NEWS

Transparency between NGO’s and the Government

31/10/2011

On 31^st October the office of the President of the Republic of Brazil published a Decree suspending agreements with private non-profit organizations for 30 days.  In response, the Facilitating Committee of the Platform for a New Regulatory Framework for Civil Society Organizations (Comitê Facilitador da Plataforma por um Novo Marco Regulatório para as Organizações da Sociedade Civil) published an Open Letter to the President, reaffirming the need to construct a more transparent relationship between the Government and civil society.  In the Committee’s letter, which can be seen below, CESE’s Executive Director, Eliana Rolemberg, represents the Brazil Region of the Latin American Council of Churches (Conselho Latino-Americano de Igrejas: CLAI).

Access the article “O joio e o trigo no mundo das ONGs” [in Portuguese] (“The wheat and the chaff in the world of NGOs”) by Fátima Mello from the Centre for Environmental Justice and Rights of the Federation of Organizations for Social and Educational Assistance (Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional: FASE).

Open Letter to Dilma Rousseff, the President of the Republic

Your Excellency Madam President,

The signatory organizations of this letter constitute the Facilitating Committee of the Platform for a New Regulatory Framework for Civil Society Organizations, whose agenda was presented to Your Excellency in 2010, while you were still a presidential candidate, and to which you responded in a Letter to Civil Society Organizations.  In this document, in which you recognized the legitimacy of our proposals, Your Excellency confirmed that the government should include on its agenda “a democratic, respectful and transparent relationship with civil society organizations, encompassing their fundamental role in the construction, management, execution and social control of public policies”.  It declared that “the Platform… proposes a new, more appropriate, legal relationship between the State and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), acknowledging that, in order to fulfil their functions, these organizations must be strengthened, without reducing the government’s responsibilities and within a stable and healthy regulatory environment.”  Finally, you undertook to “set up a Working Group, composed of representatives of CSOs and the government … with the aim of preparing, in the briefest possible time, no more than one year, a proposal for legislation which meets, in the broadest and most responsible manner, the clear need for improvement to continue to progress in accordance with Brazil’s development project of combating social inequality and governing in the public interest” (http://plataformaosc.org.br/dilma/respostadilma.pdf [in Portuguese]).

Like Your Excellency, we have followed allegations about irregularities in agreements signed between ministries and non-profit organizations with concern, principally because of the way these facts have been dealt with by the public administration sector and the media, thereby harming the public image of a vast array of organizations that deliver public services on a regular basis, whilst influencing public opinion to unfairly judge all such organizations, including those that provide services which are vital for the democracy of this country.

In our view, Presidential Decree no.7568 of 16^th September 2011 correctly seeks to set out legitimate criteria for decision-making to establish agreements with civil society organizations.  We also salute the fact that the Decree institutes a Working Group, composed of representatives from the government and civil society, aimed at reformulating the legislation that applies to Civil Society Organizations and thus fulfilling Madam President’s campaign commitment.  We are working, with high expectations, with the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic in order to hold an international seminar from 9^th to 11^th November in Brasilia, at which time the Working Group (WG) will hold its inaugural meeting.

For this reason, in the context of the constructive unification of forces, we were surprised to see news broadcast in the media stating that the federal government is preparing a new decree to suspend all funding payments to Non-Governmental Organizations, in order to carry out an assessment over a specific time period and to cancel those found to be irregular.  We are concerned that the majority of non-profit organizations will be unjustly punished.  If the government deems it necessary to organize a task force to evaluate the quality of current agreements, it could do so without arbitrarily suspending funding payments, which could cause serious problems for those organizations that are duly fulfilling their obligations.

According to the Transparency Portal for 2010, of the 232.5 billion voluntary payment transfers from the federal government, 5.4 billion were aimed at all kinds of non-profit organizations, including political parties, university foundations and the Butantã Institute, for example.  One hundred thousand organizations benefited, 96% of which received payments of less than 100 thousand Brazilian Reals.  If all the allegations against NGOs published in the press over the last 24 months are examined, one can see that no more than 30 organizations have been named, which leads us to believe that, as well as being unnecessary, the general suspension of funding payments may be a legally questionable measure, which serves to criminalize organized civil society.

We look forward to holding our seminar and instituting our WG in a context of trust in the wider public sphere and in its institutions.  Be assured, Madam President, of our unconditional support in combating corruption and in the search for appropriate instruments for the concerted efforts of the State and civil society to construct a fairer and more democratic Brazil.

On 28^th October 2011, the following member organizations of the Facilitating Committee of the Platform for a New Regulatory Framework for Civil Society Organizations signed this letter:

Brazilian Association of NGOs (Associação Brasileira de ONGs: ABONG)

Brazilian Caritas (Cáritas Brasileira)

Latin American Council of Churches – Brazil Region (Conselho Latino-Americano de Igrejas: CLAI – Regional Brasil)

Esquel Group Foundation Brazil (Fundação Grupo Esquel do Brasil)

Group of Institutes, Foundations and Enterprises (Grupo de Institutos, Fundações e Empresas: GIFE)

Movement of Dam Affected People (Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens: MAB)

Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra: MST)

National Union of Family Farming and Solidarity Economy Cooperatives (União Nacional de Cooperativas da Agricultura Familiar e Economia Solidária: UNICAFES)

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