World Association of NGOs 2007 Conference in Toronto

Open­ing Din­ner Event

On Thurs­day, Novem­ber 8, 2007, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of NGOs from around the world gath­ered in Toronto, Canada for the annual meet­ing of the World Asso­ci­a­tion of NGOs (WANGO) on the theme “Ethics and Global Peace: NGO Per­spec­tives.” There were many Cana­di­ans in atten­dance. As we learned later, NGOs account for 7.3% of the GDP of Canada, the high­est recorded for any coun­try, mak­ing it an excel­lent place to hold a WANGO conference.

Our open­ing MC was Dr. Kathy Win­ings and our host Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Taj Hamad.

We were wel­comed by the Rt. Hon. Edward Schreyer, for­mer Gov­er­nor Gen­eral of Canada, and now active in efforts to pro­tect nat­ural resources. As a spokesman for his coun­try, told us that Canada “has much to be mod­est about,” and he empha­sized the diver­sity of the pop­u­la­tion in Canada, and espe­cially the city of Toronto. Then he set the tone for the meet­ing with his own under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges of the present world and the role of NGOs. Par­tic­u­larly, he explained that nei­ther gov­ern­ments nor cor­po­ra­tions, the two groups assert­ing the most influ­ence on the world’s present course, can be relied upon to pro­tect our nat­ural resources and the other chal­lenges we face. Cit­i­zen groups—NGOs—are needed to bring rea­son and con­science to social pol­icy deci­sions related to pro­tect­ing our envi­ron­ment or shap­ing peace.

The for­mer gov­er­nor spoke of the enthu­si­asm for cre­at­ing a bet­ter world that fol­lowed World War II, includ­ing the cre­ation of the United Nations, but he argued that some­where along the way, per­haps the 1980s, the vision was lost. He blamed the media for sound bites that con­tain lit­tle sub­stance and a malaise and cyn­i­cism that seemed to set in on the pub­lic as the cap­tains of indus­try and com­merce took con­trol of the ships of state and expanded the extrac­tion and burn­ing of fos­sil fuels at a mind­less pace. Our gen­er­a­tion is doing lit­tle to pre­pare a long-term and sus­tain­able strat­egy. We are not doing well as stew­ards of the world, to hold it in trust for our chil­dren and future gen­er­a­tions. This is one area where NGOs must step in actively. We will need NGOs as long as there is civilization.

Hon. Schreyer apol­o­gized for his coun­try not pro­vid­ing visas to a num­ber of long-time WANGO mem­bers from Africa, reflect­ing irra­tional secu­rity mea­sures enacted after 9/11—another chal­lenge for NGOs. Despite this prob­lem, the cool rainy weather in Toronto, and a fire alarm which delayed our open­ing meal, the fel­low­ship was warm, and con­ver­sa­tions active as the del­e­gates greeted old friends and made new ones, accom­plish­ing WANGO’s pur­pose of strength­en­ing NGOs by build­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive net­work. The first evening was topped off with a musi­cal performance.

Open­ing Ple­nary Ses­sion
The Open­ing Ple­nary Ses­sion on Fri­day morn­ing devel­oped the wider land­scape of our theme of ethics and peace and shed light on some incred­i­ble work being done in so many areas of human need. Our first speaker was Jean Augus­tine, the Com­mis­sioner of the Cana­dian Office of Fair­ness. Her job is to mon­i­tor jus­tice in hir­ing prac­tices and pro­fes­sional cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Canada, to ensure there is no dis­crim­i­na­tion against any cul­tural minor­ity group and that all have equal oppor­tu­nity for employ­ment. She rein­forced the theme that gov­ern­ments can be slow and indif­fer­ent to issues of social jus­tice and that NGOs are key play­ers in bring­ing about social change.

The Com­mis­sioner pointed out some con­tra­dic­tions in NGO life which pose eth­i­cal chal­lenges to them:

1. How do you do advo­cacy work when you are estab­lished as a char­i­ta­ble organization?
2. How to remain inde­pen­dent and objec­tive when receiv­ing funds from donors with spe­cific par­ti­san agendas?
3. How can you think glob­ally when you are fully engaged locally?

Her final advice: Fos­ter alliances to pro­mote jus­tice and peace, take risks, be eth­i­cal, and stand in solidarity.

