New UN Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Calls for Greater NGO Accountability
Dr. Michael Williams has been named as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian Authority and the Quartet. Dr. Williams previously served as Special Advisor to two UK Foreign Secretaries and held a number of senior positions with the UN. For several years Dr. Williams also worked as Head of Asia Research for Amnesty International.
NGO Monitor is encouraged by Dr. Williams’ appointment. His 2003 Introductory Paper, Global Civil Society: Expectations, Capacities and the Accountability of International NGOs, stresses the importance of trustworthiness and accountability on the part of NGOs. In the paper, Dr. Williams writes,
The increasing influence of NGOs has inevitability given rise to questions about their accountability. . . . Trust has emerged as perhaps the NGOs’ most precious asset. The influence they have been able to exert on public perceptions and Government policy was to a large extent based on the fact that NGOs are trusted more than most official institutions. Rightly or wrongly, NGOs are believed to express the “real” voice of the people while Governments are often viewed as being out of touch and more concerned with power than people. Those with experience of running NGOs have pointed out that trust in NGOs was built up in the same way as for other organisations serving or selling to the public. If an NGO were seen repeatedly to be wrong in its judgements, or inaccurate in its information, it would lose public confidence and would ultimately go out of business in the same way as shareholders would desert a firm whose product was found to be unsatisfactory. Trust does not, however, only apply between an NGO and its supporters. It is also a crucial element in all its other relations; with its partners in the south, with Governments, with the media etc.
NGO Monitor has provided numerous analyses of “trusted” NGOs whose own reports have been proven, as Dr. Williams’ describes, “to be wrong in …judgements, or inaccurate in …information.” Many of these NGOs, however, continue to enjoy public confidence. In fact, many continue to receive support or extensive funding from private foundations, governments and the UN. NGO Monitor has documented in detail the serious credibility problems with Amnesty International, with which Dr. Williams was once associated..
Given Dr. Williams’ emphasis on NGO accountability, NGO Monitor is hopeful that he will take action in the UN framework to improve the standards of NGO accountability and credibility, particularly with regards to NGOs active within Arab-Israeli conflict
