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THE
recently released 2007 Global Accountability Report
(GAR) urged multinational companies, multilateral
institutions and international non-government
organizations (NGOs) to adopt nontraditional means to
improve accountability and transparency policies and
systems.
“Accountability is not an end state. Having good
accountability capabilities in place creates an
environment in which accountability can be exercised in
a consistent and coherent way,” the report stated.
The 2007
GAR is the second report made by One World Trust, an NGO
in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and
Social Council (Esosoc) of the United Nations.
The
report surveyed 30 multinational companies, multilateral
institutions and international NGOs. One World Trust
projects manager Leticia Labre said in a talk with
journalists that the 30 institutions evaluated this year
will be reassessed in 2010.
She said
that among the nontraditional policies and systems set
in place by high performers in the report included
whistle-blower policies common among NGOs and
multilateral institutions, and the adoption of the
United States Sarbanes-Oxley Act or the Public Company
Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002.
The
latter mandates internal-complaint procedures for all
companies registered on United States stock exchanges,
where multinationals are usually listed.
“We urge
organizations to adopt these policies and other
nontraditional systems to improve accountability and
transparency. But, accountability is not an end state.
The global challenge right now is the need to listen to
people on the ground,” said Labre.
The
overall top five performers among multinationals were
the American firms General Electric Co. and
GlaxoSmithKline, TATA Group of India, the Coca-Cola Co.
of the US, and Brazil’s Petrobras, which is a new
entrant in the list of those evaluated.
Among
multinationals, the five top performers were the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asian Development
Bank (ADB), United Nations Environment Programme (Unep),
World Food Programme (WFP), and Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB).
The top
five performers among international NGOs were Christian
Aid, International Accounting Standards Board (IASB),
Int’l Save the Children Alliance, Aga Khan Foundation
and Human Rights Watch.
The
laggards among multinationals were Google, which refused
to participate in the report and PricewaterhouseCoopers
International Ltd.; while those who got the lowest
scores among multilaterals were the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Interpol.
The
lowest scores among NGOs were received by the Federation
Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) and
Greenpeace International.
On
average, the report stated that multinational
corporations scored the highest for complaint handling
with 50 percent; multilaterals score 48 percent, and
international NGOs, 42 percent.
Across
all sectors, internal complaint policies such as
whistleblower policies are of consistently high quality.
The UNDP, Unep and WFP meet all good practice
principles, such as nonretaliation and confidentiality.
Internal complaints handling systems are also
well-developed with 20 out of the 30 organizations
scoring above 70 percent.
However,
Labre conceded there is still a lot of room for
improvement in the report. She said that One World Trust
is already in the process of including a country
assessment of all organizations included in the report.
Labre
said that by providing country assessments it would help
improve these organizations’ chances of getting a high
score in the report. This extension of the report is,
however, still awaiting additional funding. She added
the Ford Foundation funded the report.
One
World Trust aims to ensure that accountability happens
in practice, requires constant vigilance translating
policy commitments into action, and embedding
accountability principles into the culture of the
organization and into all relationships with
stakeholders.
The One
World Trust promotes education and research into the
changes required within global organizations in order to
achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice and war.
The
Trust conducts research on practical ways to make global
organizations more responsive to the people they affect,
and on how the rule of law can be applied equally to
all. It educates political leaders and opinion-makers
about the findings of its research.
One
World Trust was founded in 1951 by the All-Party
Parliamentary Group (APPG) for World Government that, in
turn, was founded in 1945 by Henry Usborne, Member of
Parliament for Labour in Britain. Reflecting the
changing nature of global governance and the increasing
importance of nonstate actors in it, the Group recently
changed its name to APPG for World Governance. |
