Give NGOs a chance

When I meet non-governmental organisations I often hear the same complaint: the government and its agencies are mopping up those European Union funds that are intended for civil society and NGOs.

There are some instances in which quangos and NGOs team up to put forward the best possible proposals for EU funding. Nevertheless, I have learnt of many other occasions in which government agencies - with all their resources - enter into direct competition with what are usually voluntary organisations within civil society. Worse than this, I have learnt of a couple of instances where NGOs are claiming that their projects have been hijacked by government agencies. The same goes for funds originally aimed for the private sector but ending up in the hands of state agencies and corporations.

This comes as a disappointment since EU funding should not only serve to implement important projects, but should also help NGOs and private enterprises strengthen their structures and play a more central role in society.

This is why I cannot but endorse a position paper adopted by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) Malta on the management of EU structural funds. This network is of the idea that "The lack of enthusiasm in engaging NGOs is diminishing the prospects for a new programming period which prioritises social inclusion at grass root level". This is a state of fact. The same can be said for organisations in, say, the environment sector. Furthermore, many enterprises providing human resource training, environmental services and so on feel sidelined for the same reasons.

Back to the EAPN position paper, they highlight how one cannot aim solely at economic growth - something we are not getting so far - but also at distributing the benefits of growth in a socially just manner. NGOs represent the grass root element and are best positioned to help reach this objective.

Unfortunately, the Maltese government is adopting the stand I already described. EAPN states that "Although some social NGOs have been involved as partners or as service beneficiaries in these projects, no NGO has been encouraged, supported or allowed to manage structural funds. The only time a small number of NGOs were allowed to manage structural funds was through an extraordinary call for proposals in 2006 when it was realised that some funds would otherwise remain unspent".

What makes things even worse is that the system put in place to manage the said funds is geared towards agencies having relatively large resources. Moreover, the co-financing element is a huge hurdle for most NGOs. Government entities use the public coffers to finance their share. Most NGOs have no such funds available, thus limiting their access to EU funding.

The anti-poverty network is right in saying that "as a nation, we cannot just leave NGOs out of the picture with the excuse that they do not have the necessary capacity and cannot provide co-financing. We need to explore all the possibilities to strengthen the NGOs capacity. The resources and the systems are there. What we lack so far is the political will and commitment and a specific system which makes this possible".

Political will is crucial. One just needs to point at the fact that a year after a White Paper was issued, the country is still without an NGO legislation.

EAPN is making its recommendations to resolve the impasse. It is of utmost importance to revise government policy on this issue. A revised policy must support the principle of allowing NGOs to manage structural funds and to dedicate technical assistance money to enable them to strengthen their capacity.

The government should also consider using the global grants system, whereby part of the EU structural funds is targeted towards beneficiary organisations in priority policy areas. The United Kingdom and the Czech Republic are successfully using such a system. This would provide a good basis on which one can really unleash the full potential of NGOs in our society.

Mr Muscat is a Labour member of the European Parliament.

www.josephmuscat.com