From Accountability to Shared Responsibility: NGO Evaluation in Latin America

In Latin America today NGOs are the subject of much critical comment and debate, most of which is coming from European Governments and NGO financing partners in Europe and Canada. At the same time, multilateral organisations like the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, UNDP and others are ‘discovering’ NGO virtues and skills. What are these qualities? In Latin America it could be argued that the close relationship NGOs have with grassroots organisations (GROs) is their greatest strength. NGOs show a real commitment to change in their societies and generally they work with lower overheads than governmental and multilateral organisations; the level of salaries, office space and facilities of most NGOs in Latin America are evidence that they function on very tight budgets. At the same time, the number of NGOs is proliferating in line with global trends (UNDP 1993). In several countries – Brazil, Colombia and Peru, for example – this growth has been spectacular: in Peru in 1980 there were an estimated 218 registered NGOs working on development issues, a number which had grown to 897 by 1993 (Noriega and Saravia 1994). ¹