[governance] [bestbits] [JNC - Forum] Civil society transparency
Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal
jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net
Sun Jun 7 03:04:13 EDT 2015
To add a comment on NGO accountability (not synonym for transparency), and to support Parminder's point
and putting my Top 500 NGOs' hat on:
- INGO accountability Charter has a rather limited list of participants (large INGOs) precisely for the reason it is a paid "stamp". When looking in details, this charter has very limited constraints. The non-profit sector has clearly not endorsed it. For some good reasons. Listed corporations that do rely on public investment are under legal obligations in terms of accountability and transparency, and still, we do know that they are far away from being as transparent in terms of governance, interests and influence (lobbying politics, governments, trade unions, and civil society).
- There is no UN binding law, obligation or regulation, or whatever official request from NGOs listed as ECOSOC accredited by the UN. NGOs are basically free to provide info or not, and upload it within the database where one can find links related to NGOs accredited. The UN has no legal authority over NGO/NPO accountability or transparency. Once again, an ECOSOC accreditation is a simple ticket to provide NGOs with a possibility to join, listen, and sometime express within some of the UN forums/agencies/programs...
As we rank NGOs/NPOs/SocEnt/PPPs (with a public interest orientation) since 2012, we have been into many of these issues, and so far governments and listed corporations have a much greater degree of public accountability obligation than the non-profit sector. The non-profit sector obeys more on a voluntary basis, some of them providing, sometime, a good level of public data and information. There is room for progress. That would benefit the non-profit sector, and the IG sub non-profit sector could lead on this issue.
JC
Le 7 juin 2015 à 08:18, parminder a écrit :
>
>
> On Sunday 07 June 2015 10:30 AM, Roberto Bissio wrote:
>> Dear Parminder,
>>
>> There are many mechanisms for CSO accountability.
>>
>> NGOS accredited to the UN have to regularly report on funding, bilaws, authorities and activities.
>>
>> Further, an INGO accountability charter exists: http://www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org/
>>
>> Social Watch was a member, until we could not afford the membership fee, which is unfairly burdensome on poorer organizations from the South.
>>
>> Some fee is required if you are to assess the reporting of the organizations. Otherwise everybody declares what it wants and the transparency is meaningless.
>
> Roberto
>
> This is the reason that what is sought is a simple no cost statement of voluntary declaration of (1) interests, and (2) objectives and (3) funding sources, very much on the lines of the basic requirement that you mention below, and I would add as per your note "affiliations to networks or institutions " (somewhat like the EU transparency register .) And this with no fee or costs to those who enter the register -- the project should be run on independent funding by whoever runs it, and I have offered to help raise resources. And it being an online activity, the project requires very little resources.
>
> While in any case required for civil society, such a practise becomes even more important in the IG space where (1) there is a special - even 'equal footing' - claim to be on policy tables , and (2) where the geo-political investments as well as corporate investments into CS spaces by far exceed any other area. Funding sources of both JNC and BestBits have been publicly questioned in the recent past, on these very lists. What better way to go forward than having basic transparency declarations instituted to that there is a better basis for minimum cooperation and working together as we go forward. In this regard, it is important to recognise that for good or bad, or maybe that is just some unique characteristics of a civil society space which is both in the making in some way, and otherwise unique in some other ways, political divisions have been especially deep within the IG civil society space. (The reasons for this are structural, although repeated efforts are made to lay the blame on individual behavioural causes, and thus escape the real political basis of the differences .) I know that these things are not unknown in other areas, but still - stated very roughly - a better mainstream conception of civil society is generally obtainable in other areas. All these characteristics of the IG civil society space make instituting some basic transparency guidelines - on a voluntary basis - important for healthy development of civil society in the IG area, whose political role in the emerging digitally-mediated society is going to be extremly important. This should be a common commitment to ourselves, in all humility with regard to the increasingly important political role that civil society in the IG space plays.
>
> parminder
>
>>
>> While it makes sense to demand accountability from organizations involved in the top levl of international advocacy, there are too many situations in the world where this could mean another additional and unfair request, on top of the many requests of regular reports that most countries have to grant incorporation. Demanding more from CSOs when neither governments nor corporations have to meet similar requirements seems unfair to me. But maybe it makes sense to have a list explaining wether the members are incporprated, where and under what title (for profit, non-profit, etc) and affilitiaons to networks or institutions they want to declare or wether it is an individual or an informal grouping. Do remember that it is an human right (right to association) to form groups of any kind, and they are (or should be) deemed as "innocent" until proven guilty. Too many states turn the table around and presume that associations are illegal until they register and demonstrate they are "clean". We should not unwillingly support that trend.
