SPEAKING ALOUD
[ Arun Maira, Harivansh , Shankar Venkateswaran, Riaz Quadir, Harmala Gupta, Kabir Mustafi. ]
In the March issue of Civil Society we reported the findings of an opinion poll conducted by GFK Mode on perceptions about social sector organisations. The government and judiciary were also rated. Here we print a collection of viewson the poll’s findings. Over to RIAZ QUADIR
THE World Bank defines NGOs as "private organisations
that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote
the interests of the poor, protect the environment,
provide basic social services, or undertake community
development". The broader usage the term NGO
has presently acquired can be applied to any non-profit
organisation which is independent from government.
For their funding, NGOs depend wholly or in greater part
on sources external to their operations. Although the
NGO sector has become increasingly professional over
the last two decades, the idea of altruism and voluntarism linger in the public
mind as their defining characteristics.
Were one to go by the above definition of an NGO one would be led through
a monumental maze of organisations, big and small, stretching our imagination
to its limits. Even a cursory coverage of such a vast topic would take volumes.
What is more interesting is not the variety of pursued objectives of the vast
range of NGOs that run the gamut from research institutes and benign think
tanks with sinister purposes, to those that actually pursue their professed voluntary
and altruistic goals.
Following the money however, would give us a brief glimpse at a parallel
hierarchy of the global power structure. Every organisation requires capital to
set up and finance its operations. For the profit-making kind the source is obvious.
For non-profit NGOs the source of funding becomes a very interesting criterion
for a political analyst and often provides answers to the raison d’etre for
these organisations. He who pays the piper is he who calls the tune, it is said.
The focus has been on individuals when it comes to the problem of funding
misdeeds and NGOs set up for personal gain. The one that comes to mind is the
35- year- old investigation of the many enterprises of Humana People to People
known as the TVIND Empire or the Teachers Group. This was run by a Dane
called Morgens Amdi Petersen, who set up various organisations, first in Europe
and then all over the world (including India) posing as humanitarian and charitable
organisations, exploiting the gullibility and the guilt that goes with the economic
disparity that exists across the globe. It is a $840 million commercial
empire and political cult built around a network of inter-related volunteering
and recycling enterprises in 30 countries.
Among many different things it did
(and continues to do), it collects old clothing in the name of charity in rich western
nations and then sells (or trades) them in poor developing countries for a
smacking profit. It raises funds and it runs training programmes for development
instructors who are volunteers from developed nations who pay money in
advance for their 'training', and are required to spend weeks raising yet more
money. Planet Aid is one of the names under which it operates in the USA.
Mike Durham, a British journalist and writer, correspondent for the Sunday
Times, Daily Telegraph, Observer and Independent newspapers; and Frede
Jakobsen, a Danish journalist, working on the newspaper, Fyens Stiftstidende,
were responsible for exposing TVIND through relentless investigation for many
years, and the public has had the usual parade of villas and expensive lifestyles
that included chalets in the Alps, luxury yachts etc. Front companies and offshore
bank accounts in tax havens such as Guernsey, Jersey, the Cayman
Islands, Gibraltar and the Dutch Antilles also followed the usual pattern.
Despite the significance of exposing such cases that involve individuals the
real bane of NGOs rests with States. Here the slopes are much more slippery
and the waters murkier. Here the power of governments are brought to bear
upon the unsuspecting victims.Here too, there are a variety of organisations that run from the multilateral
to those that are operated by single governments. The UN and its affiliated bodies
re at the highest end of this spectrum. Detailing their shortcomings could
be a lifetime’s work, but it is sufficient to say here that the salaries and benefits
paid to their employees should put to shame anyone pursuing “activities to
relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment,
provide basic social services, or undertake community development". Here is a
perfect example of fund raising and fund disbursement that is so skewed that
it challenges the very logic on which it is based.
Ironically, ‘Debating NGO Accountability’ is a report written by a UN official (Jem
Brendell, UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service underUNCTAD) on the lack of
accountability by NGOs. The author admits that it has usually been other NGOs
(i.e. Amnesty International) that have provided the “loyal opposition” to the
august body of the UN, in incorporating some of its best practices such as Human
Rights while its well paid officials sit too remote from “we the people of the UN”.
Even that has come to be acceptable in a world used to being run by echelons that
both create the laws and implement them to their own convenience.
What is truly
unacceptable is donor behaviour by individual governments that have made a mockery
of the financing of the international humanitarian enterprise and its “acknowledged
principles of proportionality, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”
An independent 2003 study by Ian Smillie and Larry Minear of Tufts
University, titled ‘The Quality of Money – Donor Behaviour in Humanitarian
Financing’, reveals the true state of affairs. “…humanitarian action is largely
imbedded within competing and sometimes inconsistent domestic and foreign
policy priorities. Much donor behaviour reflects foreign policy concerns, as was
the case during the Cold War, but domestic politics now plays an even greater
role. The influence of the media and of personal and institutional leadership
on policy and action is evident as well.”
This has consequently eroded the credibility of donors, and funds are
increasingly seen as tainted, with strings attached. Hence the need for standards
and regulations, transparency, accountability and global governance.
