NGOs, not just aid programs abroad, humanitarian work is increasingly present also in Italy in the fight against new forms of poverty

ROME – They have been sailing against the wind for some years now, in waters often agitated by conflicts, humanitarian emergencies and lately also by defamatory media campaigns such as those linked to the rescues of migrants in the Mediterranean and the recent Qatar-gate. It’s Non Governmental Organizations Italian companies active in development cooperation and humanitarian aid who today present their 2021 transparency data through the portal Open Cooperationan open data platform that has been collecting transparency and accountability data from over 200 of the most important organizations in the sector for the past eight years.

Economic growth of 10 percentage points. The data, voluntarily entered by the organizations and aggregated by Open Cooperation show through graphs and infographics a trend that has been growing steadily for several years now. Also in 2021 the Italian NGOs achieved an economic growth of 10 percentage points, the economic value reaches 1,167,617,111 euros. A growth driven in particular by large organizations that record significant increases in revenue. This is the case of Save The Children which is confirmed as the first organization with a budget of over 133 million (+7% compared to 2020), of AVSI which leaps into second place with an increase of over 26% (from 68 to over 92 million ), of Emergency which grows by 37% from 48 to 77 million and of Weworld which exceeds 44 million with a growth of 15%.

On the other hand, medium-small organizations are struggling. From an analysis of the income statements of the top 50 Italian NGOs over the last 3 years, it emerges that the loss-making organizations are almost all of medium size, ie placed in the range between 3 and 10 million euros in income. The NGOs that recorded the most evident increases are in the high range, above 30 million and mostly they are organizations heavily involved in humanitarian aid.

Where do the economic resources of NGOs come from?. The composition of revenue remains stable compared to previous years, for NGOs the ratio between public funds and private funds stands at 60% and 40% respectively. Public funds for NGOs come from so-called institutional lenders, 35% from the Italian Agency for Cooperation – AICS and MAECI, another 35% from the European Union (EU+Echo), just over 17% from local authorities through decentralized cooperation and the remaining 12% by United Nations agencies and other international organizations. Private funds, in addition to those deriving from individual donations, arrive through the tax channel of 5×1000 (31.9%), from donations or partnerships with companies (32.1%), from the philanthropy of Foundations (26.8% ) and from churches (9.2%).

Geography of Cooperation. On the other hand, the geography of cooperation is evolving, an unpublished figure revealed by Open Cooperation highlights that the most important intervention front has become that of our house: Italy is the country where the highest number of projects are implemented. There are 917 those made in 2021 by 70 organizations. Abroad, the primacy of African countries is confirmed: Mozambique, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, RD Congo, Burkina Faso and Senegal remain the countries where NGOs carry out the most projects. The only non-African countries in the top 10 are Lebanon and Syria. Education and instruction remain the predominant themes of NGO projects, followed by emergencies, humanitarian aid and health.

An established trend. “The activity of NGOs in our country shouldn’t come as a surprise – explains the founder and curator of Open Cooperation, Elias Gerovasi – it is a well-established trend and certainly growing after the pandemic. More and more organizations have taken action on the front of the new poverties that Covid has accentuated: educational, food and recently also energy poverty are very widespread phenomena and no longer concern only certain disadvantaged categories. Even Istat data tell us that the number of people who have a home, work and family is growing significantly, but who do not make ends meet”.

The human resources of cooperation. However, it is not only the economic value of NGOs that is growing, the human resources employed in the sector in Italy and abroad are increasing, reaching almost 26 thousand (4% more than in 2020), 55% are men and 45% women. There are 4,120 operators employed in Italy (37% men and 63% women) and 21,753 abroad (58% men and 42% women), of which 2,274 are Italian expatriates, the so-called aid workers. To this community is added the invaluable contribution of voluntary work. Active volunteers and Civil Service volunteers who worked for NGOs in 2021 reached 44,784, up by over 9,000 units compared to the previous year.

The characteristics of the organizations. The data also reveals the characteristics of cooperation and humanitarian aid organizations within the wider world of Third sector evolving following the reform. What we are used to calling Onlus are today in reality Third Sector Entities (ETS), specifically the most widespread legal form is that of Association (67%), followed by Volunteer Organizations – OdV (12%) and Foundations ( 10%). The membership of organizations in the networks representing the sector is growing, 34% of NGOs are part of a network and/or federation, in first place in terms of membership is AOI, the Association of Italian cooperation organizations and international solidarity, which has recently become a National Associative Network envisaged as proper by the text of the reform.

A composite world. “The non-profit world of international solidarity and cooperation is made up of a plurality of Civil Society Organizations, today in fact more than NGOs we are called OSC in line with what is happening at an international level where the acronym CSO (Civil Society Organization ) – explains Silvia Stilli, spokesperson of the AOI. We are talking about organizations born in parishes or in the associative and cooperative world of solidarity, in the university or trade union environment, linked to local communities and with the ability to involve young volunteers, groups of families, including adoptive ones, citizens in their activities , teachers, doctors, activists and activists on the subject of peace, global rights and the environment. For this reason, NGOs/CSOs are part of the Italian Third Sector family, where they have long been at ease and contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the 2030 Agenda in Italy as well as in the countries of the southern hemisphere”

Balance sheet certifications. NGOs are confirmed as pioneers in matters of accountability and transparency, eight years after the start of the experience of Open Cooperation in fact, the propensity of organizations to so-called data disclosure continues to increase also thanks to the recent Guidelines for the drafting of the social report of third sector entities adopted by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies with which Open Cooperation has recently aligned itself. Over the past five years, the number of organizations submitting their financial statements to external certification by an independent audit auditor has grown by a further 8%. Today 92% of NGOs with revenues exceeding 1 million euros have a certified balance sheet.