted where they
were seen to contribute to organizational effectiveness.
Downloaded by University of Ghana At 04:33 17 December 2018 (PT)
AAAJ Our analysis reveals and nuances the tensions between perceptions of external control
30,5 and the learning logic within funders’ upward accountability processes. Despite formal
funder encouragement, fieldworkers were frequently reluctant to report information
contextualizing performance due to perceptions of a lack of funder reciprocity. Some
fieldworkers felt that funders were more concerned to check that beneficiary engagements
had actually taken place (i.e. control) as opposed to uncovering what had emerged from
1002 them (i.e. learning). This perceived limited voice for fieldworkers in the context of
inadequate “committed listening” by funders is consistent with long-standing concerns
suggesting that funder support for participatory methods and the creation of learning
environments may be co-opted by them as legitimizing instruments. For example, it is often
argued that this only gives the impression of an openness to key contextual information in
development decision-making, while actual development practice remains largely “top-down”
and underpinned by a logic promoting the adoption of a host of exogenous reporting
practices privileging objective, universal indicators divorced of context (Hall, 2014;
Rahaman et al., 2010; O’Dwyer and Unerman 2010).
Our fieldworkers craved face-to-face personal interaction so that funders could be
sensitized to the realities of lives, livelihoods and needs in an area. They were desperate to
have a voice which could operate to achieve some “congruence of intent” between their felt
responsibilities to beneficiaries and the overall goals of funders. This informal interaction
could not only assist in improving internal operations but might also assist fieldworkers
to learn about their funders’ missions, goals and styles of working thereby enabling them
to better understand the broader impact of their work. In essence, this desired interaction
could create conditions conducive to enabling Fry’s (1995) conversations for
accountability. The initiation of these conversations could also allow fieldworkers to
understand better why funders adopted certain indicators and how their work fitted into a
much bigger picture than the localized context they operated within. The perceptions that
suggestions and contextualizations were entering a vacuum emphasize the importance of
reciprocity and the need for both formal and informal communication if upward
accountability processes are to facilitate informed on-the-ground efforts at achieving long
term effectiveness. The perceived “history of exchange” between funders and NGOs
meant that the desire for contextual information communicated by funders was viewed
suspiciously by many fieldworkers. However, these suspicions diminished as the
closeness of relations fieldworkers experienced with funders increased during informal
engagements where fieldworkers felt they had a voice (see also Gray et al., 2006).
As Eyben (2006) argues, “aid is a matter of relationships”, and aid can be more effective
“when donors develop relationship-building skills as well as money management skills”
(cited in Andrews, 2009, p. 11).
The evolution in direct funder engagement with fieldworkers was starting to facilitate
more open conversations. The positive disposition of fieldworkers towards these
interactions, despite their constrained nature, partly reflects their prior perceptions of
funders as distant and hierarchical. It would appear that almost any signal that funders
were willing engage directly with them on-the-ground was seen as an opportunity to
improve their effectiveness, no matter how minimal. “Conversations for accountability” had
to commence somewhere and any potential opportunity needed to be seized upon if some
sense of an alliance around accountability was to be aroused. This initial phase offered the
potential for fieldworkers to engage in a form of negotiated accountability that could
strengthen the existing limited enaction of professional/discretionary accountability
(Kearns, 1994). While “conversations for accountability” could also benefit funders, as they
planned strategies to manage the constantly changing landscape of development funding,
the extent to which funders were willing to engage in “committed listening”, particularly
when formulating performance criteria, remained somewhat uncertain. Further research
Downloaded by University of Ghana At 04:33 17 December 2018 (PT)
needs to be undertaken on how NGO fieldworkers and managers in developing countries Seeking
may develop their strategic responses to funders’ requests. “conversations
We recognize that our study was undertaken in the specific context of Northern Ghana for
and that it is therefore important to acknowledge that certain cultural characteristics may
have impacted on how the fieldworkers experienced upward accountability processes. accountability”
While highlighting this issue, we do not wish attach broad-based cultural characteristics to
a small sample of fieldworkers. However, some related studies in Northern Ghana do help to 1003
contextualize our findings. For example, Yarrow (2008) argues that NGO workers from
Northern Ghana have often identified themselves with the beneficiaries and the poverty
they faced, having been born and brought up in Northern Ghanaian villages. Hence, many
fieldworkers are seen to exhibit a moral commitment to working with and for “real people”
(Yarrow, 2008, p. 352). Reciprocity is also considered an important trait in the Ghanaian
culture and this may help explain why its absence was so acutely felt by the fieldworkers
especially since personal relationships were also considered important by fieldworkers in
allowing them to complete and more fully understand their work (Codjoe, 2003; Mohan,
2002; Yarrow, 2008). Moreover, Nelson et al. (2013) suggest that Ghanaian culture is quite
hierarchical and that this often prevents “workers” from stepping out of their bounds;
an enlightening characteristic in light of the feeling of the need to comply with requests.
The provision of aid funding for development purposes remains important and the need
to ensure its effective use continues to be even more critical since many impoverished people
depend on these resources for their existence. Our work, through illustrating how
fieldworkers cope with the requirements of the upward accountability processes they
encounter, has reinforced the significance of the needs of beneficiaries within performance
assessment. It has also demonstrated a desire from both funders and fieldworkers for
improvements in the accountability processes. Future research work that unveils how
upward accountability reports are actually used by the receivers of these reports, the
funders, is of utmost importance for developing a more complete understanding of how
upward accountability contributes to improving aid effectiveness.
Notes
1. Net Official Development Assistance as a share of the combined gross national income (GNI) of
Development Assistance Committee member countries was 0.3 per cent (OECD, 2014).
2. Throughout the paper, we use the term “funder” to describe suppliers of funds to NGOs. We make
no distinction between the terms “funders” and “donors”.
3. Another example is the UK Department for International Development (DFID) which, in 2013,
spent £11.4 billion on overseas development assistance (DFID website, accessed
10 November 2014).
4. Fieldworkers may not be aware of all the interactions that take place between more senior
managers and funders as part of the accountability processes and dialogues. The views expressed
by them in this respect need to be understood in this light.
5. Although, it is sometimes argued that group interviews may not offer the same level of
trustworthiness as individual interviews, we contend that they proved to be highly beneficial in
that the interactions between interviewees facilitates an enhanced understanding of experiences
given that group members supplement, clarify, explain and share examples in interactive ways
(Cameron, 2016; Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1996).
6. These were quite cramped, small buildings. One interview (NGDO B) was held outdoors in a
shaded area around a table.
7. All of this documentary evidence was photocopied and both interviewers received copies to take
away with them for further analysis.
Downloaded by University of Ghana At 04:33 17 December 2018 (PT)
AAAJ 8. Fieldworkers were also encouraged to debate among themselves when addressing our
30,5 questions. For example, in one group interview (NGDO F) the fieldworkers initially disagreed
on aspects of an issue being discussed but then debated it amongst themselves and eventually
came to an agreement.
9. Italics to reflect emphasis in interviewee comment.
1004
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Corresponding author
Gloria Agyemang can be contacted at: gloria.agyemang@rhul.ac.uk
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