Conférence
Exploring innovative tools to address the diverse challenges of NGO accountability
Notes from the International Conference on NGO accountability, Beijing, April 26th/ 27th 2008
Par Martin Vielajus
avril 2008Table des matières
Sharing international experiences and analyses on NGO accountability in the Chinese context appears as both a very challenging and a very political issue given the diversity of “non governmental actors”, and of their dependency on public authorities and private donors. The International conference NGO Accountability, co-organized by the NPO Research Center of Renmin University, the China Social Entrepreneur Foundation and the Fuping Development Institute - attempted to address this sensitive issue in two ways: first by reviewing the wide range of accountability relationships NGOs are confronted with, and second by appraising the innovative tools attempting to respond to the full range of accountability challenges.
Accountability upside down: examining the scope of accountability relationships and their limits
One of the main outcomes of the conference was the promotion of a multi-dimensional understanding of accountability, breaking free from the standard “upward” model that has outlasted its usefulness. The State, the private sector, but also international organizations financing local NGOs have indeed been very active in designing external systems of accountability that have sometimes breached the fundamental autonomy of the NGOs and blurred their initial mission:
The exponential rise of the third sector in China has gone hand in hand with the elaboration by the State of new tools for control, evaluation and information disclosure. This increasing role of the State in introducing seals of approval and control mechanisms to ensure NGO accountability is not specific to China, but, as M. Peter Van Tuijl stated, appears as a more general trend spreading to many countries over the last few years. The struggle against terrorism and the need for internal security and stability are often used to justify such a reinforcement of State control. Many contributions have, however, put into question the legitimacy of this systematic State control. Prof. Patricia Armstrong particularly insisted on the importance of evaluating the appropriateness or otherwise of NGOs’ evaluation by the State on the basis of the very nature of their activities (Is the activity partly taken in charge and regulated by the State?). Many Chinese voices, notably M. Xu Yongguang from the Narada Foundation or Prof. Na La from Renmin University, also called for an evolution of the role of the Chinese State in this sense, from “monitor” to “facilitator” of NGO activities.
A major focus was also put on the relationships between NGOs and their private donors. This issue is particularly applicable to China where the large majority of NGO funds come from the private sector (large Foundations, like the Chinese Youth Development Foundation, gather more than 90% of private donations, most of them coming from overseas). “He who pays the piper calls the tune” Mrs. Jennifer Chapman reminded us. Many interventions thus insisted on the risk of unbalance in the accountability relationship that is liable to result from this strong dependency on private donors. The goals pursued by each donor being diverse and in constant evolution, NGOs run the risk of losing the focus of their mission if they do not take into account other forms of accountability that do not rely mainly on this upward dependency.
New forms of “accountability bonds” were thus considered necessary to ensure the autonomy and credibility of NGOs, as well as the respect of their initial mission:
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A “downward” accountability focusing on the bonds between NGOs and the populations they serve. Such “downward” practices of accountability have notably been illustrated through Action Aid’s initiative: Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). ALPS’ mechanism consists in the regular evaluation of the progresses and the goals of each program by all the stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in it (staff, governments, partner organizations, communities etc). According to the participants, such a mechanism can indeed constitute a first response to the transformation needed in the relationships between the NGO and the beneficiary populations, as long as it maintains the flexibility to adjust to the diversity of social and political contexts (the difficulty of implementing such a system in the specific context of China illustrates the necessity of this flexibility).
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Moreover, the strengthening of an “inward” form of accountability, feeding back to the organization itself, its staff and volunteers, but also a “horizontal” accountability putting the activities of the organization under the scrutiny of its peers were discussed as new ways to ensure the existence of an independent and strong civil society. Such issues are especially relevant in the Chinese context: the review of an organization by its peers, the sharing of information between non-governmental actors largely depends on the capacity to build networks, which remains very weak in China. If some initiatives attempt to articulate such networks in the country (The Human Service Center, the Asia Foundation), they are still confronted with unofficial types of restrictions, particularly when they involve grass-root, unregistered NGOs.
Questioning the mainstream understanding of accountability, widening the scope of accountability relationships lead the participants to seek innovative assessment tools, impervious to externally designed systems of regulation, and to propose new standards of assessment.
Examining innovative tools for self-regulation
The conference was an opportunity to exchange on a series of experiences of self-regulation mechanisms and notably to look at the Chinese initiatives that have been taken in that field. As an example, a cross initiative from three Foundations (the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, the Amity Foundation and the Chinese Youth Development Foundation) recently released a framework of common standards of regulations for Chinese NGOs that was put under the scrutiny of the participants. The discussions around such mechanisms have led to the identification of a series of preliminary requirements for the implementation of common standards.
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Accountability goes with rights. The registration system of Chinese associations still leaves the vast majority of Chinese NGOs deprived of a proper legal status. The implementation of self-regulation or common standards developed by a community of civil society actors is thus confronted with this uneven recognition of NGOs and the impossibility for most of them to professionalize their activity. A very concrete example was raised by Xie Lihua, from the Rural Women Cultural Development Center, a grass-root unregistered organization: how can we evaluate the role and the composition of the board of trustees of an organization that does not have the proper legal status to officially establish a board… The building of new systems of independently designed self-regulation tools thus needs to be done in parallel with a reflection on the evolution of Chinese laws concerning the right of association. Already, as M. Wu Yuzhang (Social Sciences in China Press) mentioned, such laws on associations have been adapted by several Chinese provinces to alleviate the registration process and give more flexibility to their status.
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The initiators of self-regulation standards need to precisely define the community of peers within which they can be implemented and shun universal ambitions. Attempts to design international standards remain inconclusive, as is the case for the World Bank’s handbook on associations, mentioned by P.Armstrong. Drafted in the late 90s, the handbook was met with a volley of criticism and never clearly finalized. One notable objection was the impossibility for such a universal approach to adjust to the diversity of national legal and political cultures in which NGOs operate. Standards can be based on a national or regional framework, can be limited to a specific sector of activity, and still refer to a set of universal principles.
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Finally, common standards of self-regulation between peers need to be flexible enough to serve as a tool for the capacity building of small, not very professionalized NGOs. M. Wang Ming, from the NGO research Center of Tsinghua Universty, insisted on the necessity to combine a strict framework that ensures NGO professionalism and specific tools for fragile NGOs to improve their structures and activities (notably by associating these assessments with the promotion of systems of financial supports for small NGOs struggling to reach these standards).
Reconsidering accountability challenges and examining emerging tools of self-regulation were thus particularly relevant to the current Chinese context, at a moment when Chinese civil society actors are engaged in a profound rethinking of their role, their obligations and their rights. By confronting these reflections with a diversity of international analyses and experiences, the Beijing conference both enriched the ongoing Chinese initiatives in this field and served as a mirror shedding light on challenges often neglected by large NGOs from the
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