Responsibility and Accountability by International Institutions: Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s
Author(s)
Chege, Michael
Abstract
Ideally, a regime of international institutions whose member governments are responsible to their own citizens by virtue of being democratic would become, ipso facto, accountable to the global community it claims to serve, since all citizens can quest policies adopted by their own states. At first blush that ideal appears to run against the grain of political reality. This chapter therefore seeks to promote more transparent debate at the international policy-making forums of these bodies and, more significantly, the institutionalization of accountability enforcement mechanism by independent commissions. The international organizations should also have audits of the type common in the corporate world and parliamentary oversight of the executive arm of government in mature democracies. A system of impartial adjudication that rewards positive achievement and penalizes faults and illegality within the framework of multilateral institutions might redeem their increasingly controversial reputation and also improve their ability to deal with Africa’s dismal condition.
