Collective process around designing a CSO Code of Conduct in the Dominican Republic

 

The design of the first CSO Code of Conduct in the Dominican Republic was conceived as a collective process and methodology since its beginning in 2016 and until its formal presentation in 2017 many steps of collective thinking and feedback on the progress to elaborate the final document which has been endorsed so far by more than 100 CSOs. This process improved both the awareness and ownership of organizations since they felt involved from the very beginning of its design. At the same time, it allowed the Reference Group which coordinated the process to enrich the Code of Conduct with the hundreds of comments, suggestions and points of view of the diverse civil society of the Dominican Republic to obtain a document which was agreed upon by most.

View the Code of Conduct here.

Institutionalising Voluntary Self-Evaluation of Organisation Transparency in Mexico

The Accreditation in Institutionality and Transparency (AIT) is an important source of reference on Mexican civil society organizations that provides additional information for donors and users.

The AIT enables:

  1. Identify reliable organizations.
  2. Be accountable to society of the resources received from it.
  3. Promote transparency in the philanthropic sector and towards society.
  4. Increase the trust of society in organizations.
  5. Determine aspects of institutional improvement.
  6. Increase the visibility of the organization.

Why is it important?

  1. It reflects the level of institutional development of the organization.
  2. It allows potential donors and allies a starting point in the analysis of institutional management and the feasibility of possible joint work.
  3. It shows the commitment of the organization with the people they serve, the social cause in which they work, as well as with their donors, allies, volunteers and other related publics.
  4. It helps to increase trust, recognition and visibility of work, and to value the contribution of civil society organizations.
  5. It provides organizations with a starting platform for the development of improvement processes that allow them to increase efficiency in their management and successfully meet their objectives and mission.

To view the process, please click here.

Building a Culture of Accountability in Bolivia

To see UNITAS’ joint effort to improve the culture of CSO transparency, please click here and for a summary of the CSO Transparency Week 2018 in Bolivia here.

The self-regulation mechanisms are: the Code of Ethics and the Information System for Transparency and Accountability as a tool for the flow of information between and from the members, which translates into a Collective Report. This contains: Information on the network (levels of government, regulatory framework, articulation axes, strategic objectives and institutional policies), information of the members (legal and institutional context, government bodies, areas and areas of action, lines of action, actors and groups recipients, alliances and agreements, coordination spaces, financial information, tax aspects and labour regulations, staff) and management programs and projects and their results linked to the Istanbul Principles, strategic allies, spaces for public debate and opinion of financial audit.