VANI along with the Commonwealth foundation has released the India Toolkit on “Civil Society Accountability: Principles and practices”. This toolkit was released on May, 12, 2010 in a day long meeting at India International Centre, Delhi. The toolkit is the outcome of a year-long project between VANI, the One World Trust and the Commonwealth Foundation to identify the principles and practice of accountability for civil society in India. This seminar was organized to have discussions around the need of promoting CSO Accountability and credibility in India. A total number of 45 participants from various Civil Society Organisations attended the seminar.

The CSOs with a new found power and influence need to be more careful about their own conduct and activities. Worldwide the CSOs are facing growing pressure from the government and the public to be more open about their activities and funding sources. Most of theses types of voices are coming from within the sector itself. Most of the people are asking this question in an effort to strengthen the sector and make it more accountable towards its duties and projects.

Within the context of the above mentioned fact, the One World Trust and the Commonwealth Foundation initiated a project across three Commonwealth countries Belize, India and Uganda, and one region, the Pacific Islands to stimulate discussion among CSOs on what it means to be accountable. For this project VANI became its partner in India. The project engaged CSOs in each location in developing a set of common principles for accountability and developed a set of country toolkit that provides assistance to organizations in putting accountability into practice.

While speaking in the seminar various heads of CSOs based in India stressed on the need of the emergence of a new policy for the regulation of NGOs. They were of the view that the opportunity of partnership between the government and the non governmental organizations must be increased and new areas should be explored in which both can share their experience. Self regulation should be focused towards the increasing of the credibility of the organizations among the stake holders. Some were of the view that, there is need of information sharing which will only enhance transparency and increase in public awareness.

All of the speakers were unanimous in their view that, it must be a duty of various CSOs to come together and highlight the sector by adopting good practices as a collective measure.

VANI has decided to take forward this debate about accountability and self regulation within the CSOs .

The meeting was well appreciated and received by the group.  We will soon be sharing a detailed report with you.