Volunteering: your best foot forward

The Live 8 concerts, and the publicity surrounding the G8 conference, will ensure that the issue of poverty will have an airing in the media for some time.

Many of us will have had our consciences pricked by the images and impassioned speeches interspersed between the music of last weekend, and some of us will have even signed the online petition.

Depressingly, the needs are the same as they were 20 years ago – but a noticeable difference between Live Aid and Live 8 is the publicly-stated requirement for reassurance and accountability about how and where the pledged money will be spent.

The G8 finance ministers recently agreed to write off a £22bn debt owed by 18 countries, but introduced conditions and criteria that meant if more countries want to benefit they have to demonstrate good governance and show they are tackling corruption. This is clearly something that requires considerable effort and commitment and must be sustainable – long after the publicity of Live 8 has waned.

For some months, ACCA has been looking at harnessing the energies, enthusiasm and skills of our younger members in developing economies to find a way in which we could make a practical contribution in the fight against poverty. The concept that we have developed is a scheme that will encourage pro bono activities by our members, enabling them to put back something into the communities in which they live and work.

This will involve public interest causes, such as improving public education, or ensuring that communities receiving the allocated aid are using it effectively and accounting for it so that donors know it is being used well – whether they be individuals, business or government.

The initiative could result in ACCA members advising local farming communities on a pro bono basis to negotiate better deals on crops they sell. The work undertaken in education will hopefully address a pressing need to help empower communities at risk of becoming reliant on aid.

This initiative, officially called skills2share, is ACCA’s version of the peace corps. To ensure that the skills of our members and students are used to best effect, we have formed a partnership with international development agency ActionAid. Formed in 1972, with an aim to fight poverty worldwide, the charity today helps over 13 million of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged people.

We have agreed to run pilot schemes in Kenya, Uganda and later in Pakistan. ACCA and ActionAid staff are already involved in eastern Africa to ensure the scheme will deliver results on the ground, and this will set the template for extending the scheme to other countries where we have a presence.

As David Archer, head of international education at ActionAid, says, government education budgets are a mystery to most people, and funding for education can easily be misused. Helping people to understand how the education budget is supposed to work, and tracking what happens in practice, from national to district to school level, is an increasingly important part of ActionAid’s work.

We want this initiative to enable ACCA’s younger members and students to make a major contribution to the wellbeing of their own communities by supporting official ActionAid projects. Accountants on the ground have a huge potential role to play in demystifying national education budgets and scrutinising the flows of aid for education, thus enhancing the confidence of the aid community in the application of funds provided.

Developing training budget trackers at district or local level will empower local citizens to monitor the flows of education budgets to their district and local schools. And developing alternative budgets will enable community-based contributions to budget formulation and running projections for the costs of various policy changes in education – for example, the abolition of user fees.

We expect to see a number of benefits flowing from the proposals, not least the peace of mind that potential donors can give to ActionAid projects in the knowledge that a qualified accountant – and someone who understands the needs of the local community – will be volunteering their services to a reputable aid provider.

Communities on the receiving end of aid will have free, expert advice on hand about the best way to use those resources, and our students and members will be able to gain valuable hands-on experience of dealing with important issues, which might otherwise fall outside of their usual remit.

ACCA students and members will also be encouraged to share their skills with local schools and community projects in demystifying budgeting, taxation, banking and investment. We want to empower communities to identify priorities and opportunities, and be in a position to negotiate better financial deals for themselves. We hope it will be a win-win situation for all concerned.

This initiative is a positive development in our long-standing commitment to the developing world. We see this as a long-term project, which will have a real and lasting impact on helping in the battle against poverty.

ActionAid’s Archer believes that together we can help to ensure public funding for education is properly, transparently and effectively spent. ‘On this basis, we can be confident in asking the G8 and others to live up to their promises on radically increasing aid to education,’ he says.

Next time you experience a Geldof moment, there is another option besides reaching for the credit card. And who knows, if accountants give their time and skills, perhaps the musicians of 2025 will put on a concert – not to raise funds, but possibly, just possibly, to help celebrate the demise of global poverty.

Allen Blewitt is chief executive of ACCA

PLAY A PART

Of course, there are other ways accountants can make a difference. In conjunction with Accountancy Age, the ICAEW runs an awards scheme, Everybody Counts, designed to recognise and help support (financially) charitable work undertaken by its members.

Another route is to contact Mango, a charity that helps aid agencies and NGOs work more effectively. It aims to help strengthen their financial management by providing training for NGO staff, finance staff to work with NGOs, and consultancy services.

The European Commission, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and the Association of Accounting Technicians are among its major sponsors.

For more information, go to: www.everybodycounts.co.uk and www.mango.org.uk