theglobaljournal.net: Latest articles of Anant Kumar

Uttarakhand Flood and Mass Fatality Management

2013-06-26T14:51:58Z

The care with which our dead are treated is a mark of how civilized a society we are. – Charles Haddon-Cave.

The recent flash flood, cloudbursts, and landslides on 16th and 17th June in five districts of Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Pithoragarh and Tehri of Uttarakhand State of India poses a serious question about our preparedness to deal with mass fatality in India. We do not know the exact figure of death toll but it is estimated that minimum 1,000 - 5,000 people may have lost their lives in this natural disaster. There has been no official assessment yet but unofficial estimates indicated that the death toll might rise manifold. It will be only known after improvement in weather conditions and debris clearance.

Natural disasters and calamities are not new in India. In the earthquake resulting in the Tsunami in 26th December 2004, almost 11,000 people died and over 5,000 are missing and feared dead (Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India). This raises a serious issue related to management and cremation of dead bodies. Management of the dead bodies in a proper and dignified manner is one of the most difficult aspects of disaster response which is also related to management of recovered bodies, their identification, storage and disposal of dead bodies. Despite several disasters and large number of deaths, the government of India is not having a policy or plan for mass cremation or fatality infrastructure preparedness plans for the management and cremation of dead bodies.

In a recent Uttarakhand disaster, the government is facing the challenge of the disposal of hundreds of corpses. If it is not handled properly, there may be an epidemic outbreak leading to more death in the already ravaged hills. Interestingly, in the absence of policy and plan to manage the death bodies, as an emergency measure, the government is consulting the holy men regarding mass cremation and proper ritual. The corpses have been lying for days, some since June 16, out in the sun and rain, and in an advanced stage of decay and decomposition. It is unfortunate that it is more than a week and still bodies are waiting for cremation due to lack of preparedness, unavailability of woods and bad weather. Now the government is sending the forensic teams for taking pictures of bodies and DNA samples.

It is sad that, after the disaster, the Central and the State government are finalising the standard operating procedures for identification and cremation of the bodies, which should be done much before after the 2004 tsunami in which 11,000 people died. It is a high time and the government should learn from this disaster and prepare a mass fatality infrastructure preparedness policy. The policy should focus on operational procedures for body recovery; storage of bodies; body identification and medico-legal investigation protocol; funeral services and final disposition of mass fatalities; and providing family assistance. Considering that India is multi-ethnic, multi-religious country, in disposing of bodies, ethnic and religious sensitivities should be maintained and addressed appropriately. The government should realise and understand that inadequate capacity to deal with dead bodies may affect the psychological well-being of survivors which may result in distress to families, community; and it may lead to another epidemic.

Accreditation: NGOs Journey towards Excellence

2013-06-23T08:39:14Z

Introduction

The accountability of not-for-profit organizations has been the subject of substantial debate and analysis. Today, NGO and voluntary sector are unorganised and unregulated and its credibility is in question. Many people, institutions and donors have raised questions about NGOs functioning, governance and accountability. It is a challenge for donors, government and others to regulate and ensure accountability. The accreditation process is one such initiative in this direction. The initiatives taken by the government and other agencies such as Credibility Alliance in this area may help organisations in addressing above concerns. The paper highlights the Leadership Development and Organization Effectiveness programme initiatives in this area to address this challenge which can be achieved through leadership and management inputs and training to NGOs executives.

Credibility Alliance

The Credibility Alliance (CA) is a consortium of voluntary organisations committed towards enhancing the accountability and transparency in the voluntary sector through good governance. It is an initiative of NGOs, donors and other stakeholders to develop basic, minimum and desirable norms which are basic standards of governance to ensure the transparency and accountability of an organisation. It has developed an accreditation system based on the norms to strengthen and enhance the legitimacy and the credibility of an individual organisation. Credibility Alliance norms are available at http://www.credibilityalliance.org/home/norms.php.

Accreditation process

The accreditation process comprises three steps, self-assessment, assessor’s assessment, and accreditation. The CA reviews organisation self-assessment report to ensure that information and documents have been duly provided as per CA guidelines. This is followed by assessor’s physical verification, review of operational and financial aspects of the NGO functioning and discussion with NGO personnel. The assessment team also interview beneficiaries and other key stakeholders, if necessary also conduct interviews and meetings with current and past donors in order to have a better idea about the authenticity of the NGO. Based on its assessment, the CA accredits organisation for the minimum and desirable norms certifying organisation’s credentials.

