The views, insights and opinions expressed below are of the author(s) and are not Accountable Now’s. We are proud to amplify a range of diverse voices that help shape, challenge and push our work as well as the sector as a whole to “do good better.”
This year Accountable Now is celebrating 20 years! While this is a very exciting organizational milestone for us, understanding and pursuing our mission in 2026 looks very different than when we started. Massive funding cuts, civic space shrinkage, the rise of overregulation by governments and funders, and multitude of other crises and failures leave civil society organizations in a precarious position today. In a moment when trust in civil society is at an all time low, compared against trust in other institutions, Accountable Now’s work remains indispensable.
For 20 years, organizations have turned to Accountable Now for reviews of practice, expert advice, peer exchange, and collective advancement of people-centered accountability. What started as a group of 11 nonprofits has since supported over 60 Member organizations, dozens of partners and funders, and hundreds of sector practitioners to examine, equip, and better enable civil society to do good better.
Over the coming year, we’ll be reflecting on Accountable Now’s history, the role of people-centered accountability today, and direction for the future of CSO accountability efforts through blog posts, think pieces, dialogues, and interviews with sector practitioners and advocates. This blog post, where I’ll be taking you through an abbreviated story about AN’s founding moment and purpose, kicks off our 20 Years in Focus Campaign.
In the early 2000s, civil society was benefiting from widespread support from the public, compared to other institutions, while still aware that global challenges were impacting the work of international CSOs. First in 2003, International Advocacy Non-Governmental Organizations (IANGOs) came together for a series of workshops, where discussions revolved around the need for formalizing cross-sector accountability standards. Even at a moment when trust was at an all time high, civil society leaders recognized that they had major blind spots and a need to examine their work and approaches more closely. At the time, these leaders identified that the biggest gap in their ability to understand what good is supposed to look like for a CSO was a lack of a common framework and review mechanism. With seed funding from the Ford Foundation, a task force was formed and developed the first iteration of a common charter. After a series of drafts and edits, on June 6, 2006, the International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGO) Accountability Charter was officially adopted with eleven INGOs as signatories. To enable implementation and review of committed organizations, the signatories and other partners created a new Member-focused and Member-funded community, with a Secretariat tasked to uphold the joint accountability standards, primarily through a Reporting Framework and peer-led learning. Ten years after the initial charter we officially changed our name to Accountable Now, to better reflect the mission and public recognition of our work.
You can find a full overview of the evolution of Accountable Now on “The History of Accountable Now”.
In the early days, our reporting relied on an existing framework called the General Reporting Initiative for accountability quality assurance, but we soon recognized an underlying need to co-create a set of unified commitments for civil society, by civil society. Starting in 2013, we began collaborating with other prominent civil society sister networks to design a set of commitments that unify what accountability looks like for civil society organizations, as individuals and as a collective. This collaboration led to the creation and launch of the Global Standard for CSO Accountability, an initiative that followed a bottom-up approach to co-creation, largely led by Majority World organizations and networks. Through this co-creation process, the 12 Commitments was developed, reflecting a shared vision of what accountability and responsibility mean for CSOs worldwide. The commitments represent a shift towards accountability as both downwards and outwards, rather than only upwards to donors and governments.
Around this same time, our Members and partners began to recognize that whatever the specifics of our accountability commitments, the sector needed to take an adaptive and iterative approach to pursuing people-centered accountability Borrowing from our member, Restless Development, we adopted our now foundational approach, Dynamic Accountability. The approach to Dynamic Accountability centers our commitment to accountability as mechanisms that are continuous, based on feedback, and center those closest to the problem.
The Global Standard for CSO Accountability was officially launched in 2017, and the 12 Commitments were integrated into the work of Accountable Now. Accountable Now also served as the secretariat for the Global Standard, until 2023, where the partnership’s Secretariat function became decentralized.
Looking back at 20 Years of Accountable Now, and how our organization has adapted to our Members and the sector, I am struck by a few key themes:
Reflecting on these lessons from the past 20 years, I am confident that Accountable Now’s next 20 years will continue to be dynamic and filled with CSO-driven changes. In a time where community and collaboration are so needed, Accountable Now’s history clearly shows the value of accountability and networks as integral parts of the civil society ecosystem.
This blog post is part of our 20 Years in Focus campaign, celebrating the history and momentum of Accountable Now. Throughout 2026, we’re hosting events, promoting resources, and publishing research that spotlights different themes and principles that underpin our work. But it’s not just the voices of Accountable Now of today, we’re excited to be joined by voices from the full two decades of Accountable Now, sharing insights and reflections on Dynamic Accountability then, now, and tomorrow.
Stay tuned to our Linkedin and our “20 Years in Focus” landing page for the latest announcements and initiatives.
Were you part of Accountable Now throughout some point over the past two decades – whether through a Member organization, on our IRP, a past intern, or some other method? We’re working on expanding our community of AN Ambassadors and would love to be in touch! Please reach out to us: comms@accountablenow.org.
Accountable Now is committed to promoting a more just, equitable & accountable world. Do you have a story to share that demonstrates how organizations can strengthen their Dynamic Accountability practices?