The interior ministry of Pakistan has declined permission to another 13 international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) to operate in Pakistan, raising the number of rejected cases to 23.
The number of INGOs to have been registered under the new procedure and policy has climbed to 73, while the pending cases have gone down to 20.
On March 31st, As many as 58 international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have been formally allowed to operate in Pakistan under the new registration policy framework.
According to Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in all around 130 INGOs had applied for registration after the new online registration system was unveiled in October 2015.
He unveiled the first-ever policy to regulate the operations of INGOs in the country in October 2015. It requires all INGOs to apply through a newly-introduced online registration system within the next 60 days.
According to a study conducted by the Aga Khan Development Network, in Pakistan, NGOs can be registered with local, provincial or federal authorities under 13 different local laws. The availability of such a generous choice for registration creates incentives for registering under more relaxed laws, in terms of compliance requirements. Although provisions for regulatory mechanisms under each registration law do exist, their relevance and effectiveness — vis-à-vis how the overall NGO sector has changed over time — is a big question mark for many reasons.
Adding to this confusion is the fact that the various laws under which an NGO may register do not explicitly demarcate the exact purpose for the creation of an NGO. Subject to the fulfilment of a few specific requirements, practically speaking, an NGO can be registered for the same purposes under the Trust Act of 1882, the Societies Registration Act of 1860, the Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies (Registration and Control) Ordinance of 1961, and so forth. As is apparent by their dates, many of these laws are legislative relics of the British Raj. There has been no serious governmental effort to update existing arcane NGO registration laws since the time of their enactment and enforcement.
In addition to the many local NGOs, around 160 INGOs are also operating in Pakistan. Until the end of 2015, INGOs had been allowed to work in Pakistan through a memorandum of understanding signed with the government’s Economic Affairs Division (EAD). Recently, the federal government introduced a new registration process for INGOs through the interior ministry (MoI), which is in progress.
Since the inception of the finance action task force in 1989, many countries in the world have put in place a mechanism to regulate INGOs. FTAF is an inter-governmental body which sets standards and promotes mechanisms to control money laundering, terrorist financing and threats to international financial systems. Recommendation 8 (R8) of FTAF requires that laws governing non-profit organisations be reviewed so that organisations can’t be abused to finance terrorism. China has also recently legislated and put in place stringent mechanisms to regulate INGOs working in its territorial jurisdiction.