IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cdipxx/v18y2008i1p40-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accountability, autonomy, and authenticity: assessing the development waltz conducted to a ‘’ beat in Southern Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Abrahams

Abstract

For the purposes of accountability and uniformity, and as a way of giving insight into their intellectual capital regarding development practices, NGOs in Southern Africa are required by donor agencies to describe their intended activities in very clear, unambiguous terms. These requirements may include the expression of theoretical approaches, the development of logical frameworks, clear objectives, indicators for success, criteria for sustainable development, and relationships to government policies. However, the interface between reality and these planning measures and tools, most often completed without the input and contributions of the communities whom they are to serve/service, produces a much more messy, dynamic, and involved picture of the development process. None the less, the NGOs are still required to be accountable on the basis of their original proposal and planning. The author presents examples of this phenomenon and discusses the challenges facing an evaluator when dealing with competing principles of accountability, autonomy, and authenticity.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Abrahams, 2008. "Accountability, autonomy, and authenticity: assessing the development waltz conducted to a ‘’ beat in Southern Africa," Development in Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 40-52.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cdipxx:v:18:y:2008:i:1:p:40-52
    DOI: 10.1080/09614520701778348
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09614520701778348
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09614520701778348?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cdipxx:v:18:y:2008:i:1:p:40-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cdip .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.