NGO's are Beginning to Reform Their Practices

The Bush administration's dogged insistence that international aid be held to strict standards of accountability is beginning to have an effect, not just at the World Bank, where Paul Wolfowitz not presides, or at the UN which has been plagued by corruption scandals, but throughout the interlocking networks of NGO's. SwissInfo reports that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria [Geneva based, but heavily funded by the US] has

halted millions of dollars in AIDS funding for Uganda, a nation usually praised for its fight against HIV, saying it had found evidence of mismanagement in distributing the money.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said its auditors had serious concerns about the operations of the special agency set up by the Ugandan government to handle cash disbursed by the organisation.

Although there was no clear indication of corruption or fraud, there was evidence of "inappropriate expenditure and improper accounting"....

The move to block cash for Uganda is the second time in a week that the fund, which has made financial transparency a key selling point for donors, has suspended help to a state.

On August 19 it stopped funding for Myanmar because of travel and other restrictions imposed by the military junta there.

For decades aid efforts in Africa and much of the developing world have been stymied by gross negligence and corruption in the recipient societies. Now, finally, the NGO's, prodded by the US administration, are beginning to demand that recipients of their largess begin to actually apply it to the problems the agencies are attempting to address. That is, to quote a prominent criminal, a "good thing."

Read the article here.