NGO Forum

The National Law Review

In November, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CoJ”) held once again that NGOs and persons directly concerned may bring legal actions before national courts against EU Member States that fail to comply with EU mandatory environmental standards. The CoJ’s decision (CJEU, C-404/13) concerned the UK government’s failure to adopt adequate plans to ensure compliance with ambient air limits for nitrogen dioxide (“NO2”) in sixteen zones, including London. The CoJ instructed the UK Supreme Court to adopt “any necessary measure” on the UK government to establish plans that demonstrate how it will comply with the limits for NO2 within a period that should be as short as possible.

Reuters

China aims to “regulate” foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) under a law being discussed this week, state media said on Monday, which aims to step up supervision of the fast-growing sector.

China quietly began an investigation into the operations of NGOs several months ago, to prepare for tighter regulations, as part of a security drive ordered by a new national panel headed by President Xi Jinping.

The southern city of Guangzhou put in place a regulation in November to regulate NGOs with foreign funding, sparking fear among non-profit workers in the area of a crackdown.

Rachel Banning-Lover

The Guardian

Over the next couple of months, we’ll be crowdsourcing a map of NGOs working in developing countries. If you’re part of a development organisation, we want your help to fill up our map and tell us about the wonderful work that you do.

Why are we doing this? Firstly, we want to know more about our community. We want to reach out to more organisations to write for us and to join our live Q&As. Long term, we also want this to be a non-comprehensive resource for NGOs – somewhere you can go to look for other groups working in your field when you want to collaborate.

We hear from NGOs and humanitarian workers all over the world – so we thought we’d put you on a map. Get in touch with pictures, videos and information about your organization

By Bibi van der Zee, Rachel Banning-Lover, Katherine Purvis, Anna Leach Maria Evrenos

The Guardian

Based in London, Afghanaid has worked in Afghanistan since 1983. Today it provides rural communities with water, sanitation, roads, schools and livelihoods. The organisation welcomes volunteer internships and is currently running an appeal to help flood and landslide survivors.

From: World Economic Forum

São Paulo, Brazil, 3 December 2014 – The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a sister organization of the World Economic Forum, in partnership with Folha de S. Paulo, announced Claudio Sassaki and Eduardo Bontemp as the winners of the Brazil Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 Award. The prize was conferred by Hilde Schwab, Chairperson and Co-Founder of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and the 2013 Brazil Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Merula Steagall, in the presence of more than 400 leaders from the fields of business, the arts, civil society and academia. 

By Jennifer James

The Huffington Post Impact

I am not sure how I stumbled upon the Practical Initiatives Network (PIN) website, but when I did I was thrilled to see it. As someone who spends a lot of time in the field visiting many NGOs both large and small, it’s hard not to see duplication across organizations. I often think how better it would be if smaller organizations that serve the same communities through like programming would pool their resources to make a larger impact. Or, that when programs and services overlap even across countries that they would collaborate more often to at least avoid replication in the field.