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New DEC rules make aid agencies accountable to themselves 1

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 23 Jul 2008

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) will no longer release post-appeal evaluation reports as a result of an overhaul of its accountability procedures that has been classed as “opaque” and “retrograde” by critics.

A new accountability framework, introduced this year, will instead see the DEC’s 13 member aid agencies, whose chief executives sit alongside a few independents on the board of trustees, mark themselves against six set objectives and report annually to the board on which they sit.

The DEC will also cease commissioning independent evaluations of emergency appeals, although charities themselves remain free to do so.

In contrast to past practice, results from the member agencies will not be made public. The reports in which the agencies grade themselves against the criteria, according to the DEC, are private, progress documents.

The decision to abandon ad hoc reports came about after board members argued that annual, aggregate reports of aid agency activity are the most effective method of measuring effectiveness and delivering accountability.

However, even the aggregate reports will not be released for public consumption. In this year’s annual report, the DEC refers only to general trends and themes in the sector under the headings of the six key criteria. This is set to be the format in which the DEC reports its evaluation process findings in the future.

The new criteria, set out in the accountability framework developed in collaboration with accountants Ernst & Young, includes a commitment to using funds as advertised, being accountable to beneficiaries, achieving stated goals, learning from experience, running well-managed appeals and exhibiting commitment to humanitarian principles and behaviours.

Move slammed

The new policy has drawn strong criticism from others in the sector. Adam Rothwell, director of donor information website Intelligent Giving, slammed the move as a “big, retrograde step.”

“In 2006, it deleted critical comments from the summary of a report into the tsunami. That showed an abject lack of respect for the charity’s donors, and a terrible attitude towards transparency. Under the DEC’s new accountability framework, that culture of secrecy will be preserved,” he said.

Richard Marsh, director of the ImpACT Coalition, said that although many of the charities involved in the DEC are some of the most transparent and accountable charities in operation, the move by the DEC is “rather opaque”.

While acknowledging that the agencies themselves are likely to continue on with their high level of accountability reporting independent of the DEC, Marsh argued that “as the brand of the DEC becomes stronger in the public eye and ear, it too must shoulder that burden [of accountability].”

“Anything that waters down accountability is to be questioned,” he said.

Nothing to hide

The move to bury evaluation reports within annual reports is particularly curious given that, according to the annual report released last week, an average of more than 98 per cent of funds raised by the DEC for its member agencies since 2003 have gone to charitable activities on the ground.

Back in late 2006, following some criticism of DEC agencies’ response to the Southern African drought, DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley reported to the House of Commons that the organisation was looking to move away from post-appeal accountability reports “due to the increasing tendency for the media to report evaluations selectively and take criticisms out of context”.

However, former DEC evaluator John Cosgrave told the Financial Times that negative coverage of such evaluations by the media in the past had had only modest impact on subsequent fundraising efforts.

Intelligent Giving’s Rothwell argued that fear of negative media coverage was no excuse for abandoning transparent reports. “The DEC ought to improve its evaluation process,” he said. “It does not justify increased secrecy.”

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