1.  The need for rating NGOs arises simply because there are too many of us - some are patently corrupt, some have vested interests and some are, frankly, incompetent.  How does a non-NGO (such as a donor agency, a Company or a Ministry) decide which one to interact with ? 

 

Incompetence is the most common phenomenon, but how does one rate it ?  I have known of NGOs claiming expertise in an area just to get a chance at funding opportunities.  Having bagged the project on the basis of false claims, they then sub-contract the actual work and then have the temerity to publish it under their own name !

 

2.  On the following criteria:

 

a)  Transparency - financial.

 

b) Qualifications, experience and skills of permanent staff.

 

c) Nature of past work and publications;  whether conducted or written by the organisation or by temporary consultants.

 

d) Payscales, terms and conditions of employment of own staff.  How many are on permanent rolls and how many on contractual terms, where PF, leave etc can be denied.

 

3) Who should rate them ?  Difficult to say.  Either we have an annual assessment by a reputed independent third party (e.g. KPMG, Andersen Consulting etc) who are paid well for the assessment or we have a situation where the donor pays for an independent assessment on a case to case or project to project basis.  Asking another NGO to rate them isn't going to work.

 

4)  Cannot comment on Bombay NGOs since we are not based there.

 

Rajan R Gandhi
rajan.gandhi@gmail.com