A Moody’s for NGOs?

Foreign Policy editor Moises Naim proposes a ratings agency for NGOs to akin to those assessing creditworthiness in the global financial system in this piece from the WaPo. Naim highlights the rise of government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) that “are crowding out and muddling the voices of the country’s legitimate civil society. . . [The] effectiveness of nongovernmental organizations will suffer if we don’t find reliable ways of distinguishing between organizations that represent democratic civil society and those that are tools of uncivil, undemocratic governments.”

All well taken, although one wonders where the money comes from for this – and to whom it would be accountable – since unlike Moody’s it’s unclear who has an incentive to pony up. Naim is a particularly credible voice added to a growing chorus highlighting the problem of NGO accountability. NGOs themselves are now obviously sensitive to the charge, as evidenced by the signing last June of an “accountability charter” by 11 heavy-hitting NGOs (Greenpeace and Amnesty among them). We’ll see if self-regulation satisfies the critics here, and what kind of other mechanisms might be devised to address the challenge.