This issues of the CBW newsletter looks at accountability in relation to Community-Based Worker (CBW) systems and some of the challenges involved. Accountability is a word that is often used in the development sector, but what does it actually mean? Accountability is about being responsible to someone or for some action . but is often interpreted as being primarily upward by an organistion or agency to a donor or central government, not downward to users of services. CBW systems challenge this conventional approach to accountability and seek to ensure that any CBW worker is primarily accountable to the community they serve as well as to any of the organisations they may be affiliated to or supported by in their role as a CBW.