ISLAMABAD, June 13: Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education will soon hold a meeting of all stakeholders to devise a policy framework for non-government organizations (NGOs). This was stated by Minister for Social Welfare and Special Education Zobaida Jalal while attending a briefing given to her by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) on Monday.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms Jalal said NGO certification should be done in such a manner that non-functional NGOs were exposed to the public eye and did not get funding from the public exchequer.

She directed the authorities concerned to make sure that they reached the grass-roots level and focussed more on far-flung and lesser developed areas.

“International certification regimes should also be examined before laying the criteria for NGOs while ensuring transparency in the certification process so that their inactive and ineffective organizations are automatically weeded out,” she said.

PCP chairperson and former cabinet member Shehnaz Wazir Ali told the meeting that the process of evaluating any NGO had two stages. First desk review of an NGO was done followed by its field evaluation.

She said 72 parameters were worked out on the basis of which NGOs were being certified by the PCP. She ensured that only registered, functional, non-profit distributing and non-political NGOs, which had properly documented their record of transaction and did external audit, were certified.

Ms Jalal directed the PCP to work in collaboration with the National Commission for Social Welfare (NCSW) and supplement its work at the grass-roots level. She also laid emphasis on developing a strategy through which the government could be brought into the loop of foreign donors so that only active NGOs could get funding from international donors.

Presently there are 56,219 non-profit organizations registered in the country either under the Societies Regulation Act (1860), Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies Ordinance (1961) or Companies Ordinance (1984), while approximately 34 per cent of NGOs are either unregistered or are not interested in getting themselves registered.

The PCP is charging a certification fee of Rs5,000 from small NGOs, Rs15,000 from medium ones and Rs25,000 from big NGOs.

During the last one year, out of 82 applications the PCP received, certification letters have been issued to 47 NGOs.

The meeting was also attended by Secretary Social Welfare and Special Education Naeem Khan, NCSW chairman Raees Jahangir and DG Social Development Irfanullah Khan.