The National Youth Commission sponsors OVF volunteer partnership at the NTHU

Since a few years, most universities in Taiwan have established student volunteer programs where the students are offered the opportunity to do volunteer service abroad for an NGO. Such volunteer programs have been strongly encouraged by the Taiwanese government, as a way of strengthening the international profile of a country that is still unrecognized as an independent nation by the international community. Consequently, these programs are partly subsidized by public funds through the National Youth Commission (the NYC).

The domain of international NGOs can be murky waters indeed, hence the need for codes of ethic and conduct (such as that of WANGO) to facilitate the assessment of potential NGO partners. At the National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, one of these programs involves Ghana and is run by Joy Tang and the OVF through a partnership with the NTHU. The case raises serious issues regarding how public funds are allocated to strengthen the international profile of prestigious Taiwanese public institutions:

1. How is it possible that public funds be allocated to establish the platform for a partnership with an organization that poses as an international NGO, when it is really a fraud, with no legal body in Taiwan and no office?

2. What control mechanisms exist that will ensure that no student of any public university in Taiwan is exploited by an NGO whose operations are both illegal and unethical?

3. What independent body is responsible for reviewing the partnership agreements between public universities and NGOs?

4. What are the means that enable the NYC to ensure that the public support that is allocated to volunteer programs involving NGOs is being used in an appropriate way, and meeting legal and ethical standards?

5. In what way are the relevant public officers brought up to date with issues of concern regarding international NGOs? Have they been made familiar with international moral and ethical standards? Do they know which documentation to ask for in order to make a solid evaluation of a potential partner?

6. Have the universities received the relevant guidelines for how to proceed regarding NGO partnerships, so that the reputation of both students and public universities is protected?