Systems of Accountability, Webs of Deceit? Monitoring and Evaluation in South African NGOs
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Systems of Accountability, Webs of Deceit? Monitoring and Evaluation in South African NGOs
LISA BORNSTEIN
ABSTRACT International requirements that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) adopt systems of monitoring, evaluation and reporting for their funded development work are generating surprising effects. Although such systems were introduced to enhance the accountability of NGO staff and to better guide implementation, her research in South Africa suggests that they often foster fear and deceit, resulting in systemic distortions of information and limited improvements of projects and their implementation. KEYWORDS donor funding; civil society; non-profit management; logical frameworks; South Africa
Introduction Relationships between international donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly shaped by procedural systems designed to assure that international funds do not go astray and that they have a developmental ‘impact’. Corruption scandals, public demands that donated funds reach the poor, and concerns that aid is not adequately addressing the continued impoverishment of people throughout the world have contributed to calls for expanded accountability in project management. For many international donors the solution has been greater selectivity in the projects and organizations they will fund and, the focus here, adoption of specific approaches to planning, monitoring and evaluation that tightly link inputs and projects to the outcomes desired. The logical framework (LFA) and direct variants are the most prevalent of the new approaches, with associated monitoring and evaluation (M&E) that allows, at least in theory, better tracking of implementation, enhanced accountability of project staff, and early identification of both project problems and successes. These M&E systems carry with them the possibility of easily and concisely communicating key information about the design, progress and impact of a project to funders, NGOs and other stakeholders. However, the new systems are also changing the ways in which NGOs work, and in ways that are far from desirable. If, as described by an NGO manager in South Africa, M&E is Development (2006) 49,(2), 52–61. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100261
Bornstein: Monitoring and Evaluation in South African NGOs ‘about us here trying to communicate to someone six thousand miles away about the difference [we] are making, on a piece of paper,’ then the new systems appear to be failing dismally. The experience of NGOs in South Africa suggests that widely-used M&E systems have created incentives for deception rather than enhanced accountability, and have contributed little to better project implementation or wider learning. Rather than reinforcing accountability, they are weaving webs of deceit. Such observations raise fundamental concerns about the dominant assessment tools, and better routes to meaningful development and ethical funding relationships.
Systems of accountability: M&E and logical frameworks Monitoring and evaluation are
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