NGOs ethical standards have been discussed in Poland for quite a long time. As a result a few official documents and articles have appeared. Some organizations have adopted  codes of ethics which define the type and form of actions that may be undertaken by the organizations and their members. This drive to self-control must be seen as a consequence of a number of very strict  audits carried by the Supreme Chamber of Control in the years 1992 and 1994. The reports revealed many irregularities concerning  managing public funds by foundations and, although they referred to a small percentage of foundations operating at that time only, the whole sector suffered damage. Jakub Wygnański in his publication “Ethics in Non-Governmental Organizations”  pointed that  The fundamental capital an organization owns is public trust. It is governed by special rules, the first of which  says that even if a minority group is guilty of an abuse, everybody is held accountable.

This statement has been even reinforced by Marcin Dadel during a discussion on the third sector’s standards who said that common standards and mechanisms of internal  control are essential for the organizations if they want  to convince  the media (and not only) that they are being successful in working on regaining credibility.  As a result, ethical standards work only if they are
a) applied by most organizations
b) respected by most organizations.


Working out standards

After those damaging for the whole sector events, Polish NGOs have decided to make a common effort towards self-regulation of the third sector. Shortly before the First Polish  Forum for Non-Governmental Initiatives, a “Card of Principles for Non-Governmental Organizations” was drawn up. This document is a short review of the most important rules that NGOs should follow. Being very general and referring mainly to the NGOs’ “internal tools of self-regulation,” this document is of little meaning to the functioning of watchdog organizations. However, it is worth mentioning that at about the same time there have existed standards for organizations on a worldwide and European level. The “Declaration of Principles” prepared by John Hopkins International Philanthropy Fellows in 1993 contains many more good practices that should be adopted not only by non-governmental organizations in general by those which act as watchdogs in particular. First of all, the necessity to fulfill social mission has been stressed in the said declaration, which is in fact a distinguishing mark of all the third sector organizations, for, as Artur Józwik  says, the measures of success are different in different sectors: in  private  -  profit, in  public  - election and legal mechanisms of control, in  non-governmental organizations - society change. Measurability of the last one  is highly problematic.

Further points of the declaration give ground to a better understanding of the nature of NGO’s autonomy and their social mission. The authors say that donors, whether  domestic or  foreign,  should avoid getting too involved in the activities of NGOs and, as a result, violate their autonomy and independence. Organizations need support. Donors, however, cannot  influence non-profits by imposing their own priorities. Doing so, they undermine the very core aims of these organizations.
As we proceed, there appears another crucial for every organization notion i.e. that of public good.  Public good must be NGOs’ top priority over private enterprises. In order to serve the society well,  organizations should account to the public for all the funds they receive. And finally the most important demand is that NGOs  be run in a democratic way with the beneficiaries‘ meaningful participation (…) Both domestic and foreign beneficiaries of the organizations should have the possibility to have impact on the policy and course of action of their organization, if possible.

Reading the above one gets the impression that for Non-Government Organizations the most important set of values comprises:
a) autonomy
b) openness
c) public good
d) beneficiaries
e) social change

In this context, the set of values important for the third sector seems equally valid for watchdog organizations. In both cases organizations need to be independent from the bodies they control; they work for their beneficiaries and for the public good; social change is an expected final product of the monitoring process.
However, this is where first discrepancies between non-governmental and watchdog organizations appear.  For the former, unlike for the latter, much smaller group, autonomy is more often understood as independence from public administration and seen as a distinguishing mark of their non-governmental character.

A year later in 1994 a document  “Proposed standards for Non-Governmental Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe” was drawn up in Romanian Sinaia. Its authors discuss there a term of conflict of interests - a notion characteristic for defining ethical dilemmas of watchdog organizations. The authors of the standards recommend that the organization work out clear written rules  which would help avoid a situation when board members’, clerks’, employees’, consultants’ or volunteers’ duties to his/her non-profit organization clash with their duties, obligations elsewhere.
What is more, the document contains additional questions helping to identify the potential causes of conflict of interest. Unfortunately, they do not help to define conflict of interest in watchdog activities thoroughly.

Ethical standards in watchdog organizations

So far I have been concerned mainly with ethical standards of all third sector organizations.  Some of these organizations, though, consider the said standards irrelevant and find their application hard. Especially the issue of a financial transparency and the notion of independence from public administration seem to arouse much controversy. Nonetheless, for those organizations which decide to take up watchdog activities, these requirement are the absolute minimum. Not only should they follow all these rules unconditionally, but also, it seems, they need to make a step further and adopt even sharper criteria. In Poland  an immediate response to that need came in 2001 in the form of “Card of Principles for Organizations which Monitor Activity of Public Administration.” At this point I would like to mention that watchdog initiatives do not need to be associated only with monitoring of public institutions; more and more often watchdogs carry, for example, civic inspections of large corporations. Therefore, despite the clearly defined addressees of the Card, its standards should not be narrowed down to public administration but may relate to the whole spectrum of public control .

