Educational NGO accountability and the legacy of post-colonial mistrust

Purpose We explore how trust/mistrust, embedded within conditions of postcoloniality, is constituted in educational NGOs’ (ENGOs) accountability practices and relationships. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative design involving interviews with local educational ENGOs’ agents in Pakistan and document analysis of educational policy in Pakistan. Findings Our findings demonstrate how mistrust, rooted in colonial legacy and postcolonial conditions, is constituted in accountability practices and relations in ENGOs in Pakistan. The externally imposed, one-dimensional, accounting-based accountability relations dominate ENGOs. Such accountability relations neither build trust between funders, local ENGOs agents and the community nor empower ENGOs to achieve their educational emancipatory mission. Meanwhile, mistrust can occasionally drive local actors to find an alternative to foreign funding, shifting accountability towards beneficiaries as a form of anti-colonial resistance, seemingly improving education delivery and enhancing community trust. Originality/value The study contributes theoretically and empirically by opening the literature on NGO accountability to post-colonial theoretical explanations around mistrust, and by critically examining accountability processes, needs and perspectives from the vantage point of the post-colonised nations of the Global South.