Our next speaker, Stephen Bubb, from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Chief Exec­u­tives of Vol­un­tary Asso­ci­a­tions in the U.K., was able to share a lot of lessons learned from expe­ri­ence in another NGO con­sor­tium. He started with a quote from Anita Rod­er­ick, founder of The Body Shop, “If you think you are too small to make a dif­fer­ence, you have not shared a bed with a mosquito.”

Quot­ing Aris­to­tle, John S. Mill, and oth­ers he argued that the goal of human life is hap­pi­ness and the wealth of a state is mea­sured by the well-being of indi­vid­u­als. We are mov­ing from “the cen­tury of polit­i­cal par­ties,” to “the cen­tury of the third sec­tor” (which includes NGOs). He bol­stered the state­ment with facts about the increased per­cent­age of GDP related to NGOs in many coun­tries. Here is a list of fea­tures of NGOs which he gave, things that are not nat­u­rally per­formed well by the state:

1. Ser­vice. NGOs deliver per­sonal ser­vice that makes a dif­fer­ence. States deliver imper­sonal ser­vices which some­times com­pound prob­lems (like prisons).
2. Com­mu­nity. NGOs fos­ter com­mu­nity, whereas states depend on its existence.
3. Injus­tice. Injus­tices are sensed by peo­ple, not bureaucracies.
4. Ter­ror­ism. State secu­rity mea­sures erect walls and exac­er­bate ter­ror­ism, whereas NGOs fight ter­ror­ism by build­ing bridges and solv­ing prob­lems of injus­tice that some­times cause peo­ple to resort to terrorism.
5. Envi­ron­ment. As Schreyer had men­tioned, com­merce con­trols state pol­icy on extract­ing resources unless NGOs jump in and do something.
6. Peace. NGOs might be more effec­tive mov­ing from con­fronta­tional street demon­stra­tions to oper­a­tions in the cor­ri­dors of power.

Deb­bie Gray of “Free the Chil­dren” and Kailesh Sat­yarthi of “Global March Against Child Labor” drove home the impor­tance of another WANGO theme, care for chil­dren, their rights, and their dignity.

Deb­bie spoke about the apa­thy of youth in North Amer­ica and the absence of a con­scious­ness of much of the world’s prob­lems. She spoke about the impor­tant of char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion, ser­vice to oth­ers, greater involve­ment needed by pub­lic schools.

Kailesh listed the three sec­tors of soci­ety as the state, com­merce, and knowl­edge, but that com­merce is con­trol­ling both the state and knowl­edge. He explained how the con­trol of soci­ety by com­merce gets man­i­fested in the degra­da­tion of chil­dren. For exam­ple, chil­dren being abducted as child sol­diers or being sold in slav­ery or the sex trade for $25 or $30—less than 1/10th the mar­ket price of a water buf­falo. NGOs are the force that must edu­cate and lib­er­ate knowl­edge and mod­ern con­scious­ness to save the chil­dren and give them a future.

The Chairman’s Address sent by Dr. Chung Hwan Kwak was read by Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Tajeldin Hamad. See WANGO web­site.

Dis­cus­sion Groups and Work­shops
Fol­low­ing the open­ing ses­sion, the con­fer­ence broke down into smaller group ses­sions on the var­i­ous themes, most of which were touched upon by the ple­nary speak­ers. These included Human Rights, Women, Chil­dren, Fam­ily, Ser­vice, Fundrais­ing, shared Val­ues, Mem­ber recruit­ing, Char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion, the Envi­ron­ment, the Media, and Heal­ing. This was an oppor­tu­nity to meet oth­ers work­ing on sim­i­lar inter­ests and net­work­ing to advance the “state of the art” knowl­edge of dif­fer­ent areas. There is a full con­fer­ence sum­mary on the WANGO website.

One theme that emerged was how NGOs are not immune to the say­ing “the road to hell is paved with good inten­tions.” We heard a num­ber of exam­ples of how NGOs respond­ing to imme­di­ate crises out of com­pas­sion engaged in short-term fixes that caused other long-term prob­lems. Or, how the attempt to reset­tle peo­ple in dan­ger­ous areas they had fled was taken as an assault on their dig­nity. It is impor­tant for NGOs to bet­ter antic­i­pate the con­se­quences of their actions and to learn from the expe­ri­ence of oth­ers. It is impor­tant for NGOs to dia­logue with vic­tims so that their aid is not seen as patron­iz­ing, but can be used to help peo­ple solve their prob­lems or recover from dis­as­ters most effectively.

