Addressing accountability in NGO advocacy: Practice, principles and prospects of self-regulation

Abstract

Based on a world-wide survey of civil society self-regulatory initiatives, this paper examines how non-governmental organizations (NGO) have begun to address the accountability challenges they face when engaging in advocacy, and explains some of the strengths and weaknesses of existing self-regulation. The briefing identifies a set of initial good practice principles for advocacy organisations for each major dimension of accountability. Questions and concerns about whether an organisation indeed contributes to the public benefit have often been confused with the issue of how to assess and measure the impact of particular policy advocacy activities.