Accountability: virtue or mechanism?

MOPAN is a response to both problems of assessments and methodology. The assessments can provide the required factual knowledge at a reasonable cost and give donor countries a common benchmark to agree on what constitutes good practice in performance.79 MOPAN leaves to its members the responsibility of leveraging this accountability relationship in each organisation.

Accountability: virtue or mechanism?

The accountability relationship can lead to improved performance in two ways.80 • The mere fact of assessing organisations is seen as an assurance that MOs will act in an accountable manner (“accountability as a virtue”), and a protection against unfounded hearsay about their performance.81

• The other concerns how information about performance can be used to influence an organisation’s behaviour. This usually includes the possibility of a debate, and imposing formal or informal measures if needed (“accountability as a mechanism”). MOPAN was initially rooted in the first pathway, as indicated by the following: • First, MOPAN works as a tacit arrangement whereby MOs agree to be assessed with very few formal requirements for follow up. The assessments include no recommendations, for instance, and there is no formalised requirement (or even follow up) on the identified “areas for improvement”. • Second, MOPAN emphasises responding to donors’ needs and making MOs accountable to donors’ criteria and indicators, in support of their own accountability systems. In the mid-2010s, the use of assessments shifted. Some member countries began using MOPAN assessments to support organisational changes in MOs. In parallel, the MOPAN Secretariat made significant efforts to support this new strategic direction, among other things by increasing the possibility of exchanges with MOs that were expected to increase use.

However, there was no change in MOPAN’s fundamental characteristics reflecting this shift. The tacit nature of MOPAN’s engagement with MOs remains unchanged: leaving members to endorse the results of the MO assessment and using their influence to support its use or to having MOs agree on the need for changes. This agreement often already exists through the MOs’ internal political and change dynamics, but it may be influenced by external evidence sources such as MOPAN.

MOPAN has also stayed focused on satisfying donors’ assessment needs including for a methodology or the selection of MOs to be assessed (e.g. the emphasis is put first on systematically satisfying the assessment processes of MOPAN members rather than on addressing the most significant issues in the multilateral system). It is likely that the only way to hold an MO (and its senior management in particular) accountable is through its governing bodies. This would mean involving other MO member countries in supporting that demand. However, MOPAN and its members did not try to do so at this stage.

79  It is of note that, as the 2013 evaluation pointed out, external assessments are only one way of providing factual knowledge: the possibility of helping MOs providing that knowledge themselves was explored too before being abandoned. 80  This is the “accountability as a virtue” vs. “accountability as a mechanism” (Bovens, 2010). 81  Boesen, 2019. Op. cit. p. 20.