ࡱ> pro5@ Sbjbj22 "jXXK,,,,,,,LDLK44444444KKKKKKK$3MRO6K,^44^^6K,,44KK$$$^,4,4K$^K$"$$hG,,J4( !a#^H"J,aK0KHPB$vPDJ@h,,,,P,J$4($b4446K6KLL$ LL Proceedings of the Seminar on Non-Government Organisation (NGO) Accreditation April 22, 2006 held at Development Support Centre, Bopal, Ahmedabad Organised by Sajjata Sangh, Ahmedabad Supported by Aga Khan Foundation (Under the European Commission co-financed in SCALE Project) Seminar on Non-Government Organisation (NGO) Accreditation On April 22, 2006, Sajjata Sangh had organised a seminar at the Development Support Centre (DSC), Bopal. The purpose was to explore the issue of evolving a rating system for NGOs. It was attended by policy makers, representatives from donor agencies, NGO leaders and academicians. Ms. Nafisa Barot, Managing Trustee, PRAVAH, began the proceedings with an address welcoming distinguished guests and participants who represented diverse disciplines and different stakeholders in rural development. Ms. Barot briefly dealt with the need and the utility of NGO Accreditation. She also brought to light the need to debate whether accreditation process should be restricted to the domain of the NGOs only or whether other players such as the donor agencies and the government organisations should also be rated. She outlined the following crucial issues, which she felt needed to be discussed. What criteria should be used to rate NGOs? Who would develop such criteria or parameters? What methodology should be adopted to evolve these criteria? She highlighted the need to keep the criteria of rating simple and practical and warned against allowing these criteria to become a power game which would be used of select the best and leave out the rest. The idea of keeping the screening process free from political pressures to help evolve fair and just practical criteria was emphasised in her speech. Background Mr. Anil C. Shah, President, Sajjata Sangh, began his address with the reminiscences of his association with Mr. B. N. Yugandhar, Member Planning Commission. As a Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Mr Shah was involved in framing Watershed Guidelines that introduced revolutionary concepts like making village Watershed Associations as Community based organisations (CBOs) that would be the guiding force in planning, executing and managing the local natural resources; concept of Project Implementing Agency (PIA) that would work through a professional team as a facilitating agency. It would strive to strengthen community action and administrative system that would lead to empowerment of local community with the district administration playing the supporting role. As PIAs, NGOs were entrusted with responsibility of undertaking the tasks of awareness generation, community organisation and mobilisation to facilitate participatory planning and implementation of plans. However, many NGOs lacked both good governance and transparency in financial dealings and accounting procedures. Therefore DSC promoted the idea of Sajjata Sangh, a network of NGOs, to undertake capacity building of NGOs working in the field of participatory natural resource management. Mr. Shah submitted that to secure the services of efficient and professionally competent NGOs, there is a need to come up with the objective criteria of assessing PIAs. Appropriate weightage will have to be attached to the criteria. It is in this context that DSC started consultations with other networks of NGOs to undertake the exercise of NGO accreditation. CRISIL was asked whether it would be interested in working on the issue. Mr. Shah opined that it is imperative that all the players who use the services of NGOs discuss the following issues: Deciding on what kind of NGOs do we envisage and developing a set of parameters and indicators to rate them. Evolving system which would enable various levels of NGOs to approach the rating agency to obtain rating. Keynote Address Mr. B. N. Yugandhar, Member Planning Commission, said in his keynote address that he regarded the issue of NGO rating an issue of immense importance and relevance. He underlined the urgency to take up the issue of NGO accreditation with the example of Kadappa district in Andhra Pradesh which is flooded with as many as 3,000 NGOs! It is obvious that when there is such a large of NGOs there is a need for assessing their suitability using appropriate parameters and indicators. He emphasised the fact that the NGOs are entrusted with the responsibility of bringing about development by working to empower communities. It is, therefore, imperative to identify NGOs that go beyond service-delivery mechanisms and work for people-centred approach to development. According to Mr. Yugandhar, the three crucial roles that NGOs must perform are: Empowering primary stakeholders Developing competence to render quality service to the community Working closely with the CBOs to ensure momentum of the programme and sustainability of CBOs. According to Mr. Yugandhar, the main features of the rating criteria to be evolved should be as follows. They should be simple, evolved through a low-cost exercise involving a credible and impartial rating agency. The rating procedure should be regionally, nationally and internationally valid and acceptable. CRISIL Presentation In his brief presentation Mr. Thyagarajan, Director, CRISIL, broadly outlined the past experiences of its rating system which was employed to assess Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) thereby underlining CRISILs competence to carry out the task of NGO accreditation. His presentation dwelt on Grading Assessment, Grading Framework focusing on Management and Governance, Impact Creation, Operational and Financial Management, Sustainability, Scalability, and Grading Exercise, and lastly, he brought in CRISILs credentials. The Grading Framework had four components: Management and Governance Ownership and Legal Structure Transparency and Disclosure Level Board and Management Structure and Processes Impact Creation Mission and Objectives Performance against Objectives Impact Assessment Studies and Impact Creation Operational and Financial Management Process of Selection of Beneficiaries End-Use of Funds Mobilised Planning and Budgeting Financial Prudence, Expense Control and Operational Effectiveness Sustainability and Scalability Ability to Access Resources in Future