Abstract
Until mid 1990s, the Japanese NGOs were not keen on accountability initiatives. However, the rise in both the recognition of NGOs in the society, and the demand for social responsibility of all organizations, as well as the widely reported misuse of governmental subsidiary by NGOs lead the NGOs to see the clear need to take action on the issue. In 2002, JANIC, a network of NGOs, initiated a discussion on creating a framework for NGO accountability and composed the “Code of Conduct on NGO Accountability”. The code is a framework of 322 indicators structured using the following dimensions of: organizational management, project implementation,accounting, and public information In 2008. the “Accountability Self-Check 2008” was developed by amending the shortcoming of the previous code, reducing the amount of indicators and introducing a facilitator system to observe the self-assessment process. It is being promoted among JANIC member NGOs with the aim of enhancing both accountability awareness and the practice. With the aim of obtaining better reliability from the society, the system is planned to be revised to serve various type of NGO activities in addition to service delivery project type cooperation in the field, and to find ways to become part of organizational development practice.
