salex.it
People have been talking about Oxfam everywhere in the world of civil society for weeks. Oxfam is one of the largest and the most effective NGOs. It is based in the UK. It has always been one of the top NGOs. It has great influence on governments and decision makers. In case you missed the news, it was found out that some Oxfam staff members, who went to Haiti to distribute aid after the huge, devastating earthquake in 2010, used the financial aid to have orgies. Oxfam’s image would not have been ruined by this event unless it had been this strong and effective.
Somehow, things did not settle In Oxfam, where more than ten thousand staff members work in 90 countries, because the chain of managerial mistakes made after the scandal caused crisis after crisis.
The scandal still continues to grow. However, we are not interested in Oxfam’s chain of mistakes but in the “block perception chain” behind NGOs.
NGOs need two basic sources in line with their “missions“. “Resources” to perform the activities suitable for their missions and “volunteers” to manage these resources. Cooperation is built on the rational use of these resources and the users’ level of reliability.
How does the Block Perception Chain work?
Organisations like Oxfam get most of the resources suitable for their missions from governments, international public institutions and establishments like the EU. For instance, FIFA is an international organisation although it is not an NGO. So are charities such as Kizilay and Red Cross.
The most critical questions in these establishments are:
- What is the source of this money?
- Who manages these jobs?
- Is there accountability?
If there is corruption, bribery, abuse, fraud or similar suspicions, the “block perception chain” behind NGOs starts working. The financial resources suddenly dry up for NGOs which do not have anything to do with each other anywhere in the world and have had no contact throughout history. Legal authorities start inspecting their books for no reason. The members of these NGOs become uncomfortable although they have nothing to do with the suspicions.
This is what is happening with Oxfam right now.
Potential Criminals: NGOs!
The “block perception chain” is working at the background. Tens of thousands of big or small NGOs are being treated like potential “criminals”. Questions such as “What if they made such a blunder?”, “What if we get in trouble because of them?” or “What if we are investigated?” are being asked by all public and private institutions and organisations which are actively in contact with NGOs although they are not said out loud.
The New Rising Value: Accountability
momentumconsulting.com
“Reputation” has become top priority in our borderless world. It is an abstract concept, but people have started to understand it more easily since its outcome is “reliability”. It is harder than ever to “rely on someone” because human beings lost their basic moral values in the 20th century! Honesty, ethics and responsibility towards the environment, society and the planet in addition to responsibility towards oneself are no longer the foundation of life.
Being reputable is directly related to values. If we have the values we are talking about, we become reputable. However, “money” turned into value over one hundred years when capitalism was drooling and foaming at the mouth. Nobody cared about their reputation when the values that human beings should have were replaced with “money”.
NGOs reminded us that our basic values were really “important” in a period when we polluted every inch of the earth and doubted sustainability of life. It may be ironic but the NGOs whose values are questioned today are the ones that “imposed” these values on us. Greenpeace, WWF and Oxfam are the most important ones among these NGOs. They reminded us how important “ethics, fairness, openness, transparency, responsibility and accountability” were in order to rely on each other. They went from country to country and hundreds of their members were killed or left to languish in prison for this cause. In the end, they turned out to be right on a global scale. We should have started off on the basis of these principles to be able to rely on each other.
Vision, Mission and Values
We see these concepts when we look at the “vision, mission and values” of a great number of companies these days, because everyone wants to be reputable now and sees that it takes more than giving funds to a social project. In short, reputation is a concept which is built on these values and whose outcome is reliability.
I think one of these values is more “important” than others: “Accountability”.
The “block perception chain” behind civil society works on the basis of this concept. Oxfam managers claim that they conducted a comprehensive on-time internal investigation into the sex scandal developments and did what was “required“. However, the international community does not think this example of “accountability” is satisfactory. It is not convinced. It does not consider this sufficient.
This situation shows us that the rising value of the future will be “accountability“. This is beyond making a consultancy company prepare an independent audit report. This is beyond passing “compliance standards” exams. This is beyond being appreciated about “internal auditing” mechanisms.
There is something called Public Conscience!
It is very difficult to satisfy “public conscience“. It is no more enough to be “cleared of blame”, you also need to be “appreciated”. What a grave dilemma! However, the variation inherent in “accountability” also appears to be the ability to overcome this dilemma.
So far, we have considered accountability was in the same class with “ethics, fairness, responsibility, transparency and openness which were rising values”. From this point of view, it has been considered that accountability focused on “being cleared of blame“. Just like saying “We have some resources and they have been used in a suitable way. Here are the related documents”.
However, this approach changed in the new period: “I conduct my accountability processes in this way in order for you to continue relying on me. I do not mean to be cleared of blame but to be appreciated. I mean to include this appreciation in my reputation capital specifically for each of my stakeholders.”
That was what Oxfam could not manage. If they had activated the “accountability mechanisms which would renew their stakeholders’ trust” instead of finding a “technical” solution to a problem by working their internal mechanisms, the situation could have been different.
This is not only Oxfam’s problem but also the problem of all the NGOs in the world. Nobody but NGOs can help the societies torn apart by hot wars, the people immigrating due to famine, poverty and desperation and the people who are in a terrible situation due to illnesses and natural disasters. We can estimate that these problems will multiply in the next decades when we look at the agenda.
The “block perception chain” working globally behind NGOs will renew itself in line with the change in “accountability“. The financial resources needed by NGOs and the volunteered participation will put our minds at ease only with these principal policies.
Leave a Reply