Ethics and Companies: Heading Analyze-Decoding
L effectiveness of ONG in question
Zora Has El Machkouri
L omnipresence of the governmental organizations (ONG) on international scene N is a secrecy for anybody. They multiply and are present together on L continents. Their last great topicality goes back to the polemic which followed the financial mobilization “too” important after the tsunami of December 2004, which had made 240.000 died. One of the more high jurisdictions in France S is leaning on this “too full” with the gifts received by ONG.
On January 3, 2007, the Court of Auditors indeed made public his report/ratio on the funds collected by ONG Frenchwomen. The emitted report/ratio makes state D a slowness in the use of the received money, D a lack of information to the givers and assignment of the funds to other causes. Charged with considering the regularity of the private organizations profiting D a help from L State, the Court of Auditors made move 24 of its magistrates in Indonesia, in Sri Lanka and in Thailand. They reconsidered with reserves the use of the gifts. Seventeen of 32 studied associations are recalled to the order. Without being considered to be “nonin conformity”, they are the subject of “reserves” on three points.
The Court of Auditors has any D access pointed of the finger the slowness of the assignment of the gifts for example for the French Red Cross which received 115 million euros and which N used some that 15%. Even story for the Catholic aid which N did not use 80% of gifts qu it received. On average, a year after the drama, only half of the money had been used. The magistrates deplore also the lack of furnished informations to the givers, pinning Médecins of the World in particular. Lastly, the report/ratio also regrets that the funds were sometimes used to finance actions without bond with the tsunami. For example, L ONG Pompiers without borders “would have carried out a contestable reassignment of 24% of the received gifts”.
With final, the Court of Auditors observes that on the 330 million received euros, ONG “felt forced to employ the collected funds” and sometimes yielded to “drifts compared to the objectives presented”. A conclusion at which L UNO had already arrived: in spite of their undeniable importance, ONG have difficulties of management clearly. But are we able D to clearly identify what ONG do? Their field remains nebulous for much D between us. We thus decided to lean us on these actors to try to include/understand their particular world.
Teacher, person in charge of the relations with ONG within the French Agency of Development and former operations manager with the Embassy of France in the United States for the relations with ONG and the American philanthropic sector, Joseph Zimet helps us to include/understand ONG thanks to his book ONG, of new actors to change the world [1], left last December in Quebec.
Ethics and Companies (E&S): With which wish you to render comprehensible, in priority, the importance which ONG gain each day on the international scene?
Joseph Zimet (J.Z.): It is enough D to open a newspaper, D to light its television or to sometimes even walk in the street where ONG collect funds to note their omnipresence and to understand that ONG are actors who camp from now on in our daily newspaper. My priority consists in inviting readers not informed to see there more clearly in this galaxy of ONG than the general public and the media too often compare and in a reducing way to “L humane”.
If ONG “humanitarians” play a fundamental role on the international scene, all ONG N do not act therefore in the humane field of L . They also intervene in the field of the defense of the rights of L man, of the protection of L environment and L development assistance, which concern the international solidarity, without relationship however with “L urgency humane” which is L universe specific of the political crises (civil wars, conflicts, etc) and of the natural disasters. It is important, in my opinion, that the general public seizes the diversity and the plurality of the registers D action of ONG.
E&S: You are yourself teaching. Do you think that it becomes necessary to teach with the young people what the international solidarity for a better comprehension of the current world includes?
J.Z.: I believe that this sensitizing effort is indeed necessary, because it appears difficult to me to include/understand the great stakes of the contemporary world if one despizes questions of development and international solidarity which are posed today aujourd in the world. Questions such as climate warming, the risks pandemic, the turning into a desert or the dynamic ones of the world commerce which have very strong incidences on the individuals, in North as in the South, are aujourd today with C ur even of the relations between States.
L stake of the reduction of poverty and the inequalities is a challenge which arises from now on for L scale of L very whole humanity. The young children, as well as the adults, must be sensitized with the stakes which will be theirs tomorrow.
E&S: Last on December 11, ONG Tranparency International classified in his report/ratio the Democratic republic of Congo 6th countries among the most corrupted of planet. In what the reports/ratios emitted by ONG are they useful?
J.Z.: Of personal capacity, I think that L example that you quote is L illustration even positive role of ONG: to describe complex situations and phenomena in the countries of the South, that the States or the international organizations cannot always evoke taking into account the diplomatic constraints which S impose on them.
I think qu an ONG is indeed in his role lorsqu it denounces, by reports/ratios or testimonys, the kind of situations which you mention. It on what I N could insist sufficiently in L work, for lack of time, C is that these ONG also intervene to denounce situations in North, because South N does not have obviously the monopoly of the democratic deficiencies or “good governance”, to take again a term with the mode. I believe that yes, we incontestably require for these reports/ratios D ONG which “put the feet in the dishes” if you m authorize this a little familiar expression.
E&S: You speak about the importance of the government aid in ONG. For example, France supports its ONG modestly. A contrario ONG American profit from billion dollars on behalf of their government. How to understand that ONG accordingly remain nongovernmental?
J.Z.: If France supports its ONG still modestly, C is qu it is L heiress D a co-operation D State, itself heiress D a past and D a colonial presence, in the medical field in particular.
The United States has another model of presence in the developing countries, which raise more of the model “denominational-missionary”, about which I speak in the book. I believe that ONG American “collect” of the United States approximately 30% of L government aid to the development. But the force of ONG American, they are especially the 250 billion dollars which the American taxpayers give each year for all kinds of charitable causes.
The last investigations into the financing of ONG Frenchwomen tend to show that the share of private financing S increases each year a little more. But it is necessary to insist on L effort of marketing carried out by ONG these last years to increase their own resources and S to free partly from public finances.
I believe that it would be an error to consider qu an ONG loses its identity if it accepts public finances. Certaines ONG has with C ur not to accept public finances to preserve their independence. I believe that public finance and independence are completely reconcilable. But all depends, of course, of the nature and the degree of maturity of the relation between a State and L ONG in question.
E&S: Why there of centralization of all ONG does not exist today, a “international Parliament of all ONG” as you evoke it. Is this a lack of will or a logistic impossibility?
J.Z.: I do not know S it is necessary to wish a “centralization” of ONG. This term has bureaucratic accents that I N do not like. ONG offer L precisely favours to circumvent certain bureaucratic phenomena. When J evokes the prospect D a “assembly world for ONG” C is to describe their political structuring, in their work of international plea, like their insertion in the multilateral system. I more see in this hypothetical “assembly” a recognition in and by international system qu a mechanism of centralization and logistic coordination. But all that remains a scenario-fiction of course
[1] Joseph Zimet, ONG, of new actors to change the world, Editions Differently, collection world D aujourd today, available to Quebec and in France.
