Christian Aid to be named top non-governmental performer

Christian Aid will be named the top non-governmental performer in the second annual Global Accountability Report when it is released next Tuesday.

The report, produced by The One World Trust, ranks 30 of the world's most powerful corporate, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations on accountability.

The charity finished ahead of other British non-governmental organisations, with a score of 81 per cent, and exposed the lack of accountability amongst a number of corporate giants, including Google, Coca Cola, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and General Electric, who scored between 17 and 65 per cent.

Intergovernmental organisations lead the pack followed closely by non-governmental organisations in the ranking of overall performance, while corporate businesses rank bottom of the three sectors.

The report measures organisations' policies on transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response procedures.

Daleep Mukarji, director of Christian Aid, said: "We welcome this independent external scrutiny and are delighted to be identified as a 'top performer' in the International NGO sector."

"As an organisation which actively campaigns both in the UK and overseas, seeking to hold governments and big businesses to account for their actions, it is vital that we too are accountable to those we affect - poor communities, supporters, institutional donors, the public, our staff and overseas partners."

Using a unique Global Accountability Framework, developed by the One World Trust, the report is compiled using data collected from a variety of sources including publicly available information, documents provided by participants and interviews with key members of staff.

In addition, stakeholders and independent experts on each organisation are engaged in the data collection and verification stages of the research.

Each sector tended to lead in one dimension - intergovernmental departments excel in transparency and evaluation, non-governmental organisations on participation and corporates on complaint and response procedures.

Michael Hammer, executive director of the One World Trust, said: "Accountability makes powerful organisations more effective and legitimate. Without it, solutions to global challenges such as climate change, terrorism and poverty will fail.

"The One World Trust will continue to raise global awareness of the need for greater transparency and challenge organisations to be more accountable to their shareholders, staff and beneficiaries."

The 2007 Global Accountability report will also be released in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines, Senegal, Singapore, Spain and USA.