Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) yesterday gave an explanation regarding its recently published study on corruption in non-governmental development organisations (NGO) following an outcry from a section of the sector against the study.
In a news release the Bangladesh chapter of the international anti-corruption watchdog said the study depicted an overall picture of the existence of corruption in the sector which is in no way equally applicable to all NGOs.
The release quoted TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman as saying, "The study report did not say that all the NGOs are corrupt. The report did not measure the individual range of corruption in individual NGOs in relation to their sizes, ways of getting funds, their ranges of work and their locations. The report even shows that the identified problems don't exist in all the surveyed NGOs. There was not any sweeping comment on the NGO sector."
The TIB study titled 'problems of good governance in the NGO sector: the way forward' released on October 4, noted that there is a lack of transparency and accountability in the sector as well as some serious irregularities.
The study took into account activities of 20 NGOs operating in different districts in the six divisions of the country, one of which is an international NGO, while eight are national NGOs and 11 are localised NGOs.
The publication of the study elicited mixed reaction from the development community.
Dr Iftekhar said in the release that the methodology used for the research is scientific and widely accepted. Data were collected through interviews with NGO officials of different levels, from case studies and focus group discussions (FGD), and through interviews with the main sources of information. "So it is absolutely logical to have a perception on the sector's problems in good governance and its nature, through the scientifically extracted data on 20 chosen NGOs."
The release went on saying, TIB thinks that the NGOs have been playing an important role in national development of Bangladesh including poverty reduction, non-formal education, health, empowerment of women, and the environment. Transparency and good governance in the important supplementary development sector of the government is essential for the sake of its own credibility and sustainability.
TIB carried out the research as a part of this sector itself, with a view to provide the sector with a set of recommendations for removing the hindrances to good governance and to create a space for self investigation.
ADAB REACTION
Meanwhile, the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (Adab) in a separate news release yesterday lambasted the TIB report claiming that the report had labelled 80 percent of the total 47,000 NGOs in the country as corrupt.
"The methodology used in the study is faulty and information gathered from a faulty research cannot be acceptable," said the Adab release signed by its Director Aminul Islam. A composite picture of the vast sector cannot be perceived on the basis of a survey of a mere 20 organisations, the Adab director said in the release.
When Bangladeshi NGOs are earning international repute and different countries are expressing interest in using the Bangladeshi model in poverty reduction there, such a report from TIB will definitely have a negative impact on the NGO activities, he said.