Accountability em organizações não governamentais (ONGs), beneficiadas com recursos públicos e ou privados

Abstract

The present research investigated how Non-Governmental Entities in Rio Grande do Sul are proceeding to render accounts to the funding agencies as well as to society in general; especially in relation to the resources they are trusted with in order to de-velop their projects. In theoretical terms, the study relates to the Accountability theme which vests itself with fundamentals such as transparency, rendering of accounts, participation and accountability in relation to acts performed by different agents, whether public, private or those of civil society. The practice of accountability takes place with the rendering of accounts conducted by economic and social agents in relation to the actions they have developed. In the case of NGOs, the rendering of accounts is offered to sponsors, collaborators as well as to general society, and the referred action should be based on the alluded conceptual fundamentals. In order to obtain the data on the usage of these practices by NGOs, the chosen technique was that of data collection through semi-structured interviews, which were applied to managers on a sample of 18 NGOs based in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre - RS. The criterion for choosing the sample was basically the accessibility to the indi-viduals to be researched. Through the data gathering instrument, aspects related to the general characteristics of NGOs were investigated: management tools for moni-toring economic and financial control, and the management structure they used; sus-tainability through resource obtainment mechanisms; the adoption of the accountabil-ity concept on governance practice as means to demonstrate the rendering of ac-counts to various publics. The data collected were subjected to a descriptive analy-sis, in which the percentage of usage degrees was calculated, based on the re-sponses obtained, which were categorized on the Likert scale. In addition, a qualita-tive analysis of the transcript of the answers to the open questions was held. The analysis made it possible to identify that the NGOs which have been studied work in areas that should be served by the state. Although the organizations have a manage-rial structure rather reduced, they show the adoption of management practices in ac-cordance with the principles of accountability, rendering accounts to the sponsor and disclosing their actions to society in general. The practice of economic and financial management, in the majority of the surveyed NGOs, is accomplished by monitoring their budgetary performance, being the decision making process explained to col-laborators. Still, limitations in terms of management process as well as in accoun-tancy and financial control can be perceived in some of the surveyed NGOs. The most evident aspect of the interviews is the constant concern for the continuity of the organization regarding its sustainability.