|
ABSTRACT:
International charitable
work fills critical gaps in the global socioeconomic
infrastructure . Governmental organizations
alone can not solve every social problem, without
international charity , more people in the world
would die of hunger , disease and live in poverty
.In this paper we study the situation of some
charities in Islamic countries .
In Kuwait, International Islamic charitable
organization (IICO) has branches and offices
all over the state. Their strategy is to present
an Islamic model of integrated modern charitable
work . More than sixty countries around the
world are benefiting from IICO charitable work
(Such as Jordan, Uganda, Nigeria, Niger, Benin,
Comoros Islands and Sudan). In Bangladesh,
NGOs play a significant role in PHC provision
in rural and urban areas. Several hundred indigenous
NGOs have been active in health and development
since the country's independence in 1971. In
Palestine, in addition to the public
health services available , and those provided
by charitable and voluntary organizations ,
the main providers of health care for the population
are the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and
other NGOs. In Iran, currently, there
are also a large number of health facilities,
ranging from out patient clinics to hospitals
and institutions, run by charitable community
groups. Finally considering the successful pattern
and strength points of the charities in other
countries, especially Islamic countries, help
us to promote the status of charity service
delivery to the community.
|
Introduction:
International charitable work
fills critical gaps in the global socioeconomic infrastructure.
Governments alone cannot solve every social problem.
Businesses alone cannot meet every economic need.
Without international charity, more people in the
world would die of hunger and disease, fewer children
would learn to read and write, and more people would
live in poverty. There would be more environmental
destruction and fewer scientific advances(1).
The use of private health
care providers in low and middle income countries
(LMIC) is wide spread and its implications are the
subject of continuing debate. One view is that private
providers are likely to be more efficient than the
public sector and hence that government should contract
out services to the private sector. An alternative
view is that private providers are often not superior
in quality or efficiency to the public sector, and
that contracts are not straightforward to design and
implement. Finally, there is increasing recognition
that neither public nor private providers have uniform
characteristics, and that this distinction might overlook
more important issues, such as the extent to which
a provider uses public funds efficiently and serves
the goals of public health(2). The range
of charitable services provided is extensive-medical
care, food, agricultural training, disaster relief,
shelter, education, clothing, water, professional
exchanges, and support of human rights and civil liberties.
Each charitable organization
must safeguard its relationship with the communities
it serves in order to deliver effective programs.
This relationship is founded on local understanding
and acceptance of the independence of the charitable
organization. If this foundation is shaken, the organization's
ability to be of assistance and the safety of those
delivering assistance is at serious risk(1).
A lack of standards in healthcare organizations often
makes it difficult to consistently define and report
charity care. Accurately documenting services provided
to patients who are unwilling or unable to pay can
be difficult for many organizations(3).
Nowadays we see increasing urgent needs in poor societies
especially in Moslem countries and communities where
poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, disease, famine
and other difficult situations are persisting. In
this paper we study the situation of some charities
in Islamic countries.
Kuwait
IICO (International Islamic
Charitable Organization) is an independent non-political
organization which offers a wide range of pure humanitarian
services, that was established in Kuwait. IICO was
founded to meet the increasing urgent needs in poor
societies especially in Moslem countries and communities
where poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, diseases,
famine, and other difficult situations are persisting.
IICO has established several
committees to provide aid in various fields. Each
of these committees is specialized in a specific field
or serving a geographical area or a particular group
of people. The first of these was the Committee of
Asia. That is one of the IICO's largest committees,
serving 825 million Muslims in Asia. The objective
of this committee is helping the needy in the Asian
continent, since they represent the largest Muslim
community in the world (three quarters of the world
Muslims). More than sixty countries around the world
are benefiting from IICO's charitable work whether
Muslim population is a majority or a minority(4).
Bangladesh
NGOs play a significant role
in PHC provision in rural Bangladesh, and they provide
most of these services in urban areas. Under the Government
of Bangladesh's 5-year Health and Population Sector
Programme (HPSP) the overall objective was to improve
the health of the population. The Bangladesh Population
and Health Consortium (BPHC) agency, which delivers
maternal and child health (MCH) and family planning
services in rural areas, was established by the British
Overseas Development Administration (ODA). From 1998-2003,
the UK Department for International Development (DFID)
funded BPHC to develop government NGO collaboration
in the sector and deliver ESP services through partner
NGOs in a Public-NGO Partnership (PNP). This was to
be an integral part of the sectoral programme, jointly
managed by DFID and the Line Director for ESP-Reproductive
Health in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
(MOHFW).
In the PNP phase, BPHC invited
NGOs, to bid for funds to deliver ESP services in
areas agreed upon with the government health managers.
The MOHFW Line Director was informed of the procedures
and arrangements for a transparent selection process,
which was implemented by BPHC in 2000. This included
visits and interviews with NGO managers, separate
financial and technical proposals, and assessment
and scoring of these by BPHC and external reviewers.
