NGOs are accountable for their performance in delivering their mission and strategy. They should gather evidence of their impact and analyse and share how they bring about change. They should learn from evaluations and reflection processes, share lessons learnt within the organisation and with partners, peers and supporters feed them into future plans, and bring them to the attention of the leadership of the organisation and other relevant stakeholders.  

NGOs and other organisations working on behalf of communities should:

• Put in place locally appropriate mechanisms such as social audits and community reviews to enable communities to analyse their work and provide feedback.
• Ensure programme plans and budgets are flexible enough to accommodate feedback from communities.
• Adopt decentralised management processes that enable partners and field offices to incorporate the community’s feedback.

Participatory tools for evaluation and learning include:

• Social audit – to collect and present evidence about a programme or service
• Community scorecard - to enable people to assess NGO programmes.

References

• ActionAid Accountability Charter, 2013.
• Emergency Preparedness and Response Handbook, ActionAid, Nov 2014, Ref. 7.1.4