Programme Sustainability Open Session An open session followed during which the participants discussed the need to broaden the criteria suggested in the presentation to make them more credible and applicable. Opinions and concerns on the issue were also presented by members of the distinguished audience. The emerging concern was the ability of the rating procedures to carry out its task given the variety of sectors in which NGOs operate and their diverse specializations. Moreover, the question of Rating to Whom and by whom was also raised. Several speakers doubted the credibility and competence of a single rating agency to be able to do justice to a very complex task of evolving a set of reliable criteria of credible ratings for inherently heterogeneous entities. Mr. Yugandhar reiterated the need for rating by a third, independent party as the involvement of Government in the exercise would impart it the colour of government selection and the involvement of NGOs themselves would mean self-selection and presence of both of the elements were rather undesirable. Mr. A. K. Varma, Commissioner, Tribal Development, Gujarat, advocated that the possibility of devising separate rating systems for the bigger and smaller organisations should be explored to guard against the possibility of smaller organisations being overshadowed by their bigger counterparts. Mr. Apoorva Oza, Secretary, Sajjata Sangh and CEO, AKRSP, was of the opinion that rating should reflect the core integrity of NGOs and not focus only on adherence to financial discipline and standard accounting procedures. After the discussion, a common understanding emerged: it was essential that NGOs must be rated by an independent agency. Issues in Rating of NGOs The panel constituted to facilitate deliberations on the Issues in Rating of NGOs had the following members: Mr. Ravi Saxena, Secretary, Gujarat Administrative Department Mr. Vipul Mitra, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Gujarat Mr. Gagan Sethi, Managing Trustee, JanVikas Dr. Sandip Ghosh, General Manager, NABARD, Ahmedabad Dr. Bandopadhayay, Director, Ministry of Forests and Environment, New Delhi Mr. Ravi Saxena inaugurated the session with summing up the decisions and the consensus emerged so far in the deliberations. Mr. Gagan Sethi believed that the ratings would be construed as a certificate of good or bad behaviour. In the era of Ngoisation of the voluntary sector, the submission to the criteria of good or bad would naturally be adhered by all concerned NGOs who want to use these criteria to get their credibility stamped in the market. He was of the opinion that it is the responsibility of NGOs to start the process of accreditation; a third party in the form of an independent agency considered above board can rate NGOs to help put them on ethical fitness track. Dr. Sandip Ghosh narrating his experiences in NABARD said that it is only natural that the agency providing the money to an organisation looks for financial regularity in its fund utilisation. He supported the idea of the accreditation initiative where deliberations would help evolve the system wherein the end-result would be responsible and transparent fund-transactions can be suitably assessed. Mr. Vipul Mitra was of the view that the distinction between the NGOs implementing government-funded programmes, interest groups and other agencies needs to be clearly brought out. The donor or the funder would always be interested in ascertaining if the intended benefits have percolated to the grassroots or not. He believes that a single rating system would not suffice to address the different programmes being implemented by NGOs. It was, therefore, necessary to devise separate and specific rating systems for say, area-based programmes, sectoral programmes and for the programmes dealing with the intangibles. Mr. Mitra favoured the idea of assigning the task of devising rating systems to an agency like the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, (IRMA) that would provide ample safeguards against undue government or other influences. In Dr. Bandopadhayays opinion the rating criteria would be extremely useful to government departments in the selection of NGOs since they are involved in government programmes. With the accreditation process in place, donors practice of routing the funds to NGOs through government line departments can be safely phased out. He advocated the cluster approach wherein agencies like Council for Advancement of Peoples Action and Rural Technologies (CAPART) with its network could take up the all-important task of NGO-ratings. Mr. Anil C. Shah summed up the common understanding that had been developed in the deliberations. Not withstanding the inherent diversities among NGOs with respect to their size, vision, management structure and specialisation, participants were in agreement regarding the need to have standards of governance and accountability. The responsibility of undertaking capacity building of NGOs rests with the networks like Sajjata Sangh, PRAVAH, JanVikas to enable them to develop and attain the desired standards of governance and management so that they may obtain good rating. The issue of rating NGOs with sectoral specializations through common specific criteria applicable across sectors or to evolve separate sector-specific sets of criteria tailor-made for each such sector. The overall idea characterising the deliberations so far was to develop the criteria of rating embodying minimum credible standards of governance and accountability. There was also a consensus that the element of time-validity should be incorporated in the rating framework which requires the rating agency to have a periodic review. There were some more thoughts on the issue of diversity of NGOs. Unlike the straightjacketed government line departments, the NGOs are diverse and their diversity should be construed as flexibility. It was agreed, however, that such diversity implies the core competency of NGOs and it was, therefore, necessary for the NGOs to structure themselves around it. It was also strongly suggested that a national-level seminar be organised on the issue to solicit more wide-ranging views and experiences. The national seminar would help in reaching a consensus and evolve a decisive framework for NGO accreditation. Resources and Funding for Rating The following members