The emphasis was on BPHC supporting the NGOs to provide
an expanded range of services consistent with the
government ESP, developing government-NGO collaboration
and demonstrating the impact of NGO service delivery(5).
Palestine
Because of the dispersal of
the Palestinian people across different areas and
as a result of the lack of a unified political authority,
there are no unified health policies and strategies;
rather, the various bodies providing services have
their own characteristics. The main providers of health
care for the Palestinian population are the Palestinian
Red Crescent Society and other Palestinian NGOs and
UNRWA. UNRWA's policy is to provide essential health
services to eligible Palestinian refugees, consistent
with the humanitarian policies of the United Nations
and the basic principles and concepts of the WHO.
UNRWA's health system is based
on three levels. At the primary level, outpatient
services are provided through UNRWA's facilities-general
and special care clinics, laboratories and dental
clinics, which are integrated at health centre level.
At the secondary level, referral and support services
comprise inpatient care at subsidized hospitals, as
well as specialist and rehabilitative care and other
basic support services through contractual arrangements
or individual patient subsidies. At the tertiary level,
UNRWA provides partial individual patient subsidies
for emergency life-saving treatment at the specialized
health institutions available in the area of operations,
provided this does not involve long-term commitment(6).
Islamic Republic of Iran
Although the NGO movement
in its modern sense is relatively new to Iran and
most of the active NGOs are closely associated with
the government, there is a long tradition of voluntary
participation in financing, organization and provision
of health services as charitable acts. In fact many
of the famous hospitals and health centers established
early in the century owe their existence to such charitable
organizations predating the established of the MOH&ME.
Currently too there are a large number of health facilities,
ranging from outpatient clinics to hospitals and institutions
run by the charitable community groups.
Among the NGOs established over the past few years
a considerable number are concerned with health problems
related to specific groups like Thalassaemic children.
The Family Planning Association of Iran is probably
the largest while numerous small NGOs are active in
the area of drug prevention and supporting people
with HIV/AIDS. The semi-
military youth organization of Basij affiliated with
the Revolutionary Guards Army is also an important
health-related NGO because of its enormous contribution
to the periodic mass mobilization in support of public
health interventions like immunization campaigns.
Likewise, although not organized as an NGO, the enormous
corps of the Women Health Volunteers may also be viewed
as an NGO. Due to the supportive stance on NGOs and
other forms of civil society participation of the
President Khatami, NGO movement has received a greater
attention from the UN agencies over the past few years(7).
Discussion
While the civil society sector
is a sizable force in a wide range of countries, there
are considerable differences among countries. The
civil society organization workforce in the developed
countries is more than three times larger than that
in the developing countries. The relatively limited
presence of civil society organizations in the developing
countries does not, of course, necessarily mean the
absence of helping relationships in these countries.
Countries vary in the extent
to which these organizations rely on paid as opposed
to volunteer workers. Thus, while volunteers comprise
43 percent of the civil society workforce overall,
reliance on volunteers varies considerably among countries-from
a low of under 10 percent in Egypt to a high of over
75 percent in Sweden and Tanzania, and averages 38
percent among the countries we have examined. Surprisingly,
however, no systematic difference exists between developed
and developing countries along this dimension. Since
the developed countries also have larger paid nonprofit
employment, this suggests that the presence of paid
nonprofit employment does not displace volunteers,
as is sometimes alleged. This pattern reflects the
long history of social movements in these countries
coupled with the role that the state has assumed as
both a provider and financier of social welfare services,
something that is far less in evidence in other countries,
including many so-called European "welfare states."
To understand this more fully, it is useful to turn
from this overview of the size of the civil society
sector to an analysis of its composition(8-10).
Charitable organizations have vast experience in overcoming
the difficulties associated with carrying out charitable
work in distant lands. Some challenges are merely
inconvenient: language barriers, cultural differences,
technological limitations. Charitable organizations
have successfully addressed these challenges through
attention to procedures designed to reduce the risk
that charitable assets would be used for non-charitable
purposes(1).
In many low-income countries,
NGOs support research activities and deliver basic
health services in particular areas or among certain
populations. Their effectiveness in establishing sustainable
primary health care systems has been linked with promotion
of community participation, having close links with
the poor, being flexible and having committed staff.
The comparative advantage
of NGOs might be assessed in terms of efficiency,
innovation, quality of services, ability to mobilize
resources, contribution to the sustainability of the
local health system and coverage of grass-roots communities(5,11).
Charitable organizations must
exclusively pursue the charitable purposes for which
they were organized and chartered. The mission of
an organization defines its purpose, its program activities,
its values and operations, and the measures of its
success. Finally considering the successful pattern
and strong points of the charities in other countries,
especially Islamic countries, helps us to promote
the status of charity service delivery to the community.
|
