For an NGO to survive and function effectively, there must be some specific goal or purpose to which it strives. If the organization is in reality not much more than a social club or a fan club devoted to a single person, then it will either disband or fail to fulfill any purpose. Well, I should amend that to say, "fail to fulfill any purpose" other than being a tax dodge.
The topic of tax dodges brings up another major pitfall -- the misuse of an organization's name and prestige for private business or political gain. A slightly different version of this problem is someone forming an NGO that is nothing but a cover for some other business. I knew one person who formed a refugee assistance NGO which in reality was simply a cover for her "mail order bride" business.
Another situation was that of a board member of the local branch of an international NGO, using his status as a board member to solicit clients for his business which was, for a large fee, "assisting" victims of the White Terror in their compensation applications. The bottom line being is that Taiwan's NGO
community can easily become a breeding ground for corruption.
The final pitfall I should mention is relations with the government. There has been much talk recently about the place of NGOs in Taiwan and how the NGO community can help raise Tai-wan's international profile. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made much of "NGO diplomacy." At the seminar I participated in recently, Lin Fang-mei (林芳玫, chairwoman of the National Youth Commission) spoke quite clearly on this issue. Her position was that Taiwan's NGOs should focus on their development as NGOs, not as instruments for the foreign ministry. I very much agree. Tai-wan's NGOs should keep their focus on their mandates.
If the ministry wants to assist the NGO community there is something very concrete it can do. It can ensure that visitors invited to Taiwan on NGO business are not delayed or denied entry due to any blacklist or being from "an enemy state." It is an interesting irony that the ministry harps on about "what the foreign ministry can do to enhance Taiwan's international image" but in fact it does not do the few things within its power towards that end. One only needs to remember the denial of an entry visa to Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta a couple of years ago to see that the ministry fails to do the things that it can to raise Taiwan's international image.
There have been many positive developments in the NGO community over the past few years. President Chen Shui-bian's (
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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