January 28, 2010
NGOs and Government Funding
Accountability & Transparency Trends
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) often provide services that government neglects. In certain instances, however, NGOs operate almost as quasi-governments, especially in countries where sovereign governments are weak. Consequently, with this overlap in responsibilities and areas of common interest, many governments provide funding to NGOs, who otherwise depend on their own donor outreach networks. That can pose conflicts, however. Here are three brief case studies illustrating some concerns with the seemingly innocuous marriage of governments and NGOs.
• The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) recently cut funding for KAIROS, an NGO whose mission is to effect social change through ecological and economic justice, focusing on human rights, just and sustainable livelihoods and Indigenous Peoples. KAIROS has been accused of advancing an agenda of anti-Semitism, including promoting boycotts of Israeli-made products, and liberation theology, a Marxist-oriented view of Catholicism that the Roman Catholic Church has condemned, when promoting its programs abroad and in Canada. The accusation becomes more serious when one considers that the mandate of the agency is to focus on international activities, whereas KAIROS mainly concentrates on activism inside Canada. KAIROS has opened a special section in their website to defend itself.
• In Brazil, an array of NGOs oversees an intricate scheme that diverts governmental funding destined to them, to support of the Movement of the Landless Workers (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST). The MST does not exist legally; therefore it is not eligible for governmental funding nor is accountable in Brazilians courts of law. Recently, a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) announced it will investigate the scheme, beginning in February. The MST has a history of violently invading rural properties and unlawful acts, such as gun fights against rural landowners. In some cases they have used journalists as human shields. In advance of the investigation, commentators have pointed out the deep connections between the Brazilian President’s party and the movement.
• In Britain, the International Policy Network (IPN) released a study tracking the monetary flow between the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Department for International Development (DFID). It is part of a larger investigation on the DFID conducted by the IPN, which had its early results published in 2009. The study expands one of the problems indicated in the 2009 study on the TUC, which has profound ties to the ruling Labour Party. It showed that the conglomerate of unions will have received nearly US$6 million by 2011 --funds that could have been spent on aid to poor countries to help them tackle poverty. The report from IPN indicated that a portion of the money was used to fund unionists’ education inside Britain and education on how to acquire more grants from the DFID. IPN raised the additional concern that the TUC does not share DFID’s mission of promoting international development, but only mentions that it seeks to strengthen and foster ties with foreign labor unions—a rather small payoff for considerable dollars.
These three issues, though they might not seem related, are part of a growing trend in how NGOs relate to governments: the lack of accountability and transparency in the use of government funds transferred to civil society groups. These examples raise the questions of whether public resources should be used to fund NGOs and how effective NGOs are in supplement to the responsibilities of sovereign governments.
Frederico Ferreira is a Spring researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
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