Research Projects
NGOWATCH.ORG is a collaborative project of AEI and the Federalist Society.
Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth in the power and influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While it is true that many NGOs remain true to grassroots authenticity conjured up in images of protest and sacrifice, it is also true that nongovernmental organizations are now serious business. NGO officials and their activities are widely cited in the media and relied upon in congressional testimony; corporations regularly consult with NGOs prior to major investments. Many groups have strayed beyond their original mandates and assumed quasi-governmental roles. Increasingly, nongovernmental organizations are not just accredited observers at international organizations, they are full-fledged decision-makers.
Throughout much of the world, non-governmental organizations are unregulated, spared any requirement to account for expenditures, to disclose activities or sources of funding or even to declare their officers. That is not the case in the United States, where the tax code affords the public some transparency about its NGOs. But where is the rest of the story? Do NGOs influence international organizations like the World Trade Organization? What is their agenda? Who runs these groups? Who funds them? And to whom are they accountable?
In an effort to bring clarity and accountability to the burgeoning world of NGOs, AEI and the Federalist Society have launched NGOWATCH.ORG. This site will, without prejudice, compile factual data about nongovernmental organizations. It will include analysis of relevant issues, treaties, and international organizations where NGOs are active. There will be crossreferenced information about corporations and NGOs, mission statements and news about causes and campaigns. There will be links to NGOs and to articles and authors of interest.
NGOWATCH.ORG is a work in progress. AEI and the Federalist Society will continue upgrading and improving this site. Suggestions are appreciated. Nongovernmental organizations are a time-honored tradition, in the United States and throughout the world. With greater transparency for NGOs, there will be greater accountability, and with that, we hope, greater responsibility and effectiveness for the many who are engaged in great work.
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The article below provides additional context. USAID Administrator Natsios' comments mid-way down are particularly interesting:Iraq-Attack Think Tank Turns Wrath on NGOs
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) - Having led the charge to war in Iraq, an
influential think tank close to the Bush administration has added a
new target: international non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Not just any international NGOs, but especially, if not exclusively,
those with a "progressive" or "liberal" agenda that favours "global
governance" and other notions that are also are promoted by the United Nations
and other multilateral agencies.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) announced Wednesday that
it, along with another right-wing group, the Federalist Society for
Law and Public Policy Studies, is launching a new website
(www.ngowatch.org) to expose the funding, operations and agendas of
international NGOs, and particularly their alleged efforts to constrain U.S. freedom of
action in international affairs and influence the behaviour of
corporations abroad. They are especially alarmed by what they see
as the naivete in dealing with NGOs of both Bush administration and corporations
that are providing them with funding and other support. "In many cases,
naive corporate reformers, within corporations and in government,
are welcoming them," complained John Entine, an AEI fellow.
To mark the site's launch, AEI also held an all-day conference,entitled 'NGOs: The Growing Power of an Unelected Few,' which
featured a series of presentations depicting NGOs as a growing and largely
unaccountable threat to the Bush administration's foreign policy
goals and free- market capitalism around the world. The conference was co-sponsored by the
right-wing Australian think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
"NGOs have created their own rules and regulations and demanded
that governments and corporations abide by those rules", according
to the conference organisers. "Politicians and corporate leaders are
often forced to respond to the NGO media machine, and the resources of
taxpayers and shareholders are used in support of ends they did not
sanction''. "The extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal
democracies has the potential to undermine the sovereignty of
constitutional democracies, as well as the effectiveness of
credible NGOs'', they said.
Both the website launch and Wednesday's conference might normally
be dismissed as a pep rally of a far right obsessed with left-wing
and European conspiracies to impose world government on the United
States and destroy capitalism. But the fact that no less than 42
senior dministration foreign-policy and justice officials were recruited
from AEI and the Federalists and that AEI ''fellows'' include such
prominent figures as Lynne Cheney (the vice president's spouse),
former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and the influential Iraq hawk and
former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Richard
Perle, suggests that Wednesday's events may herald a much more
antagonistic attitude towards NGOs on the part of the government.
The conference was also held on the heels of harshly critical
remarks late last month by Andrew Natsios, the director of the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), which often contracts with
NGOs for relief and development work. Among other charges, Natsios
reportedly charged that NGOs that received USAID funding for
projects in Afghanistan and elsewhere were not giving sufficient credit to the
U.S. government as the source of the aid. His remarks coincided
with moves by USAID to use more private contractors, instead of NGOs,
for work in Iraq and other countries, and impose stricter rules regarding
contacts between NGOs working on USAID projects and the press that would
reduce their independence. In that context, according to one
international NGO official who asked not to be identified, the AEI conference
could be seen as part of a troublesome pattern. "There are a number of
things we're seeing that we want to be sure are nothing more than
coincidence", he said. The general message at Wednesday's
conference was that, while NGOs like Amnesty International, CARE, Oxfam, and Friends of
the Earth, have performed valuable work in promoting human rights,development, and environmental protection, their general policies,
particularly at the international level, may be inimical to the U.S. interests and
free-market principles.
According to George Washington University political science
professor Jarol Manheim, international NGOs are pursuing ''a new
and pervasive form of conflict'' against multi-national corporations
which he calls ''Biz-War'', the title of his forthcoming book. NGOs, for
example, work with like-minded institutional investors, such as union and
church-based pension funds, to sponsor shareholder resolutions demanding that
corporations adopt more environment- or human-rights-friendly
policies.
Such efforts, he said, should be seen as ''part of a larger,
anti-corporate campaign'' which also includes consumer boycotts and
other efforts to influence corporate behaviour. Companies are
increasingly engaging in joint projects with NGOs, using NGOs as
consultants, or even hiring former NGO officials to protect
themselves against negative publicity.
This was echoed by John Entine, an AEI adjunct fellow, who called
the ''social investing'' movement, as it is called, a ''wolf in
sheep's clothing.'' ''Anti-free market NGOs under the guise of corporate
reform are extending their reach into the boardrooms of
corporations'', he said. Cornell University government professor Jeremy Rabkin was
particularly contemptuous of corporations that tried to establish
good relations with NGOs by, for example, working on joint projects
or contributing money or other kinds of support. ''Why are NGOs in a
position to confer legitimacy''? he asked. ''A lot of this is a
kind of protection racket''.
On the political front, international NGOs, which in recent years
led the fight for the global ban on anti-personnel mines, the Kyoto
Protocol to fight global warming, and the treaty establishing the
International Criminal Court (ICC), are pursuing a ''liberal
internationalist'' vision that ''wants to constrain the United States'', according to
American University law professor Kenneth Anderson. They prefer a
world order based on ''global governance'' and the rule of international
law to one that is based on ''democratic sovereignty'' which considers
nation-states whose governments are subject to the vote of the
people the highest authority. In this quest, they are aided by UN
agencies which see in international NGOs and the global civil society they
claim to represent as an ''alternative form of legitimacy beyond
democracy'', he said. ''If you think about it, of course this is a
left-wing programme'', said Jeremy Rabkin, who teaches government at Cornell
University. ''The whole enterprise of global governance is going to
appeal more to the parties of the left. ...If it is global, it is
anti-national'', he said, at one point noting that the original
notion of a non-governmental organisation was a ''Stalinist
concept''.-End-
(IPS) http://www.ips.org/
