Bringing in Society, Culture and Politics: Values and Accountability in a Bangladeshi Ngo

Questions of accountability have become important and difficult ones in recent years for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the development field. The rise of development NGOs during the late 1980s generated considerable expectations regarding their performance strengths and political contributions, but this was accompanied by growing doubts about their ability to maintain appropriate and effective levels of accountability to a wide range of ‘stakeholders’ including users, funders, staff and government (Edwards and Hulme, 1995). While this accountability critique was initially focused on the section of the NGO community rooted in industrialised countries – often known as ‘Northern NGOs’ – there is a growing recognition that a similar set of structural and relational accountability issues are also faced by NGOs with their roots in developing country contexts.