The European Public Health Alliance was awarded 5 out 5 in the 2008 NGO Transparency Index established by the Promotheus Foundation. This highest score is due to the availability of EPHA accounts, operations and activities in a clear and readable fashion, as well as a five-year business plan and full details of its Secretariat and Work Plan on the EPHA website.
Background on Fondation Promotheus
The Prometheus Foundation aims to contribute to the analysis of globalisation issues and to promote economic peace and transparency in trade by promoting strategic research.
The Prometheus Foundation does this in a number of different ways:
– create tools and methods to better analyse national competitive intelligence policies, reports produced by institutes and organisations dedicated to research, and levels of cooperation and support between political powers and economic actors;
– deliver to the general public -political actors, economic actors, press leaders- issues and practices in the fields of economy, law, commerce, finance, sciences concerning global, European and national economy.
Rationale of the Barometer
The Barometer aims:
– to shed light on the debate by proposing an objective evaluation based on a precise methodology and to initiate essential clarification with regard to the rising power of NGOs;
– to provide information on NGOs to better promote their recognition;
– fulfil an ethical duty: the increasing importance of NGOs justifies the duty of transparency.
Methodology
Selection of NGOs
The common denominator uniting all these organizations is not their size, how well known they are or the size of their budgets. It’s their “institutional interface”, their participation in framing standards and in public decision making. They all belong to one of the following groups:
– participation in the UNO’s ECOSOC Forum.
– consultative status with the Council of Europe.
– participation in European Commission working groups.
– participation in the French “Grenelle de l’Environnement” environment round table.
Scoring criteria
The classification drawn up by Prometheus is based on a methodology that tends towards objectivity.
The scoring criteria were constructed via a synthesis of existing procedures:
– The definition of a transparency policy used by the French Observatoire de l’action humanitaire: “the distribution of reports and financial statements outside institutional funding agencies, donors and members of the association alone”;
– The evaluation by One World Trust in the context of its “NGO Accountability” programme, of transparency by the availability of information on the internet that would answer the questions from the public.
– The specification of the “Responsible Governance and Management of Associations and Foundations” label proposed by AFNOR. It stipulates (4.1 Communication) that: “communication inside and outside of the organisation must comply with the principle of transparency of information in order to give all interested parties access to the information they require, without infringing the principles of confidentiality… The information provided must be in accordance with the normal expectations from the public and the size of the association. The organization must differentiate between summary information and detailed information… The organization must produce a report of its activities.”
Scoring system
Level 0
No known distribution of reports of its accounts and activities, or any description of its legal structure. The website does not give access to either an annual budget or its articles of association.
Level 1
The website doesn’t give access to any activity and resources account. The NGO’s corporate name is specified but its activities are presented in summary form and are not always exhaustive, and its articles of association are not available.
Level 2
The website gives access to a single activity and resources account that is a year old or more. There is no activity report and the articles of association are not available or are only partly available.
Level 3
The website gives access to one or more activity and resources accounts, the most recent being a year old, or two years at maximum. One or more activity reports, as well as a summary of the articles of association (therefore the purpose of the NGO) are available.
Level 4
The website gives access to one or more activity and resources accounts, the most recent being a year old, or two years at maximum. The association’s annual or policy report evidences a real sense of self-evaluation, a summary of the major features of how responsibilities are shared is available
Level 5
The website offers a direct contact for interaction with the NGO and to find out more about how it is funded and its mode of governance. One or more activity and resources accounts, the most recent being a year old, or a maximum of two years, are available, as well as its full articles of association, and one or more annual or policy reports evidencing a real sense of self-evaluation in the structure’s management and activities.
When an NGO presents a different level of transparency between governance and finance, an intermediate score (,5) is given via weighting the scores the NGO would have received had finance and governance been treated as separate items.
Finding
23 NGOs (out of 54) achieved a score of less than 1.
The highest score (5) went to Médecins du Monde (MDM) and the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA).
“EPHA presents its accounts, operations and activities in a clear and readable fashion. The addition of a business plan and details of its secretariat expresses a real desire to reconcile the organization’s values and interests from a perspective of strategic critique…EPHA provides a five year business plan and succeeds in reconciling interests and values.”
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