Finances
Proactive Transparency
COCAP recognizes that Nepali peace and human rights organizations have imported a plethora of ‘techniques’ (e.g., production of training manuals, translation of international documents into Nepali), but a lot needs to be done to also spread the culture of peace and human rights. Human rights and peace organizations can earn the trust of the people by practicing what they preach. This entails proactively practicing and promoting intra-organizational democracy, inclusiveness, accountability to the public and financial transparency.
Proactive transparency is one of the defining features, indeed an ‘identity’, of COCAP. There is a consensus among conflict experts, peace activists, researchers and the general public in identifying corruption as one of the root causes or at least a triggering factor of the ongoing armed conflict in Nepal. Peace advocates ‘do harm’ to the peace movement if they themselves practice, or at least are perceived to be involved in, corruption, no matter how much state-of-the-art ‘techniques’ of conflict transformation and human rights they import and preach. Proactive transparency is thus a pro-peace value as well a strategy pursued and promoted by COCAP. The Memorandum of Association requires COCAP to (a) post detailed six-monthly financial reports on a public notice board of COCAP secretariat (b) regularly disseminate financial reports through bulletins and website, and (c) allow any interested Nepali or non-Nepali to scrutinize the bills, vouchers and other financial documents anytime they wish to. Member organizations are expected to gradually adopt the proactive transparency policies of COCAP.