We some­times learned data that con­tra­dicted widely held beliefs and assump­tions, includ­ing those held by peo­ple work­ing with NGOs. The rhetoric used for fundrais­ing or the promi­nence given by the news media in sound bites is often mis­lead­ing and no sub­sti­tute for solid empir­i­cal research. For exam­ple, Zoe Nielsen, Deputy Direc­tor of the Human Secu­rity Report Project, pro­jected a slide which showed the num­ber of offi­cial com­bat­ant causal­i­ties has been declin­ing, despite the increased reports of vio­lence in the news. She also men­tioned that while mature democ­ra­cies go to war less than dic­ta­to­r­ial regimes, the tran­si­tion phase to democ­ra­cies fre­quently has bro­ken down into what she called “anocracy”—perhaps Iraq is an exam­ple. The civil­ian and indi­rect casu­al­ties in such soci­eties are dif­fi­cult to mea­sure. And, while ter­ror­ism kills fewer peo­ple than war, it is a severe prob­lem in the Mid­dle East. Peo­ple blame war on a lot of fac­tors, and indeed there are many causes, but the most con­sis­tent item cor­re­lated with war is poverty.

There were dis­cus­sions of the United Nations and its role in world peace, and its rela­tion­ship to NGOs. NGOs have pre­sented a lot of evi­dence to the United Nations over the years, but it has basi­cally been an orga­ni­za­tion of major pow­ers designed to pre­vent wars between states. A lot of suf­fer­ing has taken place within states, which the UN Char­ter gives near absolute sov­er­eignty. For years NGOs have been irri­tants like mos­qui­toes, which UN lead­ers would often pre­fer to swat. How­ever, the col­lapse of the bipo­lar world and the inter­na­tional order has led to intrastate con­flicts spilling over bor­ders in terms of rebel hide­outs, mass refugee flights, star­va­tion and other prob­lems unbear­able to the human conscience.

Dr. David Ben­jamin of the Uni­ver­sity of Bridge­port explained how state lead­ers have hid­den behind Arti­cles 24 and 27 of the Char­ter, but that it has become more com­mon to argue that when a state loses the abil­ity to pro­tect its peo­ple, it loses its claim to sov­er­eignty. Chief Oren Lyons said the For­mer Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Boutros Boutros Ghali told him that per­ma­nent inroads made into the UN by NGOs was the most impor­tant devel­op­ment dur­ing his tenure. Ben­jamin sug­gested the NGOs should be offered more pro­tec­tion by the UN and the inter­na­tional community.

Dr. Eric Werker sug­gested that NGOs are all about human val­ues. They often arise to fill a void, but they often suc­cumb to prob­lems that make it hard for them to make good on promises. The num­ber of NGOs has mush­roomed ten-fold in the last 30 years. Is this a response to other social fail­ures? Is it a band­wagon effect? Is it an alter­na­tive indus­try when indus­trial jobs aren’t avail­able? There has been a rev­enue shift from a high reliance on pri­vate dona­tions, to more NGO gen­er­ated rev­enue through sales of prod­ucts and in-kind con­tri­bu­tions which are dis­trib­uted to the needy. This rev­enue shift means that NGOs are com­pet­ing more with tra­di­tional for-profit businesses.

Some shared val­ues of NGOs sug­gested repeat­edly were:

1. Account­abil­ity
2. Effec­tive­ness
3. Sol­i­dar­ity
4. Trans­parency
5. Integrity
6. Respect for Community
7. Will­ing­ness to accept and learn from failures
8. Open dis­cus­sion
9. Hon­esty

How­ever, some­times val­ues con­flict. For exam­ple, trans­parency may lead a donor to see that his con­tri­bu­tion was not used for his intended pur­pose (accountability).

As our con­fer­ence pro­ceeded a “Toronto Dec­la­ra­tion of Core Val­ues” was pre­pared and reflects many of these val­ues. See WANGO website.

