Keeping NGOs accountable

Giving Australians are an extraordinarily generous people.  After the Boxing Day tsunami, private donations to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are estimated at around $280 million.  Australians have watched the pictures of wholesale destruction and human misery.  Giving to aid agencies has been a small but tangible way that people have been able to "make a difference".

Australians are similarly generous to other causes.  Last year, environment groups raised $72 million from private Australian donations.  The big three enviro-lobby groups -- WWF, Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation -- have a combined income of $30 million and a staff of over 250 people.

With such large sums of money comes enormous potential influence and power.  Government is increasingly reliant on the opinions and work of NGOs.  My groundbreaking study The Protocol:  Managing Relations with NGOs tracked how the relationship between Australian Government Departments and the Not-for Profit sector is growing.  More and more NGOs are getting generous government funds and tax benefits.

While NGOs gain in size and political power, they have not increased their public transparency.  I believe that NGOs which have taxpayer support should be treated with the same scrutiny that the public and media treat political parties and governments.  NGOs, most of whom are charities must better inform their donors.  To this end, I have striven to critically analyse developments in the sector, and to ensure that these increasingly influential and powerful groups are not left unaccountable to their donors.

The unaccountability of the NGO sector manifests itself in many ways.  Groups which were previously grassroots mutate into advocacy and special interest groups.  Some even openly campaign for political parties.  During the 2001 Queensland election campaign, the Wilderness Society targeted marginal seats with advertising and letterbox campaigns in order to "move Liberal voters concerned with the environment to Labor".

For aid groups, the trend is to focus not on the symptoms of poverty, but to attempt to tackle the "root causes" -- lack of water, shelter and food.  While this may sound fine in theory, such an approach has embroiled aid agencies in the internal politics of the sovereign countries in which they operate.  As we saw after the Boxing Day tsunami disaster, political activity by partisan NGOs diminish the capacity of those NGOs to actually provide aid.

Even seemingly innocuous charities are willing to play politics.  Lifeline Australia's calculated attack on its corporate sponsor Telstra is illustrative of the decline in standards across the sector as a whole.

It is my intention to continue to scrutinise the NGO sector.  Australia's unparalleled generosity demands fully accountable and efficient charity and aid organisations.