National NGO Data Environments: Transparency, Collaboration or Repression

• In Event: Transnational Politics of International Non-Governmental Organization Behavior

Abstract

Over the last 15 years two trends have increased nongovernmental organization (NGO) reporting to government authorities around the world. Governments’ concerns over international funding of national organizations has led to more stringent regulations on NGO financing (Dupuy et al. 2016). This has been tied to concerns about international terrorist organizations’ financing (Bloodgood and Tremblay-Boire 2009). The open government data movement has led governments to release more data in common formats, including tax records and grants data on NGOs (Saxena and Muhammad 2018; Attard et al. 2015). We examine, and propose explanations for, gaps between the data that governments’ require NGOs to report (collected) and the data that is made publicly available (released) for twenty countries. Differences vary dramatically by national political environment, geographic region, type of data, and type of NGO.

We test two alternative explanations for the patterns we find. First, the difference between data collected and data reported may be a function of the nature of government-NGO relations in the country (Najam 2000; Coston 1997; Young 2000; Bratton 1989). Some countries have more enabling NGO regulations to support collaborative relationships between government agencies and NGOs needed to fill gaps in service provision, democratic representation and participation, or information provision (Bloodgood et al. 2014; Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2004). In these cases, we expect information to be collected on a broad variety of indicators and widely shared, as data can help improve the performance of government agencies and NGOs and prevent malfeasance or mistakes that might impair service delivery and future relations. Other governments fear the rise of independent organizations that might challenge their limited capacity to govern and thus seek to severely regulate NGOs (Dupuy et al. 2016; Heiss and Kelley 2017). In these cases, we expect heavy reporting requirements, but very limited release of data.

Second, the difference between data collected and data released may be a function of the diffusion of global norms and increasing similarities between the demands grantmakers (Hammack and Heydemann 2009). As more organizations have more access to international grants, international grantmakers are interested in a larger variety of countries. It is easier for organizations to report data to governments because they already have to report the same to foundations and there is more interest by governments to collect data to check for foreign interference (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Suarez 2011; Quinn et al. 2013). Data driven philanthropy has also lead to the creation of NGOs pushing better data collection and release (e.g. the International Aid Transparency Initiative, AidData, Powered By Data, 360Giving, Publish What You Pay, to name just a few) (Jansenn 2012).

Data collection and reporting are likely to be affected by the capacity of organizations to report and of government agencies to receive, organize, and release data. The extent of the standardization and whether data releases are available digitally will likely reflect government capacity. Similarly, we expect the quality of data collected and released to be less for financial information than for data about the nature of the organization and its basic activities. We also expect some path dependency in data collection and reporting—idiosyncrasies tied to early interests in data in particular places because of their particular concerns about nonprofits (e.g. accountability, rule-breaking, political/partisan activities, community building) are likely to continue over time.

Patterns in NGO data are important because we do not know much about what information is collected or released about these organizations. Our ability to improve NGO data practices, but also NGO activity and impact, depends on the existence of data. The current politics of accounting are important in light of a feared backlash against NGOs (Rutzen 2015), as governments can target organizations for lapses in reporting. While concerns for NGO accountability are reasonable, given the size of the sector, organizations also maintain low overhead (Moulton and Eckerd 2012). To the extent that governments make reporting requirements less onerous, this increases their ability to comply and maintain their core programming.

Authors

• Elizabeth Bloodgood, Concordia University

• Takumi Shibaike, University of Toronto