Consultation Essential to Achieve a Good NGO Law
A proposed NGO Law is one of the issues in the news this year. Will such a law be good or bad for NGOs? For this issue the World Bank Newsletter had the opportunity to interview John Clark, World Bank Social Scientist, who has been advising on NGO law in Cambodia.
Q: The World Bank has been doing some work related to the proposed NGO law. Could you tell us about that?
A: For a number of years the Government has had an intention to develop a law on NGOs and Associations; this is even alluded to in the Constitution. At the moment it is quite easy to form a Cambodian NGO and these are expected to register with the Ministry of Interior, but nobody is very clear what NGOs are, and what rights and responsibilities they have. In the past, the Government prepared a draft law but it contained some problems and in the end, not being clear how to resolve these problems, the Government decided to shelve the initiative. About two years ago, the Government decided to have another attempt and asked the World Bank to help by advising them on this issue.
The Bank has extensive experience of this issue in other parts of the world. We know that a good NGO law can help the Government and, more importantly, the NGOs. But there are many instances of bad NGO laws throughout the world. In our experience the outcome is only likely to be a good NGO law if the process is good and if the NGOs trust the process and accept that a good NGO law will help them. Therefore our response to the Ministry of Interior was to agree to offer help, provided we could also advise on the process of preparing a law, not just the content, and if we are satisfied – through discussion with NGOs – that they trust and will engage in the process.
Q. Have you discussed with NGOs how they feel about the proposed law?
We talked to the NGOs and found that many of them were very nervous. These wondered why the government is keen on such a law at this time. Hence we advised the MOI to put to one side, at least for the time being, the drafting of a law and to devise instead, as a first step, a structured process of dialogue between the government and the NGOs on how the policy environment for NGOs could be improved in Cambodia, so that NGOs could make a stronger contribution to development and to public debate. This might lead to agreement on a number of measures – some of which could be achieved by ministerial policies, some by attitude changes of staff, and perhaps some by legislative reform. These latter, in turn, may indicate the need for an NGO law, or perhaps simply modifications to existing laws.
Q: Sometimes we have heard some NGOs saying that the World Bank is pushing the Government to pass this law. What is your reaction to that suggestion?
A: Absolutely this is not the case. We are not pushing for an NGO law to be adopted at all. In fact, we are advising the Government to look very carefully at the NGOs’ perspective. We know that in some countries NGO laws help, but in other countries inappropriate laws really hamper NGOs and freedom of association, so our starting point is to ask how can we ensure that freedom of association is fully protected.
Q: Why is the NGO law a sensitive issue?
A: It is a sensitive issue for perhaps two main reasons. One is that examples have arisen in some countries over the last three or four years where new NGO laws have been developed that strongly restricted freedoms for NGOs and citizens, particularly in countries of the former of Soviet Union. So NGOs know that NGO law can be a threat. Secondly, we have seen examples of laws in Cambodia being used to restrict freedoms, such as the case some months ago when criminal defamation law was used to detain NGO leaders. So there are good reasons why NGOs are concerned. But I would like to add that in no country where governments introduced restrictive NGOs laws did they start by asking the World Bank or other agencies in the international community to help them draft the law, and in no case did they sit down with the NGOs in the drafting process.
Q: We also hear that some NGOs welcome an NGO law, but that others are saying it is not the right time. What are the benefits of a law – for NGOs and for the Government?
A: NGOs can exist in Cambodia at the moment. They can get foreign funding, they can hold meetings, and they can organize demonstrations and so on. So in one sense, an NGO law might not make a lot of difference in practice. But at the moment, NGOs do not have formal “legal personality” – they are not recognized as fully legal entities.
Hence they are not protected by law. It might be possible for an official, for example, to take exception to an NGO for some reason and take a court action to close it down. Having a law could provide some protection in law against indiscriminate action.
Also we must remember that the NGO sector has grown to become very important in Cambodia; while 99 percent of NGOs are probably doing very good work and are free of corruption, there may also be a few bad apples. NGOs would benefit as a sector if there was slightly higher discipline, perhaps through a systematic registration progress requiring NGOs to provide annual reports and so on. This might increase donor confidence in the sector as a whole.
Q: Would a law violate the freedom of assembly and association for citizens and community groups?
A: Let me underline that at this stage we are not talking about drafting any particular law. If it does come to preparing an actual law on NGOs we will stress to the government that the starting point should be to build on, not erode in anyway, these freedoms – which are enshrined in the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and which are reflected in the constitution of Cambodia. Hence any law should not restrict the right of citizens to come together to form informal associations, such as community- based groups, which should not be compelled to register as an NGO.
Q: How much money is the World Bank providing in technical assistance to the government for this work?
We are providing $280,000 as technical assistance to the Ministry of Interior. Roughly, half of that is intended to help the process of discussion with NGOs. This will identify, for example, what changes they would like to see in the policy environment and what elements they would like to see, if any, addressed by law. This money would be used to bring to Cambodia international specialists with experience of this issue in many parts of the world. The funds would also support building up the capacity of the unit in the Ministry of Interior for NGO registration, organizing study tours for both government and NGO staff to visit some countries in the region to see how government works with NGOs, and creating an NGOs resource centre within the MOI where NGOs can go to find information about government programs of relevance to NGOs.
Q: Sometimes we hear complaints from NGOs that have contributed to law-drafting processes that their input is ignored. How can the World Bank ensure that the inputs from NGOs will be incorporated?
We cannot provide any guarantees. We are offering to act as facilitator and to provide relevant expertise. If it does come to the drafting of an NGO law, we would do our best to ensure that NGOs have adequate opportunity to speak in the drafting meetings and that the outcome fully reflects the NGO perspectives, not just the government perspective. But finally, only the National Assembly has the right to determine the laws of the country. Nobody can guarantee that the National Assembly will simply approve what is presented to it – and the same can be said for parliaments in any other country.
All I can say is that it is unlikely that a process that has included all the relevant ministries and all the main NGO groupings would be just ignored. We would also suggest that the drafting process include an informal seminar with members of the National Assembly, to ascertain if there are likely to be any major differences and, hopefully, to find ways of resolving these. We would like to help shape a deliberative process that leads to all key stakeholders, including members of the National Assembly, feeling an ownership of the outcome.
(Source: The World Bank newsletter, Volume 4, Number 10, October 2006)