Global warm­ing and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion were recur­rent themes. In addi­tion to dis­cus­sion of wildlife pro­tec­tion, stew­ard­ship over nat­ural resources, and reduc­tion of CO2, there was an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion related to pos­si­ble pos­i­tive effects of global warm­ing and the melt­ing of the ice cap around the North Pole—at least pos­si­bly pos­i­tive for Canada. This has led to the attempt by Canada to increase the ter­ri­tory of its sov­er­eignty. One effect is a greater pos­si­bil­ity of exploit­ing the seabed of this for­merly frozen and inac­ces­si­ble area for more oil. Another is the pos­si­bil­ity of ship nav­i­ga­tion of the North­west Pas­sage to the north of Canada which would save 11 days of travel and fuel for ships from North­ern Europe to East Asia. This dis­cus­sion con­tained a num­ber of con­tro­ver­sial and con­flict­ing views.

Another inter­est­ing obser­va­tion was that “demo­c­ra­t­ic” coun­tries with pop­u­la­tions pre­oc­cu­pied with day to day affairs often have a more dif­fi­cult time con­trol­ling the uncon­scionable indus­trial exploita­tion of resources than author­i­tar­ian regimes. Social malaise allows col­lu­sion by gov­ern­ment and indus­try that is often not publicized.

WANGO Awards
As always, the cen­ter­piece and high­light of the con­fer­ence was the WANGO Award Cer­e­mony on Fri­day evening and the Panel of Excel­lence com­posed of award win­ners the next morn­ing. The awards were given for exem­plary ser­vice in five areas: Envi­ron­ment, Fam­ily & Peace, Human Rights, Peace and Secu­rity, and Edu­ca­tion, Media and the Arts. The crown­ing award is the Uni­ver­sal Peace Award. While much of the dis­cus­sion in pan­els related to prob­lems NGOs must work on, the WANGO awards high­light the suc­cesses and vic­to­ries of NGO cham­pi­ons. They are uplift­ing and give hope to those work­ing tire­lessly in frus­trat­ing circumstances.

The Envi­ron­ment Award went to Ecotrópica for eco­log­i­cal preser­va­tion of the Pan­tanal in Brazil. It was received by Adal­berto Eber­hard, the Founder. Eber­hard showed breath­tak­ing views of wildlife in the Pan­tanal and explained how their orga­ni­za­tion is buy­ing pri­vate land to put into nature reserves. How­ever, there are still many fac­tors beyond their con­trol, because the Pan­tanal is a drainage basin that is fed by water runoff from high­lands that is becom­ing increas­ingly pol­luted and poten­tially dam­ag­ing to many of the species of wildlife that are unique to that part of the world. Our ecosys­tems are impor­tant for the human pop­u­la­tion which also requires a spe­cific envi­ron­ment to survive.

The Peace and Secu­rity Award went to Dr. Noah Salameh, Founder of the Cen­ter for Con­flict Res­o­lu­tion & Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Pales­tine. The world is increas­ingly learn­ing, through rec­on­cil­i­a­tion pro­grams as imple­mented in South Africa after apartheid, that such pro­grams are essen­tial for end­ing the spi­ral of vio­lence of hatred and revenge so com­mon as a baser human instinct. Salameh spent 15 years in Israeli pris­ons, accused of ter­ror­ism which he never com­mit­ted. A vic­tim of cir­cum­stances he wishes on no other human being, he pur­sued a degree in peace and con­flict stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame, and later a Ph.D. from George Mason University.

Salameh said that when secu­rity con­cerns are put ahead of peace, peace can not be achieved. Secu­rity is based on fear and divides peo­ple. It erects fences and builds walls. It is used to dis­crim­i­nate. How­ever, peace is based on being rec­on­ciled in your envi­ron­ment and it begins with hold­ing peace­ful val­ues within your­selves. His cen­ter works to give peace edu­ca­tion in schools. He has fos­tered a dia­logue in Turkey between 40 Pales­tini­ans and 40 Israelis. He devel­oped a pro­gram for teach­ing jour­nal­ists report­ing atti­tudes that can help fos­ter peace. And, he has devel­oped pro­grams for inter­re­li­gious dialogue.

