NGOs Law and Governance

NGO Law and Governance: A Resource Book

Today non-government organizations (NGOs) worldwide have budgets totaling billions of dollars with tens of millions of staff. But are laws and internal controls keeping pace with their size and power?

NGO Law and Governance answers a need in an area that has experienced enormous growth over the past 25 years. Interest in the legal aspects of NGOs has increased due to their greater participation in civil society and political life.

The author, from his practical knowledge in the field, has written a concise survey for the general reader of the main issues and principles that affect most internationally operating NGOs. Attention is also paid to the improvement of governance in local and development-focused NGOs, which still work primarily in their home countries.

This book will be of interest to members, managers and volunteers of big and small NGOs and also development practitioners and students of social change. It will be helpful to anyone seeking an understanding of the basic content of international and domestic laws and generally accepted governance principles impacting the operation of the civil society sector.

Click here to get a full book on NGOs Law and Governance

source www.adbi.org

Draft NGOs law will go to parliament soon

NGO regulation: Draft law to drop within five months

TUESDAY, 27 JULY 2010 15:01 CHRISTY CHOI AND CHHAY CHANNYDA

NGO regulation
Adraft version of a controversial proposal for a law to regulate NGOs could be ready for public consultation by the end of the year, an Interior Ministry official said yesterday.

Mey Narath, deputy director of the Ministry of Interior’s department of political affairs, said a draft law for NGOs would be “finished in four to five months”, at which time a forum would be held to obtain comments from Cambodia’s NGOs. He said a final version of the law would likely not reach parliament until 2013.

At a meeting with civil society groups last Thursday, Mey Narath pledged his support to increase collaboration between the government and NGOs.
However, some groups fear an NGO law could be used to stifle organisations that are critical of the government.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said the law may allow the government to hamper an NGO’s operations by placing restrictions on financing.

Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy, also questioned the government’s motivations, but said the time had come to “move on and find a novel way to engage with the government”.

A number of critic has been done by different group civil society, for example,

• NGO Law in Cambodia: top issue on government's agenda, the civil society in jeopardy? , has been criticized by Ka-Zet website.
• Cambodia's proposed NGO law stirs suspicion and concern, by Thomson Reuter foundation
• New Laws May Curb NGO Activity, by IPSNEWs

• Is an NGO Law in Cambodia Justified? , by LICADHO

  Briefing Note on CSO Law Issues , by The International Center for Civil Society Law , April 2005
  NGO Law and Association News, by Cooperation Committee for Cambodia

source: www.phnompenhpost.com