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GuideStar to expand to Africa

Finance | Ian Allsop | 10 Sep 2008

GuideStar International and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) have announced a joint venture to develop a free web portal for African civil society organisations.

Utilising a shared internet platform, African organisations will for the first time be able to display their vision and mission, objectives, activities, needs and finances to donors, researchers, policy-makers and the general public. 

GuideStar services are already operational in the US and the UK and GuideStar International (GSI) is working to develop similar systems in Europe, Canada, India, South Korea and South Africa.

African organisations will be able to upload essential information about their organisations through an interactive webpage, where they can also upload additional information, publications and photographs. This will be accessed through a free website to help increase transparency and accountability to the public. GSI also hopes it will contribute toward building an effective database that will indicate “the outreach and the level of influence these organisations have both in social and economic spheres of African countries”.

GuideStar system ‘tried and tested’

Jalal Abdel-Latif, chief of the civil society section at UNECA, said it was embarking on this project because it believed in the fundamental importance of strong, vibrant and responsive civil societies.

“We seek to ensure that the work of these vital organisations is revealed and enabled. We believe that the GuideStar system will provide a tried and tested means for the provision of transparent information on the objectives, activities, accomplishments and finances of non-profits. Such transparency is critical to elicit public trust in these organisations, thereby also attracting a more generous and accountable allocation of society’s resources.”

Caroline Neligan, director of partnerships and development at GSI (pictured), said: “Our vision is of nationally, regionally and globally-connected African civil society where decisions within and across borders are driven by transparent, high quality and comprehensive information”.

UNECA and GSI will collaborate with national registrars and regulators, as well as civil society umbrella groups and associations to populate the portal with information on all legally registered charities, NGOs and non-profits in each participating country. GSI cites the vast informal community-based sector, the lack of access to the internet among grassroots and rural organisations, the legal and home-grown ideas of the sector and local attitudes toward information sharing as the main challenges of the project.

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