Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / After decades of seeking answers, without much success, to the development challenges facing third world countries, agencies such as the IMF and World Bank have turned increasingly in recent years to issues governance and accountability. In Africa especially, the failure of most development strategies has been attributed to governance issues such as democratic deficits, corruption and lack of political accountability among others. Uganda like several other African countries has been criticised for corruption - a sign that the country has a problem with the functioning of accountability and governance in general. In an attempt to find out whether the local government institutional mechanisms in Uganda embody possible explanations for weaknesses in political accountability, this study hypothesizes that institutional arrangements impact on downward accountability. While concentrating on the anatomy of institutions and the dimensions of accountability to which they relate, as well as on how the formal and informal institutions relate to each other, the study gives an insight into how institutions impact on downward answerability and enforceability at the local level in Uganda. Based on a thorough consideration of both the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of accountability, the study develops relevance criteria upon which an assessment of both formal and informal institutions' relevance for each of the dimensions of accountability is based. In both cases, formal institutions are found to be more relevant for accountability than informal ones. Critical issues about the capabilities of informal institutions are however raised, culminating in a discussion on the relationship between formal and informal institutions in the study area. While also considering other variables that interact with institutions in affecting accountability, the study calls for a re examination in the concepts under investigation namely 'institutions' and 'accountability'. The study concludes that problems of accountability can be accounted for by weaknesses in institutional design, conceptual weaknesses in the definition of accountability, as well as contextual factors such as resource constraints. In the light of this recognition, the study offers theoretical as well as policy level recommendation

Humanitarian accountability has been a topic of discussion since the 1990s, in response to a number of high-level scandals. Dozens of initiatives highlighting the importance of accountability to affected populations have been established. However, humanitarian organisations still receive criticisms for lacking accountability. This thesis examines the research question: How does the World Food Programme use international standards to guide accountability in its humanitarian interventions in Iraq, and how these standards fulfil its commitments to the affected populations? This is done through an in-depth case study of the WFP, in the context of Iraq. The academic literature highlights the concept of humanitarian accountability as both a practical concern as well as a moral one. This is emphasised within the literature of humanitarian organisations together with how accountability, as a concept, have been poorly defined, and research as to its practice is continuously lacking. This research found that the accountability provided was mainly technical and accountability to affected populations in Iraq remain low. Accountability practices that are currently in place does not live up to the commitment made by the WFP to affected populations in Iraq. Further, the research pinpoints how accountability within the WFP has become more of a technical standard in practice, which has resulted in limited scope of accountability to affected populations in Iraq. This results in phantom accountability, characterised by meaningless mechanisms and indicators that instead portray an image of accountability while not translating into actual practical actions towards affected populations.