By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 2007 (IPS)

As international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continue to spread their wings to the far corners of the world, their social and economic activities, as well as their humanitarian operations in politically-troubled regions, are increasingly under public scrutiny.

Jem Bendell, author of a 2006 study on NGOs, cited a global survey conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2003 that rated NGOs above politicians, businessmen, teachers and priests in the levels of public trust.

These findings, Bendell said, were consistent with previous polls on the same topic. Still, this trust has been on the decline, according to WEF.

According to conservative estimates, there are over 48,000 international NGOs – and growing.

Next week, the spotlight will once again be on NGOs when the Johannesburg-based CIVICUS, described as the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, holds its annual World Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, to debate the challenges related to NGO accountability.

The assembly, which will also discuss how NGOs can “deliver results”, will bring together over 1,000 delegates from around the world, including donors and representatives of civil society organisations, governments, business and the media. The conference is scheduled to take place May 23-27.

James Paul, executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, one of the most vibrant NGOs monitoring international institutions such as the United Nations, points out that “NGOs are sometimes seen as consistent forces for good, heroes in a world where most other institutions are looked upon with suspicion or even disgust.”

He says that states are out of favour while business corporations are seen as greedy and heartless. “So NGOs must be the hope of the future, in the view of many,” Paul told IPS.

But actually, NGOs are very diverse, he added. They include not only idealistic and much-respected organisations but also organisations set up cynically by governments and companies, as well as NGOs that are the creatures of shadowy political groups like the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his kaleidoscopic network of NGOs, including the Unification Church, he added.

Globally, they include NGOs that are large, bureaucratic and conservative, as well as those that are small and feisty.

“Given this diversity, it is not easy to come up with a uniform set of problems and a simple set of solutions,” Paul argued.

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the San Francisco-based Oakland Institute, points out that NGOs represent a strong force for change in today’s world.

This force – particularly the anti-war groups and peace activists – was organised around the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and later identified as the “other superpower’ by the New York Times, which ran dozens of stories on concerns around NGO accountability.

She also cited the non-profit efforts headed by (environmentalist) Wangari Mathai in Kenya that have been recognised by the Nobel Prize Committee.

“This force came together as an expression of citizen action resulting in resolutions banning cultivation of genetically-modified crops in several California counties,” Mittal told IPS.

The success of citizen power has also resulted in NGOs being “created”. For example, she said, the AgBioWorld Foundation, supposedly an independent 501(c)(3) U.S.-based non-profit organisation, is basically the biotech industry’s mouthpiece.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, she pointed out, can participate in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting as a member of civil society and promote its own interests.

In his publication “Debating NGO Accountability”, Bendell quotes a 2005 World Bank study as saying that “as the influence of (NGOs) continues to grow, they are also attracting greater public scrutiny, prompting calls for greater accountability.”

In many parts of the world, NGOs are providing more services today than ever before, according to Bendell, an associate professor at Griffith University Business School in Australia.

These range from schools and hospitals to water and shelter. Still, the lack of accountability is seen as a major shortcoming.

On the downside, some NGOs in Russia and the former Soviet republics are often perceived as covers for organised crime.

In Bangladesh and Pakistan, the study said, NGOs are sometimes seen as fronts for fundamentalist causes. And in Central Asia, they serve as platforms for failed politicians.

Consequently, the growth in NGOs should not be assumed to mean a growth in support for or positive contributions by NGOs.

Bendell also says there were widespread reports of misuse and abuse of humanitarian funds during relief work after the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Paul of the Global Policy Forum said that “private foundations have been pushing for greater NGO accountability, which is not a bad idea, but it is often promoted in the absence of concern about corporate responsibility for business.”

One World Trust in Britain has experimented with a report that considers the accountability of NGOs, business companies and multilateral institutions, raising some interesting issues, even though the scale and purpose of the three are quite different, he added.

Mittal of the Oakland Institute warns that one has to be careful when the world’s attention is diverted to focus on accountability of NGOs per se.

“What is more important is to know the NGO’s source of funding and how the funds are spent. And most of this is already known through audit reports and expenditure reports that the NGOs are required to make available to the public,” she said. “I will say that it is vital that NGOs work in coalitions and networks to forge multi-cultural, cross-border and cross-class alliances.”

Through these connections and close collaboration with national/international networks and coalitions, she noted, “we can transnationalise progressive activism in a way that would strengthen ‘equal-footing’ alliances between Northern and Southern organisations and social movements.”

In June 2005, the heads of 11 leading human rights, environmental and social development international organisations publicly endorsed the first global NGO accountability charter.

The organisations signing the Charter included ActionAid International, Oxfam International, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Transparency International and Save the Children Alliance.

Asked how effective this charter is, Paul said: “It is not clear what the result of this charter is or will be.”

To a casual reader, he pointed out, the charter seems rather bland and it studiously avoids one of the biggest issues – government funding of NGOs.

NGOs could certainly do much more to promote their own accountability and reassure the public, especially when large budgets and big fundraising expenses are involved, he added.

In 2003, the right-wing, Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy launched a project called “NGO Watch” that challenged the role of certain NGOs in political life and “the growing power of an unelected few.”

A new website, www.ngowatch.org, was dedicated to “bring accountability to the NGO sector”.

“NGOs use their growing influence inside international organisations to push for the establishment of globalised standards and international legal norms,” the site states. “Yet this growing local and global role has in large part been unchecked and unregulated.”

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