The topic of this years Civicus World Assembly is 'Accountability' and I've just been in a plenary session looking at Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and accountability.
During the session I was more and more aware that many of the ideas being explored were those I would understand as issues of participation – rather than accountability… and so I got scribbling trying to put together a model that helps me make sense of how Accountability and Participation relate to each other.
It's very much in draft (word version attached) – but the key intuitions are that:
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Accountability and Participation are part of a broader process of democratisation
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Accountability should be about the move from activity by CSOs that has the hallmarks of misconduct or bad practise – to activity that is at the least ethical and not harmful to the interests of those a CSO says it seeks to help
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The move from ethical and non-harmful activity, to best-practise and effective activity, is a movement of participation and the tools of participation are those we should use here.
I suspect that we should be careful about 'concept creep' that overextends the concept of Accountability – as we may find ourselves taking our eyes off the key challenges in answering the linked questions (but questions that may have different answers…)
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Who are CSOs accountable too?
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Who should be the participants influencing and affecting CSO activity?
Attachment: Conceptual Framework.doc