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Country-by-Country |
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The Recognition System will be developed on a country-by-country basis. A Recognition Consortium (made up of organizations involved in accountability, transparency, codes of conduct, and systems development) will assist each interested country to develop and set up a Recognition Association. This Association will be responsible, with the assistance of the consortium, for facilitation of local Co-Learning Forums.
The facilitation of information gathering and sharing is an enormous, yet momentous task that will require the cooperation and participation of many. As stated, INGOs must work under special principles of accountability considering the extent their work can affect the lives of people and things beyond their own borders. It is therefore critical to the Recognition System that information sharing and discussion begin at the country level and that the System be developed contextually. The end result will be an agreement on country specific, high level Principles for intervention that should be respected by organizations from abroad, with a particular focus on INGOs.
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Country Level Recognition |
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Country level participants will participate using a variety of media, including communication technology, local meetings, surveys, focus groups and similar methodologies. Country-level stakeholders will also convene at physical Co-Learning Forums hosted by the Recognition Association. This Forum will be used to discuss and decide upon country-specific expectations and criteria for INGOs working there. Country-level Recognition Associations and partners will work with INGOs to help them to understand and meet these specific requirements. In order to ensure unbiased and valuable development of criterion, it is vital that diverse stakeholder representation is sought and maintained and that advisory panels, representative of country-level participants, grant final Recognition status to Applicants at a country-level. The process will include:
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Forums will for each Recognition component. Key stakeholders relevant to that component will be asked to participate. The results of each Forum will be sent for further comment and feedback through discussion and by electronic means to members of online Forums. |
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A synthesis Forum will be used to align each component into a comprehensive Recognition Process. |
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INGOs will be asked to undergo pilot self-assessment and review so revisions can be made to the System according to their comments and feedback. |
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Although Recognition will be granted at the country level, it is envisioned that there will be several Co-Learning Forums at the international level (each Recognition Association will be part of a larger Recognition Alliance to learn from each other and to oversee the quality, transparency, and accountability of the overall process) to share lessons learned from the process and to help improve the System at the global scale.
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Implementation |
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The final indicators of Recognition for each component will be used for INGO self-assessment and application for Recognition.
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Once an application is received by an INGO, Recognition Assistants will review the application through a social audit process and approve the application or make recommendations and/or assist the INGO to justifiably achieve Recognition Status. |
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Once deemed Recognizable, the Assistants will approve the application and submit a Justification Report to the Panel. . |
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An elected panel representative of the Recognition System participants will grant Recognition Status or make recommendations for further improvement and ongoing Recognition. |
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Final regulations regarding this process will be debated and defined by participants.
At this stage it is pertinent to note, that it would be arrogant and erroneous to believe that the international community now knows what good development is. If that were true, there would be no need for Foreign Assistance. In the decades to come, new theories and approaches will uncover the terrible flaws of today’s work. However, that does not mean that INGOs of today do not have the responsibility to work toward the best-known practices and principles and to learn from their mistakes. Nor does it mean that INGOs, donors, and other stakeholders do not have the responsibility to discourage and admonish unprofessional and faulty work.
Therefore, the Recognition System is not an end result. The System is an ongoing learning process that continuously gathers and disseminates information surrounding aid effectiveness and the roles INGOs can play in increasing the impact of Foreign Assistance. As new ideologies, methods, practices, tools, systems and mechanisms arise; they will be shared within the global system. For this reason, GlobalScale will host ongoing coordination and information sharing about the Recognition System and between Recognition Associations as part of the Recognition Alliance.
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The Information Clearinghouse |
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GlobalScale will host an internet-based Information Clearinghouse. The information clearinghouse will outline to potential Recognition Applicants, the expectations of their countries of operation. These expectations, norms, values and principles will be defined by the beneficiaries and country representatives themselves. The process of definition will initially take place with local partners and NGO umbrella bodies. As capacity for facilitation of the System is established, beneficiary input will be solicited by local partners. Knowledge of and adherence to country-level expectations of INGOs will be the first step in the Recognition process.
The Recognition System relies on INGOs and all of their stakeholders to contribute to the success and growth of the System. The INGOs who have tried and tested systems and methodologies to share need to contribute to ongoing System development. The System also relies on international experts to offer their expertise. For example, in order to measure how an INGO understands Inward Recognition; experts such as “The People in Aid” can be called upon to perform a social audit or to contribute to the Information Clearinghouse.
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