One of the things that has been keeping me super busy is NGO Scorecard verifications. You remember the NGO Scorecard project? If not, I wrote about it in this post http://uganduh.blogspot.com/2011/07/ngo-adventures.html for a quick refresher course.
Once we got the NGOs to show up to the conference way back in June, the next step was getting them to agree to sign up to participate in the actual QuAM verification process. QuAM itself is a Ugandan program, created by two of the big organizations in Uganda that focus on the NGO Sector: DENIVA and the NGO Forum. However, in the two years this program has been in existence, the QuAM members have only managed to do two verifications. Our goal this summer is to do 200 verifications of NGOs and CBOs (Community Based Organizations…. Basically baby- NGOs). So needless to say, we are giving this program a much needed kick in the pants to get going. One of the ways we’ve been doing this is by paying the QuAM fee that organizations need to pay to get verified. This fee comes to 50,000 shillings (roughly $20), which for many of these tiny CBOs is just too much to pay. But more on that later.
QuAM itself is a very interesting organization. Basically, there is a national QuAM committee and then there are district committees in each district. The district committee members (DCMs) are the ones who actually do the verifications. Interestingly, each district committee is elected by the NGOs who are registered with the NGO Forum. It seems very interesting to me that the regulators are elected by the people that they are trying to regulate. However, it has become very clear to me that while this project interests me from the accountability standpoint (does publicly holding NGOs accountable for bad behaviors make them improve?), QuAM sees itself as more of a consulting organization: working with NGOs to help them get better.
At first, I found this apparent conflict of interest troubling, but have come to realize that especially for the smaller CBOs, a lot of the problems come from simply not knowing about best practices. I guess from that standpoint, the most capacity building (another excellent development buzzword!) can be achieved when the DCMs are people who the NGOs and CBOs hold in high esteem and trust to give them good counsel.
It seems to me that the QuAM process really aims at these groups. Because, for calling the process “verifications,” very little is actually verified. For example, one of the questions is “Does your organization prevent the mismanagement of resources by its staff and members?” This, of course, is an important question that speaks to the corruption and inefficiencies that many perceive to be endemic to the aid sector. However, the QuAM process just asks the NGO to point to the section of constitution that codifies this standard, yet takes no measure to verify that this standard is implemented in practice. Thus, even the most corrupt NGO that completely ignores all of its policies would pass the QuAM with flying colors if they have good written policies.
This was a bit frustrating to me at first, since basically renders QuAM obsolete as a financial accountability tool. However, as someone who has pretty much exclusively worked with large development organizations, this process has enlightened me to the incredible scale of organizations that all fall under the category of NGOs.
For example, some NGOs are incredibly slick and well run. Take for example the Norwegian Refugee Council. It was an absolute pleasure to verify this organization. The NRC is an international NGO based in Oslo (thoughts and prayers to the citizens of Oslo and the families and friends of the victims of the attack there) that works in 22 countries. They really seem to do good work and are excellent in their monitoring and evaluation work. They applied for the highest certificate level, and I’m sure they will pass every standard. Some of the standards seem quite silly for an organization such as this one. For example, the question “Do you have a bank account?” was met with laughter from the NRC staff.
Other organizations are much less slick and well run. My first verification was to Northern Youth Alive Multipurpose Uganda (awesome name, btw). This organization was basically a group of friends who seemed to get together to solve the shared problem that none of them have jobs. They decided to solve this problem by forming an “NGO” that would promote “livelihood enhancement among Ugandan youth.” This organization was brand new, formed in April 2011, and yet to have a single donor. So far, the founding members had managed to pool together a little bit of money to open up a barbershop that they staff themselves.
Verifying such an organization really highlighted the learning process that QuAM is excellent to engender. For example, when asked the question about preventing mismanagement of resources, they pointed to a sentence in the constitution that demanded that “all members respect the organization.” Not satisfied with this, I kept asking them how they would prevent mismanagement.
-“Let’s say it is the end of the day at the barbershop. How do you make sure someone doesn’t take more than their share of the day’s earnings?”
-“That would not happen. We are all of one heart.”
-“But… how do you know that everyone is of one heart? How do you make sure?”
-“We know. We would not have such problems.”
-“Um….”
By the end of the meeting, Esther (my baller DCM partner…. She insisted that we skip the free lunch I offered to buy her the first day so we could get more done.) and I convinced this group that it would be a good idea to develop monitoring practices…. Just in case someone may join the group who is not of one heart in the future.
Sign in the barbershop. Ironic, no?
Another CBO we visited, the Koro Youth Development Association, also works to provide livelihood opportunities to Gulu area youth. Mostly, they do this by creating crafts such as beads and doormats that they sell to raise money.
When we asked to see their most recent financial records, they started looking through a stack of water logged papers that they thought contained the records. They were not there. We availed on them that documenting financial transactions would be a good idea if they hope to get donor funding in the future.
After the business portion of our meeting, we went out back of the office and the members performed some traditional dances for us. A very fun end to the verification day!
The Koro Youth Development Association Building
The women of the Koro Youth Development Association making beads out of cut up sensitization (another good buzzword) posters from Aid Organizations. I found that quite funny/ awesome.
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