Accreditation: Journey towards excellence

Many NGOs believe that an accreditation process helps in developing the system and organisational development. Under the Leadership Development and Organisation Effectiveness (LDOE) programme[1], NGO executives of ten participating organisations attended the executive leadership programme. The focus of the programme was improving leadership and governance, strengthening organisational effectiveness and enhancing sustainability through addressing organisational viability, financial continuity, programme effectiveness and enduring impact. As part of the programme, these organisations applied for CA accreditation. Many participants reported that the process was helpful and enriching for their organisational development. Mr. Shibaji Mandal of KGVK reports that ‘the ideas shared in LDOE programme on governance issue led to a radical improvement in the Governing Body functioning and operations, with clearly defined processes, roles and responsibility of its members. This led to the fact that KGVK became the first NGO in Jharkhand to have been accredited under ‘Desirable Norms’ category from Credibility Alliance, a level that stresses on several parameters of competence related to the Governing Board functions. In fact, LDOE program has been a precursor to the assessment done by CA subsequently’. Mr. Murari Choudhury, Executive Director of NEEDS says that 'the change process requires commitment, skills and the right environment to do it. LDOE showed us a roadmap about how to look at the issues of organizational effectiveness and engage the team in an aligned format. As a result of LDOE participation, NEEDS is governed by its transparent written policies of HR, finance, diversity and inclusion, child protection, internal control system and so on'. The case of Integrated Development Foundation (IDF) is a good example of accreditation and organisational development.

Case Study: Integrated Development Foundation

The Integrated Development Foundation (IDF) is twenty year old community based organisation (an NGO) working in Bihar and Jharkhand to ensure better quality of life to the poorest and deprived sections of the community with a special focus on women and children through different sectoral interventions such as women empowerment, livelihood, health, leadership development, and reproductive and sexual health, etc. The organisation has several social development programmes and a few networks. Various UN, national and international donor agencies and government support IDF programmes. Its strength lies in community mobilization, capacity building and backward forward linkages while its weak areas relate to organizational sustainability and retention of HR.

IDF has been a professionally managed organisation with good community base and rapport with the target groups. In its twenty years of journey the organisation has done well and its growth chart is impressive. Nevertheless, their focus was more towards mobilising programmes and project and its implementation and less on organisational development. Considering new challenges, government regulation and donors demand, IDF feels that it needs to develop strategies to periodically review its performance to achieve excellence.

LDOE programme was an opportunity for the organisation to work in this direction. LDOE programme led IDF not only to focus on their immediate needs and challenges but on future challenges also such as the sustainability of the programme, staff retention and organisational development. Now IDF assesses its strength and weaknesses periodically and is aware of its weak areas and working towards strengthening the same. The organisation went for the Credibility Alliance accreditation first time under the LDOE programme and was awarded accreditation for desirable norms.

IDF believes that accreditation has helped in building brand, credibility, confidence and governance of the organization. The accreditation process helped the organisation to do the internal assessment of its functioning, governance system, develop various policies and system in the organisation. Many organisations have policies and system but the important question is its compliance. The accreditation process helps to comply and develop a transparent system within the organisation. It also brings value and credibility to the organisation and creates moral pressure on the organisation to maintain norms and standards in place. Mr. Babul Prasad, Chairman, Integrated Development Foundation reports that "after the accreditation, the organization adopted measures to attain excellence in its overall governance and operation system. Initially, the journey began with decentralization and autonomy processes within the organization. It further reviewed and refined its human resource manual, account manual and vision document according to the feedback from the members, staff and external bodies. This process has been really useful and effective for IDF". Mr. Anand Shekhar, Ex-Regional Manager, WaterAid and Team Leader, at NRMC, Executing Agency, Global Sanitation Fund in India who supported the IDF says that, "I have noticed improvements in governance arrangements at IDF. The entire team gets together in the planning and execution of activities and is well aware of the financial allocations made for the program. Decentralised decision making, investing in the collective understanding of attainable under the program are welcome changes in the organization. This has helped the IDF expand its presence and take multi-locational programmes thereby providing it an opportunity to make a difference in lives of increased number of people".

