Umbrella bodies deem NGO clean-up "fair"

The Afghan government's move to dissolve 152 local and 20 foreign NGOs was "fair" and the process inclusive, NGO coordination bodies say.



"It was an extremely transparent process," Laurent Sailard, director of ACBAR, a consortium of over 100 national and international NGOs in Afghanistan, told IRIN.



"Our representatives were part of the commission which made the decision," said Ahmad Shah Habib, director of the Afghan NGOs Coordination Bureau (ANCB), a network of about 200 national NGOs.



The NGOs Clearance and Annulment Commission, established by presidential decree and comprised of the representatives of several ministries and NGOs, said most of the 172 NGOs were dissolved because they had failed to submit six-monthly reports to the Ministry of Economy (MoE).



At least one NGO had asked the MoE to revoke its license, while other NGOs's activity was deemed "too low" and not in keeping with the NGO law, MoE officials said.



It is believed most of the dissolved NGOs were either dysfunctional, or had already left the country without informing the government: They had failed to respond to warnings sent to their addresses by the MoE.



IRIN tried the telephone numbers of the 20 annulled foreign NGOs but all bar one were dead.



"We closed our office due to lack of projects and insecurity," said Taj-u-Din from the dissolved Indian NGO Thrive, adding that the organization had carried out solar power projects in Laghman, Kabul and Kunduz provinces with funding from the Asian Development Bank.



The government blames over 1,200 national and 300 foreign NGOs, thousands of private companies and investment entities, and military contractors for misspending aid; it says it has only disbursed a small fraction of the estimated US$36 billion spent in 2001-2009. It is unclear how much foreign aid has been disbursed through or by NGOs over the past eight years.



Well-received



The government's clean-up of the NGO sector and its demand for six-monthly reporting by every NGO has been well-received.



"It's the government's legitimate right to ask NGOs to report their activities, progress and expenses and we do this regularly," a spokeswoman of Save the Children (UK) who preferred anonymity told IRIN.



"NGOs have to abide by the law," said ACBAR's Sailard.



Health, education, human rights and gender issues are some of the areas in which NGOs are delivering critical services to people, even in places where the government cannot provide services, experts say.



"NGOs are very important actors. Afghans need their services," said ANCB's Habib, adding that NGOs were generally transparent and accountable in their projects.



He called on the government, donors and private contractors to demonstrate stronger transparency and accountability in their activities. "There shouldn't be double standards in accountability."