>>
>> best,
>> Roberto
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ian and all,
>>
>>
>> The reason why there is a request for disclosure is so as to know the background or context from which opinions/positions/actions emerge. It is the same argument I think, as that concerning real identity vs. anonymity as per the current Facebook controversy. It is an extremely useful and in some cases essential item of information to know who (the identity) it is that one is interacting with.
>>
>>
>> My own feeling on the issue is that unless there are strong and persuasive arguments in favour of anonymity then knowing the “identity” of who (or what) ever one is interacting with is a basic requirement. I don’t know that it has ever been an issue in our various IG discussions but if it did arise my guess is that most would opt for people using their “real” names/identities for their contributions.
>>
>>
>> If the above is the case then I think that by extension we can give some content to what we mean by “real identity”.
>>
>>
>> To some degree the components of the “real identity” required for effective communication/interaction will vary from context to context—for romantic purposes age, appearance, gender would likely be necessary; for financial contexts formal elements as might be required or contracts such as citizenship, financial and credit information are part of that “real identify”.
>>
>>
>> I would argue that in our IG context “real identity” should include a knowledge of the financial/contractual contexts (i.e. who is paying the piper) from which individual participation is being presented.
>>
>>
>> M
>>
>>
>> From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Ian Peter
>> Sent: June 7, 2015 6:03 AM
>> To: parminder; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; BestBitsList; Forum at Justnetcoalition. Org; A general information sharing space for the APC Community.
>> Subject: Re: [bestbits] [governance] Civil society transparency
>>
>>
>> Hi Parminder,
>>
>>
>> Following from the discussion, here is what I think is possible and realistic in this space.
>>
>>
>> Firstly, I think the question of transparency and disclosure of conflicts of interest is important.
>>
>>
>> However, I don’t think people need to declare interests to involve themselves in discussion here or in any of our open mailing lists, and the real concerns start to arise only when people are seeking office as civil society representatives.
>>
>>
>> Here, most of the office bearing exists in the various coalitions – APC, Best Bits, JNC, NCSG, IGC. I would urge each of these groups, when holding elections, to require candidates to register any conflicts of interest. I know Best Bits is moving to elections for its Steering Committee again soon, perhaps it could formulate some sort of basic disclosure requirement for its purposes? And I guess JNC must be moving towards holding its first elections for SC replenishment soon? And IGC could easily add such a requirement for its candidates for co cordinator elections (presumably late this year).
>>
>>
>> But these are requirements for individual groups, and the form of such is for each group to determine. I think however that such a requirement would be a good idea.
>>
>>
>> As regards CSCG – our calls for candidates are for appointments to outside bodies, and I agree that some form of disclosure of any conflicts of interest would be a good idea. Currently it would appear that our next task would be MAG replenishment (and a small one at that), probably early next year. I will suggest to the members that we should require some sort of basic disclosure statement. But that of course is up to the members (APC, BB, JNC, NCSG, IGC) to determine.
>>
>>
>> I’m not sure we can go much further. But if some work can be done on a simple model of a form of disclosure, that would be good.
>>
>>
>> Ian Peter
>>
>>
>> From: parminder
>>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2015 5:31 PM
>>
>> To: Ian Peter ; governance at lists.igcaucus.org ; BestBitsList ; mailto:forum at justnetcoalition.org ; A general information sharing space for the APC Community.
>>
>> Subject: [governance] Civil society transparency
>>
>>
>> Ian, and reps of civil society networks on the Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG) ,
>>
>> I propose that CSCG sets up a civil society transparency project, somewhat on the lines of the EU Transparency Register, pl see http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do .
>>
>> It should in fact go beyond the EU initiative which is a general one for all lobbying groups, whereas we here are concerned with civil society which should set the highest example of transparency and accountability. The 'register' can have self filled information on objectives of an organisation, principles followed by it, if any, its funding, partners, and so on....
>>
>> This is at present just my proposal, but I hope one or more civil society networks in the IG space can own it and push it... CSCG would be well placed to run this project as a neutral space so that there is no accusation of bias that any such initiative is being employed for partisan purposes. In any case, a simple initiative for openness, transparency and accountability can hardly be partisan.
>>
>> The register can have optional higher level features whereby a group/ org can declare its means of public accountability, whether and how its internal governance is done, how matters can be taken by with their oversight bodies, like board etc, and whether they have any means whereby they respond to public question on their work, etc.
>>
>> For such genuine cases where such transparency can harm an organisations work, or security, such organisations, and only such organisations, can be exempted employing a clear process and set of criteria.
>>
>> Remember, both the UN report on improvements to the IGF and the NetMundial Statement highlight the issue of transparency. I also recently read in these lists how we should make bridges with the OpenGov movement which is almost wholly about this one thing. Time we begin practising what we preach.
>>
>> I look forward to hear responses to this proposal..
>>
>> parminder
>>
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