NGOs demand that governments, businesses and international organisations be open and accountable for their actions. Hear, hear. But what about NGOs themselves? The likes of Oxfam and Greenpeace fall far short of the standards on which they rightly insist in others. These self-appointed guardians of global rectitude are scarcely models of transparency and accountability – a flagrant case of "do as I say, not as I do". As I have long argued, if NGOs are to be taken seriously in global politics this has to change – and it appears that they are finally starting to put their houses in order. The FT reports that 11 NGOs will on Tuesday sign a voluntary “accountability charter”. Sounds promising. Watch this space.
I really can’t understand why conventional bourgeois ideologists bother to blog. You get a steady diet of this tripe from Thomas Friedman, the FT, the WSJ and a zillion other corporate outlets.
I blog because people like you love reading me ;-)