The Edu­ca­tion, Media & Arts Award was given to the World Asso­ci­a­tion of Early Child­hood Edu­ca­tors, founded by Juan Sánchez Muliterno. This orga­ni­za­tion focuses on a wide range of issues related to early child­hood edu­ca­tors, but is founded on the idea that val­ues of coöper­a­tion, respect, and peace need to be intro­duced in very early for­ma­tive years. He expressed how impor­tant an orga­ni­za­tion like WANGO can be for inform­ing his own NGO. His orga­ni­za­tion is self-funded from mem­ber­ship fees, and he cred­its this to the care they take of their mem­bers. They aim for high standards.

The Human Rights Award was pre­sented to Dr. David Jenk­ins, founder of Surf-Aid. His work has been effec­tive in deliv­er­ing edu­ca­tion and meth­ods to reduce infant mor­tal­ity. He said that enact­ment of three sim­ple prac­tices in some of the Pacific islands can reduce child­hood mor­tal­ity by up to 25% and the a 50% reduc­tion should be attain­able with effort. Breast­feed­ing chil­dren, sleep­ing under mos­quito nets, and other changes based on edu­ca­tion of health prac­tices help far more peo­ple than expen­sive med­ical care after they fall ill.

Jenk­ins offered some advice to NGOs present. First he argued that NGOs need to address real needs. Many NGOs are com­ing under scrutiny for not pro­vid­ing effec­tive ser­vices. He was crit­i­cal of donor-driven, religious-driven, and celebrity-driven pro­grams which do not pro­vide the ser­vices peo­ple need the most and often waste time and money.

The Uni­ver­sal Peace Award went to Chief Oren Lyons, a long-time activist for native Amer­i­can and indige­nous peo­ples. He recounted a decades’ long strug­gle since the found­ing of the United Nations to refer to indige­nous peo­ples with equal lan­guage to other groups. He dis­cussed the vested finan­cial inter­ests and dis­crim­i­na­tion going back to a papal bull in 1493 which declared indige­nous peo­ple less than human and the reluc­tance of coun­tries with indige­nous pop­u­la­tions to rec­og­nize them completely.

Chief Lyons con­veyed beau­ti­fully the respect of the Native Amer­i­cans for nature. He explained that all activ­i­ties are begun with a con­scious recog­ni­tion of the winds, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rain, the earth, the ani­mals, the ances­tors, and the Cre­ator. Such a world­view could cer­tainly be a cor­rec­tive the dis­re­spect that mod­ern indus­try and acquis­i­tive humans show for the envi­ron­ment. He explained that water is not just a human right; it is the right of deer, of trees, and plants. In nature there is no dis­crim­i­na­tion against red, white, yel­low, or black-skinned human beings. All are part of one human fam­ily. Liv­ing in true peace with the prin­ci­ples of nature is dynamic and takes great effort. He said that it is good for NGOs to gather once a year to gather strength.

Post­script
Much other great wis­dom was present at this con­fer­ence. Sir James Man­cham, first Pres­i­dent of a post-colonial Sey­chelles, argued that there is a dif­fer­ence between a “politi­cian” and a “states­man.” Politi­cians nego­ti­ate inter­ests and nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal ter­rain of the moment, while a states­man pro­vides true lead­er­ship, and gets a nation from point A to point B, bring­ing all peo­ple along. The post-World War II era has cre­ated a lot of politi­cians but few states­men. States­men are char­ac­ter­ized by vision, by val­ues, and by nego­ti­at­ing skills that seek the best solu­tions for all peo­ple. Politi­cians act pri­mar­ily for them­selves in the short term.

One del­e­gate point­edly asked Dr. David Ben­jamin whether NGO lead­ers should leave their NGOs and take posi­tions in gov­ern­ment. Ben­jamin replied that hope­fully NGOs can cre­ate peo­ple that can bring integrity to the state. If they can trans­form pub­lic offices with this integrity, it will be a good thing.

Let us hope he is cor­rect. The WANGO Toronto Dec­la­ra­tion of NGO Core Val­ues is an excel­lent place to start. A gov­ern­ment is only as good as its peo­ple. The peo­ple are shaped by civil soci­ety, which is increas­ingly shaped by NGOs. About 1800 years ago, Chris­tians began tak­ing offices in the Roman Empire because they could be trusted when the aver­age Roman politi­cian could not. Per­haps there is a par­al­lel to make with today, where hon­esty, integrity, respect, and ser­vice of oth­ers, can be cul­ti­vated in indi­vid­u­als who can bring virtue back into the polit­i­cal realm, and then human­ity back to social policy.