Non Governmental Organizations in Pakistan: A study in the Legitimacy and Accountability Dimension

Abstract

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan have historically been a source of support to people in multiple sectors, like community development, disaster relief, poverty alleviation, democracy and human rights advocacy etc. However, in past three decades, foreign funding glut and national security situation of the country has brought this sector under greater public scrutiny and scepticism. Media reports have created doubts in the minds of people about their nature of work and rational for their engagement in governance issues There are wide spread concerns on the creation, existence, accountability and the legitimacy of the NGO sector. Consequently, NGOs find themselves under tremendous pressure for performance showing measurable outcomes of their public engagements. Some NGOs in Pakistan have fat budgets and are favourites for national and international grants, while others have to struggle to survive government regulation and public antagonism. Pakistani academics have generally overlooked this sector in research. Resultantly, less is known about the relevance of this sector to the national polity and its scope in the contemporary democratic dispensation. In contemporary governance, NGOs are wielding influence in many aspects of public policy and are a powerful player in national and global affairs of Pakistan. In some sectors, they have even taken the lead in policymaking. Their unprecedented rise is weakening the institution of state which previously followed a very rigid governing model. Such increasing role in political power is leading them to face scrutiny and pressure to exhibit that they are legitimate actors and are accountable to someone, if at all. They face questions on their objectives, organizational structure and governance methods. While their existence has value for the Pakistani polity limited, attention has been paid towards the institutionalization of this sector. NGOs need legitimacy for their successful operation in any society. Their rational to exist should be accepted and approved by general public of a country. Pakistan does have few legal formalities to create and run a NGO. The regulation of NGOs is ensured through quiescent government departments and to an extent by the internal rules and procedures of NGOs. Since government is content on its laissez faire approach and a limited focus on implementation of its policies, there is need for a careful assessment of the existing milieu to discern if the organizations are functioning as visualized in their charters and national policies. There is also need to dissect the affairs of NGOs’ owners, donors, serviced

communities, government agencies, and other stakeholders. It is in this context that this dissertation examines their relationships with government and people of Pakistan. It expounds the legitimacy and accountability of NGOs, because these have been an ambiguous concept for NGOs in Pakistan. The study has taken a mixed methods approach to observe the phenomenon of NGOs in Pakistan. Since NGO is a vast term, it focuses on the national NGOs, created in past three decades under a Social Welfare law of Pakistan. The research relies on the conceptual frameworks of Mark C. Suchman (legitimacy) and Alnoor Ebrahim (accountability), while making some modifications for its application in Pakistani context. At the same time it probes the development of these organizations in Pakistan, analyses regulations governing them, and suggests methods and techniques through which NGOs could become accountable and legitimate. It finds a number of deficiencies in both legitimacy and accountability dimensions and concludes that NGOs in Pakistan are neither accountable nor legitimate.