Literature on waqf shows the importance of waqf in Islamic civilisation in terms of the breadth of services it provided and the scale of area it covered. The role of waqf may, at times, render some of the state’s roles unnecessary as indicated by the absence of some state departments (Sadeq, 2002). This historical excursion also serves to indicate a significant potential of waqf as a mechanism for providing social services to beneficiaries such as the poor. This necessitates the discussion for a better management of waqf properties. In response to this concern, the way waqf properties are managed has undergone several changes; from an individually managed setting to a government managed one to the involvement of private businesses. …show more content…
Downward accountability to the beneficiaries, is characterised by the openness of the NGO towards the involvement of beneficiaries and/or partners (O'Dwyer & Unerman, 2008). Although they do not specifically suggest that beneficiaries or/and local people manage the NGO services, they realise the importance of engaging beneficiaries and/or partners in any action and decision that may have an impact on them. The paper is arranged as follows. In Section 2, the paper highlight the concept of downward accountability and its characteristics. This is followed by brief discussion on waqf concept. Section 4 discusses research methodology and Section 5 follows with discussion on some the context of the study and downward accountability in action. The analysis and discussion is presented in Section . Section 7 summarises and …show more content…
In this case, the way downward accountability is experienced can be different from that of hierarchical accountability. The beneficiaries and the public do not generally have the power to impose, enforce and monitor the accountor to undertake certain duties nor can they require formal account – not necessarily limited to financial account – to verify whether the responsibilities and duties of accountability have been discharged. Due to this ‘deficiency’, the experience within which downward accountability is said to be discharged is also different. The difference can be surmised into the approach, the mechanism and the purpose – which we now turn