The next session of the NGOs & Development study group will meet at 4 pm on Tuesday, February 9 at Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1) at the Harvard Kennedy School.  The topic of the discussion, led by Professor L. David Brown, will be “NGOs and the Puzzle of Legitimacy and Accountability”.

Professor Brown, who recently retired from the Harvard Kennedy School faculty, has done pioneering work in the field of NGO accountability and legitimacy, and was involved in the creation of the INGO Accountability Charter. Professor Brown will frame the discussion with some perspectives on:

• how thinking and practice re accountability has been evolving in the NGO world
• what some promising approaches are - and what can be learned from them
• what some of the most persistent issues still are

This session will be a chance to participate in an active discussion and candid exchange about key issues related to NGO accountability and legitimacy.

MORE ABOUT L. DAVID BROWN

L. David Brown is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. He recently retired from the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to coming to Harvard, Professor Brown was President of the Institute for Development Research, a nonprofit center for development research, and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Boston University. His research and consulting has focused on institution building, particularly for civil society organizations and networks, that fosters sustainable development and social transformation. He has written or edited Creating Credibility: Legitimacy and Accountability for Transnational Civil Society, Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction (with Srilatha Batliwala), The Struggle for Accountability: NGOs, Social Movements and the World Bank (with Jonathan Fox) and Managing Conflict at Organizational Interfaces. Professor Brown has been a Fulbright Lecturer in India and a Peace Corps community organizer in Ethiopia.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Oxfam America.