Following the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda (JEEAR) in 1996, efforts to improve accountability throughout the humanitarian sector, including higher programming standards, a better-skilled workforce, and stronger accountability to disaster-affected communities have increased. This In-depth paper by IRIN addresses accountability in humanitarian action by asking what humanitarians mean when talking about accountability, and whether and to what extent accountability in the humanitarian sector has improved over the past two decades. It sheds light on a number of examples - focusing on specific sectors, actors, and countries - and formulates adivice on how to put accountability into practice.