CALL FOR NGO ACCOUNTABILITY AND STAKEHOLDER APPRAOCH

ABSTRACT Recent growth in calls for and exanimation of accountability of non-governmental organisations has arisen from the corporate, state and civil society sectors. Such calls raised a number of intriguing issues about the nature of accountability, the forms of accountability by answering the questions: to whom; for what; and how NGOs are accountable. More specifically, many calls demand of NGOs and funders to try move beyond a narrow functional accountability (upward accountability) focus and establish means of allowing the embracement of broader accountability for their wider social impacts (social or downward accountability) encompassing accountability for the impacts of their practices that have upon other organisations, individuals and the wider environment. Some of these calls directed the attention to largely unaccustomed articulations of the accountant���¢��������s craft within civil society context and challenges that may arise for such matters as the elusive nature of the accounting entity and what constitutes appropriate reporting performance. NGOs have been continuously challenging companies, governments and multilateral organizations to become more transparent and accountable within their practices towards their stakeholder. In this context, NGOs are no different from other organisations, thus having to become more transparent and accountable through their practices regarding the impact of their activities that could affect or affected their stakeholders. In this perspective, through this research the main goal was to examine the level of accountability and transparency of five INGOs through their practices via their websites and their annual reports. In particular, the researched conducted aimed investigating information concerning the forms of INGO accountability, to which stakeholders groups the INGO are accountable to, the degree the stakeholder approach is followed via their annual reports and web sites and the demonstration of transparency and accountability disclosed in their reports. The methodology used to conduct this research was a combination of content analysis and counter accounting. Web sites were analysed regarding the information disclosed and the annual reports were analysed with respect of the INGO Accountability Charter reporting guidelines. The results of the analysis produced indicated that a small percentage of INGOs are demonstrating downward accountability within their practices effectively and a small percentage is also demonstrating transparency via their web sites and annual reports, since they fail to comply with all the reporting requirements of the INGO Accountability Charter