What is Accountable Now?
Accountable Now is a membership platform, bringing together CSOs from around the world. We question current standards of CSO accountability and help our members to form new practices that advance Dynamic Accountability.
But we are more than just reporting. With Members, partners and accountability enthusiasts from across our wide network, we bring organisations together for conversations on how to go beyond usual accountability practices. We collect knowledge and resources through workshops, webinars, Peer Advice Groups and projects, and use these to help organisations embed accountability into CSO culture and put people at the heart of decision-making processes. This is what we call Dynamic Accountability.
CSOs are key actors in efforts and movements that promote democracy and sustainable development. In order to be effective and enhance people’s trust, CSOs need to mainstream an accountability approach that is more dynamic and responds to the needs of the people they work with and for. CSOs need to become dynamically accountable.
How do we push the Dynamic Accountability agenda forward?
by helping CSOs adopt Dynamic Accountability principles.
Reporting on activities, policies and outcomes is only one activity that CSOs should be undertaking to be truly accountable. CSOs need to move away from top-down accountability mechanisms to an approach where information flows in different directions. It is through this approach that organisations will be able to enhance trust, strengthen their legitimacy and become more effective.
by mainstreaming Dynamic Accountability practices in day-to-day operations.
We base our work on 12 accountability commitments which provide our member organisations with a framework to reflect on their outcomes and impact. We want to make sure accountability is not just another ‘box-ticking exercise’. Instead, it should be a transformative process where organisations become more accountable internally and externally.
to enhance knowledge.
There are many accountability initiatives around the world which have their own codes and standards. Furthermore, donors have their own reporting frameworks. We acknowledge the importance each framework has, and we understand that accountability has become a costly and time-consuming effort for many organisations. In this light, we explore possibilities of collaboration and alignment. We aim to foster strategic relationships with other initiatives and platforms that have accountability tools to learn from.
Accountable Now is a global membership platform. We support our members – and civil society at large – to be more transparent, responsive, impact-focused, and locally led. Interested in becoming a member?
Accountable Now is a member of Accountability Lab’s global translocal network.