Non-Governmental Organisations - Performance and Accountability: Beyond the Magic Bullet

by Michael Edwards (Editor), David Hulme (Editor)

The last decade has seen some significant changes in international development and in the status of non-governmental organisations operating in the field. Not only has the number of NGOs virtually doubled; many of them have seen a considerable growth in their budgets, and have grown closer to governments and official aid agencies. NGOs are acknowledged by many to be more effective agents of development than governments or commercial interests ? even as a ?magic bullet? for development problems. Despite these positive trends, the real impact of the NGO sector is not well documented. This is partly because NGO performance-assessment and accountability methods are weak, and partly because NGOs are caught up increasingly in the world of official aid, which pushes them towards certain forms of evaluation at the expense of others. This unique book takes a hard and critical look at these issues, and describes how NGOs can, and must, improve the way they measure and account for their performance if they are to be truly effective.

Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Michael Aubrey "Mike" Edwards (born Liverpool, England, 1957) is a writer and activist who has worked in various positions in foundations, think-tanks and international development institutions and who has written widely on civil society, philanthropy and social transformation. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos in New York and has worked in senior management positions for Oxfam (as Regional Director for Southern Africa), Voluntary Service Overseas (as Head of Development Education), Save the Children (as Director of Research, Evaluation and Advocacy), the World Bank (as a Senior Civil Society Specialist) and the Ford Foundation (as director of its Governance and Civil Society Program). He also co-founded the Seasons Fund for Social Transformation which made grants to organizations that link their work for social justice with spiritual principles and contemplative practices before it closed in 2010. His writings examine the global role of civil society and its institutions, the purpose and impact of philanthropy and the not-for-profit sector, the role of business in solving social problems, and the links between personal and social transformation.

Source: Wikipedia