Accountability, strategy, and international nongovernmental organizations

Increased prominence and greater influence expose international nongovernme ntal development and environment organizations (INGOs) to increased demands for accountability from a wide variety of stakeholders, including donors, beneficiaries, staffs, and partners. This article focuses on developing the concept of INGO accountability, first as an abstract concept and then as a strategic idea with very different implications for different INGO strateg ies. The authors examine implications for INGOs that emphasize service deli very, capacity building, and policy influence. They propose that INGOs comm itted to service delivery my owe more accountability to donors and service regulators, capacity-building INGOs may be particularly obligated to client s whose capacities are being enhanced, and policy influence INGOs may be es pecially accountable to political constituencies and influence targets. ING Os that are expanding their activities to include new initiatives may need to reorganize their accountability systems to implement their strategies ef fectively.