{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021148036253776436, 'fraction_numerical': 0.008056394763343404, 'mean_word_length': 5.151702786377709, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
AccountAbility 2005: ‘Reinventing Accountability for the 21st Century’

AccountAbility’s 2005 Annual Conference, ‘Reinventing Accountability for the 21 Century’, did little to rekindle my faith in the game that has become accountability. It did not begin well, as we trailed along poorly signed corridors within the bowels of London’s Earls Court to find the venue. Broader stakeholder interest appeared to have done little to shape the nature of arrival at this event. Grateful to have found the plenary session, we were returned immediately to the labyrinth that we had recently left. But this time it was an absence of conceptual signage that left us wandering and wondering. In the course of the opening sessions, accountability was claimed as the protector of human rights, the means of ensuring legal conformance, the road to global standards, the key contributor to democratic process, and the critical agent for fighting corruption. Had we, perhaps, inadvertently slipped into the conference on the Weapon for Mass Reconstruction? While speakers such as Mary Robinson and Achim Steiner were excellent, what was on the table for reinvention? The meaning of accountability would not be so bothersome if it was not patently clear that the accountability field has become big business (though big business has not essentially become more accountable). The large registration fee aside, the value of accountability appears to have been reduced to the ability to measure. The event was a marketplace awash with offers of measurement frameworks, studies, and qualifications. As I resisted the urge to join the programme that creates ‘Certified Sustainability Assurance Practitioners’, or the invitation to delve into the Accountability Rating 2005 that places BP and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in pole position, some questions came to me. These were less about the reinvention of accountability and more about a deeper debate on various issues that have been in the air for some time.