Ramallah – The Coalition for Integrity and Accountability – AMAN discussed a research paper on “accountability in Palestinian civil society organizations: internal and external control”. The paper aims to promoting good governance of CSOs via boosted accountability and internal and external control.
Control of civil society organizations has several layers: self or internal control of CSOs executive offices, conducted by the board of directors, general assembly and internal control and audit units; government oversight by state control agencies; community oversight through the media; donors’ oversight; citizens’ oversight, being the final beneficiary of the services provided by these organizations.
Importance of Institutional Governance Control
The paper recommended an amendment to the Law on Charitable Associations and Civil Society Organizations No (1) for the year 2000 to include criteria to promote internal control and boost the control role of their governance structure. The law may compel the governance board to convene sufficient times for a true discussion of reports, and informed voting on budgets, plans and projects. The amendment should also define a time limit for the mandate of senior positions, especially the president of the board of directors and executive manager. It should also set rules for the possible renewal of the mandate of board members, and minimum number for the general assembly members so that the general assembly may vote to dismiss the board of directors by two-thirds vote. Furthermore, the amendment should include the prohibition of combining membership in the general assembly with employment at the organization.
Active rather than honorary membership in general assemblies and boards of directors
The recommendations also stressed the importance of devising organizational structures for CSOs with clear administrative hierarchy, and accountability and oversight across different tiers. The structures need to provide most importantly for the general assembly’s check of the activities of the board of directors as regards this latter’s compliance with the organization’s policies and directions. The boards of directors need to prepare internal bylaws, regulations and work manuals, which shall act as legal reference for accountability and control. Thus, these documents shall detail the powers and responsibilities, the administrative structure and reporting mechanism across different tiers, as well as the applicable administrative and financial systems. The paper presented the criteria to boost the role of general assemblies and boards of directors, including regular meetings and reporting, election of the board of directors, refrain from combining membership in the board with paid employment in the organization. The criteria also include monitoring executive management and subjecting it to oversight and financial and administrative accountability. Active involvement also includes discussion of reports and serious follow-up on the implementation of resolutions, voting on budgets after review to avoid making membership in the board and general assembly a mere formality. Other criteria include neutrality and independence to ensure the success of institutional governance. Work in CSOs has proven that the key pillars of neutrality and independence include avoiding political interference and polarizations.
Support and empowerment of official oversight organizations matter
The paper highlighted the importance of holding CSOs accountable via independent oversight organizations like external control agencies including competent ministries like the Ministry of Interior and the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau as well as the Anti-Corruption Commission. The paper underscored the importance of dissemination of financial and administrative information for further enforcement of transparency indicators to promote oversight and accountability. It is also necessary to provide SAACB with logistic and technical assistance and to empower it with specialized and skillful teams in order to expand its annual oversight coverage to more organizations. There are approximately 3400 organizations while only 10 staff members are dedicated to their audits.
Clear mechanism to oversee compliance with the code of ethics
Dr. Azmi Shu’aibi, Advisor to the Board of AMAN Coalition on Anticorruption, commented on the role of the Ministry of Interior in promoting solid accountability relating to CSOs compliance with their missions. He explained that this role should not be limited to the line ministry, and underlined CSOs internal control to enable governance structures in these organizations to perform their internal audit role. He reiterated control by general assemblies and executive management stressing the importance of establishing proactive and efficient structures to substitute the currently mere formality or protocol structure. Dr. Shuaibi also focused on civil action self-control as an indicator of governance structure’s compliance and CSOs ability to respond and abidance by the code of ethics, conceptualized in partnership with many CSOs. The code of ethics was a first step in the adoption of agreed upon criteria applicable to all administrative, financial, policy and behavioral aspects of an organizations. Shuaibi declared that the civil society has not yet succeeded in devising a clear mechanism to oversee and hold CSOs accountable to the provisions of the code of ethics.
Scores of inactive CSOs
Mr. Abdelnasser Al-Sayrafi, Director General of NGOs and Public Affairs, commented in an intervention on the large number of charitable associations registered in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza without any actual business on the ground. He also referred to a review currently conducted by the Ministry of Interior of the performance of CSOs, focusing on the level of declared financial reports. The Ministry focuses its review on CSOs with revenues beyond 120 thousand Dollars. This procedure extracted 360 active organizations including associations and clubs. The remaining CSOs are inactive grassroots organizations under the current civil society financial crisis. Al-Sayrafi also denoted the elitist character of civil society organizations, underlining that MoI is only a registration agency but not the license granting agency. In conclusion, he explained that newly registered CSOs must complete a financial and administrative system and be provided with guidance of all such requirements.
Open membership in general assemblies
SAACB referred to challenges it faces it its review of civil society organizations in reason of small general assemblies. According to the law, general assemblies can vote a motion of no confidence against the board; however, their small membership impedes this possibility. Furthermore, membership in these general assembly is neither open nor bound by a time frame. Additionally, representation of scope of specialization in boards does not concord with the mandate and role of the organization. There are also problems related to boards’ legal mandates and unclear distribution of powers across the organizational structure.
Role Model:
The paper stressed that CSOs must act as a role model of good governance. It added a number of recommendations related to policies of rotation of senior positions, time ceilings of presidency and membership of boards of directors, adoption of transparency policies and dissemination of CSOs’ action plans, financial and administrative statements, board resolutions and income statements of senior positions holders. The recommendations also focused on a clear and solid policy on the prevention and disclosure of conflict of interest in addition to policies on complaints mechanisms, including against senior staff, president and members of the general assembly and board. Complaints may relate to sexual harassment in workplace, gender parity considerations, reporting on cases of corruption, etc. policies are also needed to ensure gender parity and promote the role of women in decision-making circles in CSOs.
