Governments around the world have sought to strengthen accountability for results in the public sector by introducing central or sector-specific delivery approaches, such as delivery units. Whether these approaches have effectively streamlined accountability to produce coherent and desired results is a question with which development agencies and researchers are currently grappling. By drawing on secondary document analysis, a historical narrative, and 37 key informant interviews in Jordan’s education sector, this retrospective study investigates the assumption that these delivery units could improve performance by enhancing accountabilityrelationships within the system.

The study finds that in Jordan, the delivery units did not always streamline accountability as intended. They often confounded accountability, particularly across complex and politically sensitive policy areas with multiple oversight bodies within and outside of government. While this multiplicityoften led to negative consequences, such as project delays, duplication, and re-orientation, it also sometimes led to a sustained commitment to previous priorities where turnover among ministers was especially high. The insights from this study have implications for the question of whether creating a new delivery unit may confound rather than simplify and reduce the proliferation of accountability relationships in a multi-stakeholder ecosystem.