Convention on Institutional Governance of NGOs held: 10 Points Accountability Charter Declared and Adopted
June 29, 2008 Leave a comment Go to comments
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It is the first time, the grassroots NGOs declared 10 points
accountability charter for Institutional Governance of NGOs and adopted
it for self-assessment to ensure transparent and accountable
governance. In the closing session of the Convention titled Convention
on Institutional Governance of NGOs, the grassroots NGOs of SUPRO
network took oath to institutionze the governance of their respective
NGOs where Rasheda K Chowdhury, Honorable Adviser of People’s Republic
of Bangladesh spoke as Chief Guest and Mozibur Rahman, Treasurer of
SUPRO and Executive Director of SDS, Shariatpur; SUPRO National Council
Member Motiur Rahman, Executive Director, Come to Work, Dinajpur; M.A.
Salam, Executive Director of PPS, Pabna; KGM Faruqe, Executive Director
of PAVE, Bogura; Mahboob Morshed, Executive Director of Darpan,
Comilla, Manju Rani Pramanik, Executive Director of Shoroney, Tangail;
Sharifa Khatun, Executive Director of Welfare Trust, Jhenidhah; Lolit C
Chakma, Executive Director of SUS, Rangamati; Hosne Ara Hashi,
Executive Director of Jago Nari, Barguna and Shamima Akhter Moon Moon,
Executive Director of SBMUS, Rajbari adopted the Charter on behalf of
SUPRO Network. The closing session chaired by Abdul Awal, Chairperson
of SUPRO.
The NGOs has done lot of important works in poverty eradication, women
empowerment and sustainable development. Specially NGOs has a great
role to establish the socio-economic, political and cultural rights of
poor and marginalized people at the society and state. But sometimes
the role of NGOs is questioned due to absent of her own pre-identified
principals and indicators of transparency and accountability. The
speakers of the convention identified this problem and vowed for
setting up her own accountability and transparency charter.
As culmination of last 4 months discussion with grassroots NGOs and NGO
Stakeholders at 42 districts, today at Morning, a convention on
`Institutional Governance of NGOs’ is held at LGED Auditorium, Dhaka
inaugurated by the Chairman of Transparency International Dr. Mozaffar
Ahmed. 50 candle is lighted by the distinguished guests, SUPRO National
Council and Network Members to inaugurate the convention where Tahmina
Rahman, Country Director of Article 19; Dr. Bodiul Alam Majumder,
Secretary of SUJON and Country Director of Hunger Project; Syed Nurul
Alam, Executive Director of SAP Bangladesh spoke as guest in this
session of the convention. SUPRO Chairperson, Abdul Awal chaired in
this session while Chief Executive Officer, Prodip Kumar Roy
highlighted background of the convention and welcomed the distinguished
guests and participants in the convention.
The convention is held as per strategic decision is taken by SUPRO in
2005 to set out the accountability charter as well as basic principles
of NGO activities for network members of SUPRO. After 2 years long
discussion with grassroots NGOs; a national workshop on `Development of
Institutional Governance of NGOs’ held in last December at Dhaka where
National Council members and District Representative of SUPRO network
participated and developed a draft charter for accountability. The
draft charter is discussed at 42 workshop conducted at 42 districts
where representative of local NGOs participated and gave feed back on
the draft. The final draft of charter is prepared according to feedback
of districts workshop and presented at the convention for finalizing of
the charter. The representative of NGOs from 46 districts and
distinguished guests from different NGOs participated in discussion on
the final draft at working session and finalized the following 10
points of Accountability Charter:
1. Human Rights Approach to Development.
2. Effective Principle for Poverty Eradication.
3. Participatory development approach with marginalized people.
4. Participatory Governance.
5. Participatory Planning and Evaluation.
6. Transparency and accountability in Governance.
7. Financial Transparency.
8. Disclosure of Information.
9. Gender Equality.
10. Responsibility to Environment, Culture and Tradition.
In the working session, the participants suggested self-assessment
process to implement the accountability charter at primary level.
Mozibur Rahman, Treasurer of SUPRO presented the draft charter in the
working session while Mohsin Ali, Executive Member of SUPRO; Asgar Ali
Sabri, Head, Social and Economic Justice Theme; Shishir Shil, Executive
Director, People’s Empowerment Trust; Shamima Akhter Moonmoon, Member
of SUPRO spoke as panel discussant and grassroots members of SUPRO took
part in the open session. The session chaired by SUPRO Vice Chairperson
Mustafizur Rahman.