Conclusion

The Credibility Alliance accreditation process is definitely a certification system but it focuses on empowering the organisation to achieve excellence. It helps and gives ample opportunity to the organisation to systemise, organise, develop, and comply minimum standard and desirable norms. The Integrated Development Foundation was having norms and policies earlier too, but it was not complying with it. The accreditation process helped the organization not only to comply those norms, but to develop, update and review their existing policies and norms as well. The Credibility Alliance accreditation helps organisations in ensuring transparency within and outside the organisation, mobilising resources, donor support and brand building. Although, the assessment system is not very rigorous, many organisations believe that accreditation process is relevant and required. Other organisations should also go through such accreditation process to improve, assess and ensure standards within their organisation.

Acknowledgement: The author would like to thank Prof. Jay Satia, Ms. Moi Lee Liow and all NGOs who have been part of excellence assessment. Author acknowledges the support of the project on Leadership Development and Organizational Effectiveness (LDOE) from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation under which this work was done.

[1] LDOE programme was implemented by the International Council on Management of Population Programme (ICOMP), Malaysia and Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

(Photo © Integrated Development Foundation)

Minting Money in an NGO Way

2012-08-09T16:21:43Z

We want to open an NGO

In the past five-six years, many people, friends, and students showed interest and contacted me to take my advice about opening a Non Government Organisation (NGO). Most of these people were doing well in their life but their hearts were crying to help people and bring change in the society. They were moved by the poverty, illiteracy, etc, (as expressed by them) and determined to open an NGO to serve the people.

In reality, these people’s hearts were crying to bring changes in their own lives. They wanted to properly utilize their connections. The real motive and drive behind opening NGOs were interesting and it may be summarised, ‘if you do not own an NGO, please register one; if you are unemployed or an entrepreneur, register an NGO or many NGOs because it’s easier to set up and requires no investment in comparison to an industry’. Despite my advice and suggestions (do not open an NGO), most of these people opened an NGO which forced me to rethink ‘what was that strong drive which was stronger than my advice’. I thought to explore and examine the real motive behind it which is discussed below.

Motive behind opening an NGO

People are opening an NGO because it is a business with sure profit. Most of them were having contacts and were eager to use it. In their opinion, “if one has contacts at a right place, opening an NGO is one of the easiest ways of minting money”. One can mint money in an NGO way if either of the following is true. If you know a powerful person (a politician or a bureaucrat) so well that he will do business with you, if you know some non-resident Indian (NRI) whose heart is bleeding with love and care for India, if you have impressed the international funding agencies, or if you are a powerful person like a politician or a bureaucrat. “Many politicians cutting across party lines and bureaucrats are managing the affairs of NGOs. They run NGO by proxy (in the name of their wife, relative, or friends) while in service and take charge of the organisations after retirement”. By opening an NGO, one can run a parallel government with the patronage of politicians and senior bureaucrats which can be inferred from the observation by the Panchayati Raj Minister of Odisha that:

“at one point of time, it was desired by the Planning Commission to encourage NGO participation in the socio-economic development process with the hope that there will be healthy competition between the government agencies and voluntary organisations. But finally, it has been observed that the NGOs are running a parallel government with the patronage of senior bureaucrats. A new regulatory mechanism has to be thought of to make the NGOs accountable”.

Many NGOs are against this government move to enact the legislation to ensure their accountability and transparency and introduce a measure to involve the elected representatives in their working. Many heads or owners of NGOs are making profits with a catchy tagline - not-for-profit organisation. The NGO head’s lavish lifestyle, houses, property, foreign trips, and expenses on children educations makes thing complicated and contradicts their claims of social service. Financial management systems in most of these NGOs are weak which permits to mint money by improper ways such as less payment to staff whereas on paper they show full salary (cash back system with every salary cheque under the umbrella “contribution to the organisation” for welfare of employees). Sometimes, one staff is assigned to manage two or more programmes with two appointment letters but they get only one salary as other program’s salary has to be refunded in cash to the organisation. Alternatively, in many NGOs, staff work in projects and salary goes to the head of the NGO whose designation and roles were elaborated in project budget. For most of the government project, there is fixed share and commission by NGOs which goes to politicians, bureaucrats, and other officials. To influence the monitors or evaluators, even money and women are used by few organisations. In few organisations, two parallel financial management systems are in practice, one for themselves (in the name of General Fund) and other for the donors and auditors. Hence, it is difficult to find faults in their financial management system.

