The multi-year Ford Foundation funded research project that gave rise to this book grew out of an ever-expanding collection of anecdotes and findings that pointed to the need to address the issue of accountability in international economic development consulting. At issue is the imbalance between the rising numbers, leeway, autonomy, influence, reach, and purview of consultants on the one hand, and the diminishing or inadequate means that donor and recipient governments (especially of less developed and transitional countries) and wider publics have of ensuring the accountability of consultants on the other. We take “accountability” to encompass ethical and responsible practice and the range of incentives and mechanisms that encourage such practice in each part of the consulting process. It should not be reduced simply to a system for punishing bad behavior by means such as sanctions imposed after the fact and often after damage has been done.