NGO Forum

By Moin Qazi, The Chicago Monitor

The first-ever Indian state exercise to map registered NGOs has disclosed that India has at least 3.1 million NGOs — more than double the number of schools in the country, 250 times the number of government hospitals, and one NGO for 400 people as against one policeman for 709 people. When there are so many of them, there is a race, an unhealthy one, for money and attention..

Read full article here. 

By Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom

The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the National Dialogue Quartet of Tunisian NGOs who in 2013, when the country was on the brink of civil war, provided for negotiations among socio-political factions leading to more inclusive and democratic structures for the country. The National Dialogue Quartet were the representatives of the General Union of Tunisian Workers, the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League, and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers − all non-governmental Organizations (NGOs).

By Jennifer Ngo, South China Morning Post

The corruption watchdog has released an updated set of guidelines for non-governmental organisations and charities in the social welfare sector to guard against any misuse of funds.

But the guidelines are not mandatory and do not have legal implications, and it will be up to NGOs to decide whether or not to adopt them.

Tse Man-shing, director of corruption prevention at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, said the risk of malpractice among Hong Kong NGOs was low.

By PTI (Economic Times)

NEW DELHI: Government today said an in-house rating of NGOs receiving grants from the Environment Ministry will be done to rank them on the basis of their performance.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, while releasing the 10th edition of ‘Directory of Environment NGOs’ said a system will be created to assess the performance of such NGOs.

“We will create a system where the performance of NGOs receiving Environment Ministry’s grant will be assessed to see whether the money has been spent on the purpose it was mentioned for and second, whether the message for which the amount is given has reached the people and the purpose is achieved,” he said.