The Card points up three basic principles of correct watchdog organizations functioning:

a) objectivity, understood as using monitoring which is a method of acquiring reliable and objective knowledge about rules and effects of public administration proceedings. It should not exclusively be dealt with in an instrumental way, as a method for proving a conceived thesis. This means that in their proceedings an organization and its representatives should set truth over immediate effectiveness or organization’s interest.

b) action for the common good, for monitoring is something more than research means – it affects changes for better in local community functioning (including environmental protection). It is to say that it should not be, except extreme cases, just a form of criticism – it should initiate negotiation process and common activity for improvement of the status quo.

c) transparency, because watchdog organizations should especially care about transparency of their activities and avoid situations, in which their activities might be treated as unethical, and their objectivity questioned.

The subject of ethical standards in watchdog organizations may not be underestimated. In this case, more than in any other probably, following the rules is the strongest weapon that watchdogs have, giving them credibility and efficiency. It does not, by any means, imply that other organizations do not need to comply with them but in this case keeping up with ethical standards is the very essence of watchdog activity. The principles stipulated in the Card do not only indicate the courses of action but largely they ensure their successful realization. Unfortunately, practical application of those principles is not that simple. Every organization that has ever tried or intended to carry out civil monitoring realizes how many dilemmas and difficulties this task involves.  

Objectivity

The notion of objectivity connected with the occurrence of conflict of interests probably causes the greatest doubts. Therefore, let’s start with difficulties and later we will move on to dilemmas.

Watchdogs have much fewer opportunities to obtain finances than any other organizations. It results from the fact that they try to avoid conflict of interests which would arise if they were financed by council authority. In other words, watchdogs do not have such opportunities to obtain finances for their activities as other organizations from the 3rd sector have, since it follows from the definition that they cannot take money from the institutions they control. If they could, there would arise suspicions of subjectivity. Moreover, the credibility of monitoring results would be challenged.

Probably all the watchdog organizations or the ones which take measures to guard share the above opinion. Problems in the field of objectivity originate once a deep analysis of ethical premise is made, especially taking into account the people taking part in the monitoring. The Association of Leaders of Civic Groups’ Code of Ethics provides that a member, a worker or a volunteer of an Employment Association  who wishes to take up a job  in public administration or in the authorities of a political party, or to run for an official function (according to article 12 of SLLGO Statutes) is obliged to propose a motion to resign from the membership or to dissolve the employment relations. However, according to the Statutes, it is the Ethics Committee that decides whether carrying out an official function affects the conflict of interests . The decision is reliant on the great number of people who are classed as public officers. It would be unpromising and cause vast difficulties in the functioning of the association if those people were not accepted or even removed. After all, it seems that – for instance, the Head of the Water Utility Department in borough S. can take part in the monitoring of the access to public information in borough W. A potential conflict of interests could arise in two cases – if the monitoring concerned research on tenders for performing water mains even in borough W., as it is directly connected with the interests of the Head, or if it concerned the research on any other field of the administration’s activity in borough S. wherein he is employed, as it is hard to imagine an objective monitoring of one’s own employer. Cases in which the institution employing a guard is monitored are quite common in Poland. Those people guarantee their independent and objective approach to the institution examined. But still, despite the person’s good will, it is difficult to acknowledge that the outcome of the monitoring remains intact while employing such a person.

It is worth emphasizing that the dilemmas touched upon in this text and in “guard life” should not be perceived as an attempt to limit the freedom of  work of an entity or organization. While deciding to take such measures one should understand the machinery of both the formation of conflict of interests and taking care of the highest quality of monitoring. It is an issue of specific choice. The whole thing resembles the situation when somebody is obliged by law to propose the income statement, which, according to some people, is an attempt to limit their privacy. But it is them who choose a job which involves limiting fair information practices and the information about their assets.

