NGOs

“Striking a Balance: A Guide to Enhancing the Effectiveness of NGOs in International Development” offers analysis and a practical guide to how NGOs can be effective international development. It describes sustainable people-centred development and the processes required to achieve it, focusing on the five factors which determine effectiveness: suitable organisational design; competent leadership and human resources; appropriate external relationships; mobilisation of high quality finance; and the measurement of performance coupled to 'learning for leverage'.

Autonomy or Dependence: Case Studies of North-South NGO Partnerships explores the concept and practice of ‘partnership’ between NGOs in the North and South. Based on a rigourous four-year study, the book draws together the perspectives of a group of European NGOs and compares these with the experiences of a selection of their partners in Brazil, Cambodia and Tanzania. The authors look ahead to how partnerships are changing as networks and alliances of Northern and Southern civil society organisations join together to work on common issues.

The results of this report indicate that if global organisations are to be part of the solution to global challenges, there needs to be a change in their approaches to accountability. Global actors need to start implementing reforms which increase the quality of their accountability policies and systems. Specifically, they need to tackle the more challenging accountability reforms which truly empower external stakeholders to hold an organisation to account.