Many organisations are easily luring or impressing the donors by showcasing their work without doing anything. There are good numbers of consultants available to develop proposals, write reports, case studies and documentaries which can be sold to donors. Besides, nowadays many awards are also available which one can buy or manage for their organisation. One does not need to worry about transparency and accountability, particularly in respect of the funds received from various sources. One can spend a sizable portion of funds in personal asset building, air travel, and purchase of vehicles. Even most of the training opportunities, fellowships, conference participation and foreign trips are attended by the head of the family and their members. There are instances where donors have sponsored international fellowships and foreign trips to family members or for the senior bureaucrats. Although these trips are shown as training programmes, the real intent is to oblige the bureaucrats so they can grant a project or make a policy in donors or an organisation’s favour.

Under Societies Registration Act (1860), there is a mandate to have seven members in the governing body of the organisation having no blood relation to promote representation of diverse sections of the society. However, to defy this clause, many organisations heads have made their daughters-in-law or other family members the board members who are part of the family but not having direct blood relation. Mostly treasurer posts are confined within the family members and majority of the board members are kept out of fence and everything revolves around one or two members. Rest of the members remain silent signatory to validate the board decisions which they hardly aware of.

If one owns an NGO, they do not need to worry about their children’s career. Just transfer the special skills and prepare them to inherit the NGO. For instance, an NGO in Jharkhand, established in the beginning of 1970s, now is in the process of transferring the leadership to their sons. Interestingly, despite the fact that many staff have devoted decades in the same organisation but they will not get the leadership, title and ownership. In another organisation in Bihar, after the death of its secretary, his wife became the secretary, as his son was minor. After attaining 18 years of age, her son took over the secretary position. It shows that most of organisation’s leadership rotates in the family and board are customary and ornamental without having the real power. Similarly, one need not worry about dowry. According to a study “Expanding Dimensions of Dowry” carried out by the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), “Several middle and upper income group families interviewed said that they were trying to organise an NGO for the prospective bridegroom because that is what he had demanded!” The AIDWA study has revealed that this trend is not limited to economically marginalized classes. The study says: they specifically demand NGOs that have been registered for three years - the eligibility criteria for overseas funding.

This situation is not only prevalent in Bihar, Jharkhand, or Odisha, the state of Uttar Pradesh also has the culture of giving dowry in the form of NGO. There are NGO owners who want to employ professionals to run their NGOs and earn money for them. These new professionals think that they are helping underdeveloped community but soon they realize that they have become the part of the “system”. Biswanath Dalei, a lecturer in a private college in Balasore, Odisha, is a harried man - running around to get an NGO registered within a month’s time. “Definitely, he is not in a tearing hurry to be of service to society. The fact is that his future son-in-law is demanding an NGO as dowry in lieu of Dalei’s inability to give Rs 100,000 in cash”. Nowadays, NGO buying and selling is increasingly emerging as a good business and one can buy an NGO in 10-20 thousand depending on how old it is or having FCRA or not.

Conclusion

The paper does not mean that all NGOs are money making entity. Many NGOs have set up examples of transparency. But there is still a long way to go. The only way to stop these people to become the part of minting money in an NGO way is to make strong legislation and monitoring body. Misuse of hundred and fifty years old Society Registration Act is common where anyone and everyone can register an NGO. Society Registration Act needs a thorough review and amendment. The existing legislation and monitoring bodies for NGOs are weak and powerless. There is a need of strong accreditation body to monitor and regulate NGOs to improve transparency, governance, and accountability. The government and planning commission needs to relook their policy on NGO partnership. The Government should also take the responsibility of the development of its people and should stop transferring their responsibility to NGOs in the name of public-private-partnership.

Acknowledgement:

Author is thankful to all those who shared their experience, provided relevant information, and helped in developing this paper. Their names are not mentioned as it might hamper their career.

Disclosure: The commentary is based on author’s discussion with various NGO staffs and development professionals. The views expressed in this paper are not against any individual or organisation. Therefore, name of NGOs are not mentioned in the paper.

(Photo © DR)

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