1. Jharkhand State Committee meeting was held on 6 August. Representatives from 16 member organizations were present for this meeting. The main highlights of this meeting were: discussion on the draft programme norms, election of the state representative for the forthcoming AGM, planning activities for the state chapter, setting targets for new membership.


2. Orissa State Committee meeting was held on 10 August. Representatives from 4 member organizations were present for this meeting. As there were floods in the area, the representatives of other member organizations could not be present for the meeting. Due to the lack of quorum the Orissa State Committee meeting could not take place. However, there was a discussion on election of the state representative for the forthcoming AGM, and planning activities for the state chapter


3. Andhra Pradesh State Committee meeting was held on 30 August. Representatives from 11 member organizations were present for this meeting. The main highlights of this meeting were: discussion on the draft programme norms, election of the state representative for the forthcoming AGM, reflecting on the previous activities and planning activities for the state chapter (creating an e-group, formation of a six member committee which will take on the responsibility to keep all the other members updated about CA activities). 


4. Karnataka State Committee meeting was held on 30 August. Representatives from 10 member organizations were present for this meeting. The main highlights of this meeting were: discussion on the draft programme norms, election of the state representative for the forthcoming AGM, reflecting on the previous activities such as efforts taken towards sustainability, promotional campaigns, capacity building workshops, work of Ad hoc committee and planning activities for the state chapter.


5. Jammu and Kashmir State Committee meeting was held on 9th August.  Credibility Alliance has two members in Jammu and Kashmir, All Jammu and Kashmir Saffron Growers and Dealers Association and the NGOs Co-ordination Federation. These two members organized this meeting. Representatives from 50 organizations attended this meeting.  During this meeting CA’s minimum norms and programme norms were discussed. The NGOs Co-ordination Federation took the responsibility to help other organizations to fill up the Credibility Alliance membership forms.

NGO ACCOUNTABILITY

NGOs play an important role in society. They are involved in various aspects and issues of human need and endeavor. In recent years, there is recognition that NGOs have an increasing presence and influence at local, national, and international level. This has led to questions about their legitimacy for such a role, and it is in this context that questions of NGO accountability also arise. There are reservations regarding accountability from within the voluntary sector itself. This is because organizational accountability is often seen as a bureaucratic hurdle or as a threat to achieving an NGO’s aims. Some fear that any toughening of accountability may lead to an overbearing influence from funders and governments and this could lead to a deflection or dilution of the original purpose of the NGO. There are also fears that it will not give NGOs space to innovate.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines accountability as “the quality or state of being accountable; especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” The phrase “obligation or willingness” allows for different understandings of the term accountability, as obligation suggests being held to account, while willingness suggests giving an account. Incorporating both aspects, then accountability concerns a relationship between A and B, where A is accountable to B if they must explain their actions to B, and could be adversely affected by B if B doesn’t like the account (Goetz and Jenkins ( 2002) in Bendall, 2006 ). This shows that accountability has undercurrents of power, authority, and ownership. In defining the lines and directions of accountability the distribution of power and the level of ownership is also defined (Kilby, 2006).

NGOs are accountable to multiple actors: to patrons, to clients, and to themselves (Najam, 1996). NGO-patron accountability or ‘upwards’ accountability refers to relationships with donors, foundations, and governments. NGO accountability to clients refers primarily to relationships with ‘groups to whom NGOs provide services’ although it may also include communities or regions indirectly affected by NGO programs. This has also been termed as downward accountability. The third category of accountability concerns NGO themselves. This internal accountability includes an NGO’s responsibility to its mission and staff. There is a distinction between functional accountability and strategic accountability (Avina (1993) in Najam, 1996). Functional accountability is accounting for resource use and immediate impacts. Strategic accountability is accounting for the impacts that an NGO’s actions have on the actions of other stakeholders and the wider environment. Najam suggests that while functional accountability of NGOs to patrons, operationalized through reports and accounts, is typically high in practice, functional accountability to clients and NGOs themselves is low. He also contends that strategic accountability is weak on all fronts, implying that current accountability relations among NGOs, patrons, and clients are focused on short-term activities rather than on long-term change

According to scholars, the particular form of accountability that merits being regarded as desirable is the one, which is deeply rooted in the concepts of human rights and democracy. The basic idea of demos kratos, or people rule, is that people govern themselves. Therefore in a democratically-governed society, a community of people ideally has meaningful participation in decisions and processes that affect them (Dahl, 1964; Held, 2000; Isbister, 2001 in Bendall, 2006).This has been further explained.  Organizations of all forms influence people’s lives to different degrees. The concept of “stakeholder” here can be useful as it groups together people on the basis of their being affected by an organization. Thus stakeholder democracy can be defined as an ideal system of governance of a society where all stakeholders in an organization or activity have the same opportunity to govern that organization or activity. Stakeholder groups are key to this process, as well as being the subjects of democratic governance themselves. This notion of democracy resonates with the increasingly popular non-statist perspective on human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) defines human rights as claims by individuals on the governments of Nation States, yet at the same time affirms the dignity and worth of all peoples no matter which State they live in, and calls on all “organs of society” to promote the realization of rights for all. Hence all organizations can be assessed in terms of how they relate to people’s enjoyment of human rights and how they contribute to democratic governance of society.

With these concepts in mind, the ideal is a society where all decision making is accountable to those affected by those decisions or indecisions. This ideal of “democratic accountability” is one that concerns the whole of society, not just a particular organization. However, for this principle to be workable for the management and regulation of organizations, the challenge is to identify a form of accountability for individual organizations that is constitutive of this broader societal democratic accountability. This understanding of democratic accountability does not make the accountability of NGOs less important. Rather, it means that NGOs should take special efforts to be accountable to those they affect who have less power. An organization aspiring to promote democratic accountability is one that seeks to be accountable to all those with less power that it affects, while in turn promoting the same principle in those to which it seeks to be accountable. By rooting the discussion on NGO accountability in the concept on democratic accountability, we support the wider enjoyment of rights and deepening of democracy.