Following the very regrettable French affair of the Ark of Zo , SOUTH Coordination, the national coordination of the NGO of international solidarity, gathering more than 120 associations, member of the CPCA, accepted many solicitations on behalf of media about the means of checking of the reliability of the NGO.


With a view to answering it and what the type of escalation which we attend, that remains fortunately very rare, do not cause harm to most NGO job of which is widely admitted by the concerned populations, the local actors, our fellow citizens, by authorities and all the actors of the society, SOUTH Coordination wants to remind that:

1. unless calling into question associative freedom, basic right of the citizens in any democracy worthy of this name or posting a policeman behind every association, two possibility which we cannot conceive, the zero risk of escalation and of transgression of law does not exist. It cannot therefore be a matter to compel or to limit this right. The State can forbid the usage of this precious freedom only if the object of the association introduced in its statutes offers illegal activities or if the association acts in an opposite way in French law.

2. the natural and artificial persons who do not respect laws raise the justice, and it, whatever is professional middle and type of legal entities (state-owned companies, firms, associations, etc.).

3. beyond many compulsory controls by sworn specialists to which are subjected associations and which cover the compliance of count with accounting norms, respect for the good use of public funds and for the funds collected to the public and that of various regulations, associations choose to get closer, to become identified, to get organised in collectives around shared values to develop together tools, norms, total quality control and valuation of their programmes, codes of behaviour, and charters concerning as well the Gouvernance of the association, as the management of human resources and the role of the affected populations. These initiatives are a decisive advance towards the ethical guarantee of associations and constitute so many parapets likely to tell the drift which could happen in exercise of the freedom of association. It is what make the members of SOUTH Coordination, following the example of other national and international collectives of associations, who developed for example the Guide Synergy Quality, which introduces useful references for the implementation of every stage of the cycle of plan and for the whole functioning of the association.

The ethics is the foundation of an association. The quality of actions, clarity of its Gouvernance as well as rigour and transparency of count, are common objectives which guarantee utility and permanence of the NGO. The breaches of one of the associations of the moral contract which links her to her counterparts and partners lead inexorably to marginalise her. In international solidarity, the judgement by the peers is undoubtedly the best guarantee of reliability of one NGO.

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