Executive Summary of the Asia-Pacific Panel 2002

Ms. Yuko Kaneko,
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Government of Japan & Program Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Panel

November 2002

The Asia Pacific Panel has been organized as an annual series of reviewing the experiences of national governance in Asia and Pacific countries. This time, with the focus on the roles of the NGOs, three cases were presented from Thailand, the Philippines and India. The panel was fortunate to have two prominent experts, Mr. Jacques Nzouankeu of OFPA and Mr. Guido Bertucci of the United Nations as discussants

The keynote speaker, Mr. Akira Iriyama reminded the panel of important cautions that there were many myths and fallacies about the relationships of NGOs with the government such as “NGOs can fill the gap of what the government does not do” or “NGO represents good while government cannot be trusted.“

Three cases presented at the panel showed very different modalities and magnitudes of the three roles of NGOs, namely public service delivery, capacity building and advocacy, played in each country. It was obvious from these cases that all the three roles of NGOs played for national development have been rapidly growing, but that we can presume that in “what” and “how” the roles to be played can be found in the different national contexts. Mr. Nzouankeu added the case of African experience, in which the relationship of the NGOs with the state can be characterized as more in defiance than in cooperation

The panel was much benefited by extremely active audience in discussing the legitimacy and accountability questions of NGOs. Mr. Bertucci proposed to create a proper mechanism to examine not only the legitimacy but also the accountability. There should be a rule of cooperation between the government and NGOs, while over-regulatory framework (Mr. Bertucci) must be avoided, as much as the excessive financial control of the government on the NGO resources (Mr. Nzouankeu).

It was argued that the NGOs existing in Asia Pacific were not the substitute of the government and that government can be strengthened in order to enable institutionalize more useful partnership with the NGOs for national development. It was also expressed that the need for assessing the contribution and benefits of NGOs more systematically. For the purpose, more research on the experiences of NGOs would be needed in the future.