By: Precious Mills

BASSETERRE, St.Kitts– More than 10 representatives from Non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) in the Federation of St.Kitts and Nevis, on Wednesday 8th November, assembled at the FND Conference Room located at Bladen Commercial Development for a one-day NGO Code of Conduct and Ethics Consultation organised by the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) in collaboration with The Ripple Institute SKN, the coordinating agency in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Notably, under the CPDC and European Union (EU) project dubbed “Support to Facilitate Participation of CARIFORUM Civil Society in The Regional Development and Integration Process”, the session conducted has been part of a series of civil society trainings/consultations across the Caribbean with the aim of bringing civil society together as embarked upon by the CPDC and funded by the EU.

The workshop facilitator was Development Specialist Shantal Munro-Knight from Barbados who is a former the former CPDC Executive Director.

As gathered, St.Kitts-Nevis is the last of the 14- member participating countries visited for the purpose of facilitating such workshop sessions.

The other countries where consultations have been carried out are Dominica, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Lucia, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago as well as Antigua and Barbuda.

At that day’s event, the drafted Code of Conduct and Ethics was presented to participants its articles examined following which organisations were invited to sign on to that document.

President and Founder of The Ripple Institute SKN, Dr. IzBen C. Williams, in giving remarks, described his establishment as “an NGO whose central purpose is, as civil society organistion, is the wholesome development of children and youth and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable groups.”

The St.Kitts-Nevis Trades & Labour Union was represented at the workshop by Staff Representative of the Union’s executive committee Precious Mills.

Following the consultation, the media house spoke with Munro-Knight who outlined the purpose of event.

“Today’s workshop, we were looking specifically at the code of conduct and ethics and the primary kind of motivation behind these workshops is to ensure that the NGO sector (and) the sectors that are working citizens…NGOs, CBOs or CSOs (to) really reflect on our own internal accountability  and transparency and try to agree on key principles  that we can commit to abide by  so that we can demonstrate to funders, donors, government and just the general public that we ourselves are committed to operating in a way  that is really upright and in keeping with good standards and good ways of representing our various constituencies.”

Asked what she would say to organisations who may not see the need to sign on to the Code of Conduct and Ethics because they are satisfied with their own set of guiding principles, she replied:

“Well if you trust yourself and there is no reason actually to put in that trust that you have in yourself actually into a firm commitment on paper so that everyone else can see because if you keep that and say well this is how my business operates then people don’t know but (instead) you want to create a tangible thing that says this is my commitment to operating so they should be the first ones running to sign the code.”

Additionally, when asked about her expectation of the representatives that attended the consultation, Munro-Knight responded:

“I’m hoping that the participants will have taken the discussions really seriously and that those who have not signed on will do so. More than just signing on, I hope that what we started today was a good conversation about principles that we have to make sure that our organisations have so more than signing on, I hope that it begins to kind of spur discussions within organisations about the standard that we should try to attain.”

She also informed that another consultation would be conducted in partnership with The Ripple Institute SKN.

“It may not be not on the code of conduct and ethics per say but we are hoping to have another consultation looking at the NGO legislation in St.Kitts and Nevis; you guys have NGO legislation but perhaps to examine how it works.”