September 1999 - Alliance magazine

September 1999

NGO accreditation

Volume 4 , Number 3

PDF - £10.00 Hard copy (£15.00)

Special feature

Accreditation – a kitemark for the non-profit sector?

1 September 1999
Andrew Kingman

How do you judge whether a non-profit organization is doing a good job? This is an important issue both for NPOs themselves and for donors. Unfortunately, it is also one about which there is little agreement even within the NPO community. In most walks of life in the late twentieth century, the consumer is king. Standards in industry, food production, hospitals and so on are carefully regulated, and the consumer can look for certain ‘kitemarks’ …

Caroline Hartnell

Editorial

Editorial – September 1999

This issue of Alliance contains a substantial feature on ‘accreditation’ or evaluation of NGOs, examining the reasons for attempting it and the dangers of doing so and looking at examples from different countries. What is less obvious, because the different contributions are scattered, is the focus on company–NGO partnerships – one of the three themes of the forthcoming CIVICUS Assembly. While Tadashi Yamamoto outlines broad developments in the Asia Pacific, the interview provides a close-up of one particular partnership – one that perhaps merits the name. Both Kumi Naidoo, from the civil society side, and Delwin Roy, from the business …

Editorial – NGO accreditation

Can civil society afford not to engage the business sector? This is the question we face as we approach the new millennium. There are many sceptics within civil society who doubt whether engagement of companies in social development can yield true progress. However, if the position of the poor and socially marginalized, and the development challenges facing a community, a country or the world at large, can be addressed by engaging companies, then CSOs are duty bound to explore ways of relating to them. Companies are all driven to a large extent by the profit motive, but a growing …