constituted the panel to guide the deliberations on the issue of Resources and Funding for Rating: Mr. A.K. Varma, Commissioner, Tribal Development, Gujarat Mr. Shankar Narayan, Senior Agriculture Specialist, World Bank Dr. Somnath Bandopadhayay, Programme officer, Aga Khan Foundation Mr. R.K. Sama, Project Manager, Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO). Mr. V.S. Pangtey, Director, Extension and Management, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi The session started with the note on the consensus that emerged so far regarding the need for rating. It was felt that the cost of rating would depend on the requirements of rating. Mr. Shankar Narayan stated that from the perspective of donor agencies, rating criteria would be useful and would enable them to repose faith in the system. The non-negotiable aspects pertaining to transparency, financial management, accountability and management structure can be put under the purview of ratings. On the other hand, the issue of including the assessment of the ability of an organisation to deliver expected quality of services is somewhat subjective in nature. This issue would require special skills and experience from the rating agency to come up with criteria to assess the potential efficiency of an organisation. Mr. Narayan submitted that the responsibility of assessment of potential of an organisation should preferably rest with the concerned donor agencies. They can employ their own assessment criteria to undertake the performance appraisal and potential assessment. It was thought that the third party should enjoy a legal mandate to ensure wider acceptability of the rating system. Dr. Somnath Bandopadhayay, mentioned that the purpose of rating would vary for different organisations as per their different mandates. Mr. R.K. Sama too echoed the view about need for a multi-level appraisal system. He narrated the experience of WASMO (Gujarat) in deciding objective criteria for screening and selection of NGOs through a committee; WASMO had constituted the committee of eminent members including faculty members of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Future Action The following members constituted the panel to decide the course of future action: Mr. B. N. Yugandhar, Member Planning Commission Professor Y.K. Alagh, Former member, Planning Commission Mr. V.S. Gadhvi, Secretary, Department of Water Resources, Gujarat Mr. Sunil Parekh, Management Consultant The session started with recapitulating the emerging consensus about the need to leave out NGOs with political affiliations and lacking in professionalism and transparency in operations. Professor Y.K. Alagh stated that there would be a general rating system for most NGOs which would focus on basic governance issues such as elections and audit procedures. On the other hand, for specialized ratings, public-private partnership can be the medium to help facilitate devising of rating criteria between the donor agency and the concerned NGO. Also during the discussion, it was largely agreed that the funding for the accreditation should come from the donor agencies since reliance on government is always fraught with uncertainties there could be bureaucratic delays and unacceptable conditions may be slapped by the sanctioning authority. Mr. Sunil Parekh, Management Consultant, remarked that expectations from the rating system are limited and the role of rating should be viewed as just one of the many other inputs for decision-making. Thus the aspect of general governance can be safely brought under the purview of rating system, but the specialised affairs of NGOs are too diverse. It would be expensive to rate them, and therefore they should be left to the discretion of the donors. He submitted that the rating agency should focus on outcomes to help build confidence in joint evaluation of programmes between the NGOs and the donor agencies. As the rating system evolves, the qualitative aspects would become quantitative, thereby making it a more effective tool for prediction. He advocated the system of marks or grades in rating. The ratings, he felt, would help bring in the efficiency of corporate sector without compromising the basic strengths of the NGO sector. He favoured the cluster approach. He thought it was a good idea that the rating exercise be undertaken by a credible rating agency, and the NGO networks can play the facilitating role and ensure accessibility to and authenticity of information from their NGO partners. Mr. B.N. Yugandhar cautioned that the putting rating system in place is meant to distinguish between Good NGOs and Not-So-Good NGOs which is no way should be misconstrued as an attempt to diminish the prospects of newly emerging and potentially viable organisations. He emphasized the need to debate the decisions taken in the seminar more intensely at the national level. The seminar ended on a positive note with the formation of a group to work further on the key operational issues of the rating system, particularly Selection of credible competent agencies Funding requirements Parameters Having agreed on future line of action, a group was constituted with the following members to pursue the matter. Mr. Anil C. Shah Mr. Apoorva Oza A representative from PRAVAH A representative from JanVikas Professor Debiprasad Mishra, IRMA Mr. Sunil Parekh The Programme Coordinator, Sajjata Sangh, will provide the secretariate services and function as of convener of the Group. As agreed during the discussions, the mandate of the group would be to look solely into the basic governance issues of the NGOs. Once the rating requirements of basic governance are accomplished, the rating of specialized affairs of the NGOs can be taken up by the concerned donor agencies and the Government departments. It was decided that the group, during its course of work, might co-opt and invite such other experts whose contribution may help in practical action. Vote of thanks Mr. Apoorva Oza made his concluding remarks underlining the urgency and the importance of the exercise of NGO rating so that the agencies providing funding support to programmes could distinguish between reliable NGOs and spurious ones. He thanked the participants that included policy makers, representatives from donor agencies, NGO leaders and academicians. 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