Actions for the common good

The idea of objectivity in watchdog activities is directly connected with another point of the Card quoted, namely with the actions for the common good. For instance, the link may be an accusation of watchdog activities carried out in order to “seize power” later on, which occurs quite often. Unfortunately, the accusations are not always without foundations – some civic organizations do monitor to “accuse” the local authorities of acting to the detriment of the inhabitants. Their motives are rarely connected with acting for the common good, rather with gaining arguments for the following elections. There are also more initiatives acting for the common good. Nevertheless, they are carefully watched and constantly asked such questions as “what for?”, “for whose money?”, “whom is that supposed to help?”, and eventually “who is behind that?”. Such questions as well as the accusations of acting in order to seize power arise in order to discredit the outcome of monitoring and challenge the credibility of the data analysis. Therefore, meeting the ethical standards is vital – we cannot avoid such accusations, but still, meeting ethical standards we will have a strong argumentation against slander.

The question about who is going to be the beneficiary of our actions and which groups should be involved in carrying it out seems to be another dilemma. Actions for the sake of beneficiaries carried out without taking them into account are certain to suffer a defeat for several reasons. First of all, the transparency of actions is lost as the people on behalf of whom we act do not know a lot about them and may be under impression that they are just pawns in the relations between watchdog and authorities. Secondly, we do not know if we act on behalf of the given groups and it may make our actions not only incredible but also ineffective. Finally, we have slim chances of introducing changes unless the beneficiaries are involved in the watchdog activity – social support for changes is crucial in winning recommendations in the dialogue with authorities.

Similar arguments crop up while discussing the question of watchdogs’ overt action.

Transparency

Overt action should not only apply to the transparency of acting but also to the actions and watchdogs at large. Thus, the organizations which expect overt actions and transparency of the civil service and local authorities should not hide their own financial economy. Alas, financial and substantial reports of the activity can rarely be found on their websites – even on regularly updated ones. In such cases, questions “what for?” and “for whose money?” seem fully justified. Therefore, it is essential to disclose the source of income, list of co-workers and other information which are of significance for the external reception of the organization. If – for example, a watchdog takes part in meetings with the workers of the institutions monitored or have collaborated with them, it should make the fact public. Apart from being advantageous practice, it is a way of avoiding negative reception of the actions carried out.

Conclusion

Above given examples of dilemmas and particularly the ways of solving them should be considered on the basis of concrete examples taking into account various circumstances. However, this does not mean that the notion of objectivity, acting for the common good and transparency can be treated arbitrarily. The activity under discussion sometimes requires even a “doctrinal” approach to those values. In practice, it is better to be more than less overt, not to act if there is a risk of conflict of interests or if the actions serve not only for common good.
Only some of all watchdogs’ ethical dilemmas have been listed in the text and it is not easy to predict what kind of doubts could arise during the activity of watchdogs. There exist more questions and situations which are worth considering before taking up the watchdog initiatives. You can find all of them in the list specially compiled for the conference “Watchdogs – Working Out Credibility”.

1.Conflict of Interest   

This is a basic rule that watchdogs have to avoid conflict of interest. What stands behind that rule? One can tell that it is every situation in which the assessment of facts could be unbalanced – through lack of full independence, or by any other factor that questions our objectivity. Are we always able to avoid such a situation? What can we do when we are in that conflict only by accident – member of our coalition that monitors governmental institutions decide to candidate for the post of a national President, or we monitor local government along with someone whose close relative runs for elections to the local council? How we should react if acknowledging our activity, local residents encourage us to candidate to the Mayor’s post? What should we do if we are convinced that as a decision-maker we will be able to implement the solutions that we do recommend? Is it possible to manage the situation when we are conducting monitoring of the self-government and at the same time in some other activity we are funded by local funds?     

2.Accountability, Transparency, Integrity   

Watchdog organizations criticize a number of governmental and business activities. They focus on problems deriving from breaking the law, lack of transparency or abuse of public ownership. But do we always play by the rules? Are we transparent in our activities? Is it a justification that we act under conditions of limited financial resources and excess of tasks, so we have to choose between priorities? Are we obeying the law? Is it a justification that the law is not suitable to our specific role in the society? Do we always fulfill the highest standards, avoid nepotism and are open for people who can be potentially interested in our initiatives? Yet, we often establish organizations with the people we know and trust.

3.Our Responsibility for the Common Good   

It is often said, that the good which is defended by watchdogs is an abstract concept. Does watchdog has to include all those, who benefit from corrected irregularities? What if our recent activities concern only specific group – disables, foreigners or national minority? Is it enough if we only learn from those groups about the problem, or should we always include them in our activities aiming at solving the problem? How should we act if their demands are against our judgment of the situation. What should we do in a situation when it seems we are the only stakeholder consulted by the authorities?

Krzysztof Izdebski – legal expert and Ethical Committee member in the Association of   Leaders of Local Civic Groups

(Polish version of this article has been published in “Tezy do Dyskusji” no. 8, March 2009)