Code of conduct for NGO regulators finalised
ISLAMABAD (March 15 2007): The Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education has finalised code of conduct for NGOs regulators to ensure a uniform standard of regulations for registration.
The NGO sector regulators include the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Industries, the Cooperative registrar, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sources said that NGO regulators would provide an enabling environment that allows the sector to operate confidently within the regulatory safety-net to prevent abuse of financial resources whereas the regulators would emphasise internal accountability, proportionality, targeted action and fairness. They said that the code of conduct for regulators would clearly state the line of action that the government would take in the future.
The NGO regulators would act according to principles aimed at ensuring the regulation was appropriate and met the overall aim of developing an effective NGO sector that has the confidence of the government and the public, they said.
The code of conduct emphasises on respect of the sector and the NGO regulators would ensure that their procedures and policies respect the work NGOs were doing so that the regulation could not prevent them from operating in an effective manner, they said.
They said that the NGO sector was diverse, consisting of large multi national organisations with considerable resources and small community bodies with very limited resources.
They said that regulator’s requirement would be adjusted to reflect the size and capacity of each NGO to respond to those requirements and the regulators would offer support to NGOs that would otherwise be unable to meet the requirements.
The largest NGOs will provide full information to the regulators, who will work with them to ensure that they all understand what is required and all these requirements will be clearly published by the regulators so that all NGOs could understand them.
The NGO regulators will treat all NGOs in the same way and each will get the best possible level of service and support and there will be no adverse service provided to NGOs that might embarrass the government or who are not delivering services.
They said better service would be made available to NGOs, which were more in tune with the government vision and NGO regulators would take no account of race or religion when dealing with them.
The NGO regulators must be transparent and accountable and they must be open about their performance and the way work was conducted and this could mean an assessment for the recognition of the status of a new NGO, they said.
There must be performance statements and indication of changes to priorities and the NGO regulator must be positive about the actions they have taken to fulfil their role. Statutory bodies of the NGO regulators will be accountable to the government in terms of their role and will have to report their performance each year.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:3/15/2007
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