ABSTRACT
The 1990s have witnessed a significant increase in efforts to assess the performance of non-governmental, non-profit development organisations (NGOs). This trend can be traced to a number of factors. First, since the early 1980s a growing proportion of financial resources used by NGOs has derived from the official aid system, overtaking, in terms of rate of growth, their income from public giving (Fowler 1992a). Public funds are accompanied by more stringent ‘contractual’ demands for financial accountability and the realisation of agreed impacts (Hawley 1993). Second, the post-Cold War rationale for official overseas development assistance (ODA) is further accelerating shifts in donor priorities towards the institutional restructuring of recipient countries, with a corresponding push on NGOs to alter their role in society. Effective management of such organisational transformations requires sound and timely information about achievement. Third, NGOs tend to argue that they are more cost-effective than governments in reaching and serving people who are poor and/or marginalised and are now being called upon to demonstrate that this is indeed the case (UNDP 1993; van Dijk 1994). Fourth, there is a growing realisation that organisational effectiveness is positively correlated with an ability to learn from experience (Senge 1990). This insight is argued to be of particular relevance for NGOs because, as entities dedicated to social change, they predominantly function as natural open systems (Scott 1987, pp 105–115; Fowler et al 1992, pp 17–19), where performance is very dependent on and sensitive to instability and rapid change in the external environment. Such situations are common in both the South and the North. Learning requires data about all aspects of organisational functioning, prompting greater attention to the need to gather evidence of impact and assess the capacity to adapt.
