ROME -- Charitable organizations and cultural events collecting funds in aid of the earthquake towns and victims, including the Civil Protection 45500 phone donation campaign, lack transparency for donors, and have no official coordination process, Il Fatto Quotidiano reports.

 Many experts are expressing worries about where the money is actually going and about the transparency and accountability of these campaigns. Economist and president of the Italian Donation Foundation, Stefano Zamangi, stresses that “In Italy, accountability just does not exist, that is to say, the habit of accounting for the results obtained from the money that has been spent.”

 “Supervision is needed. It is a shame that the agency that could have seen to this has been shut down,” he continues, referring to the Voluntary Sector Agency that was abolished by the Monti government in 2012, of which he was a key member. Coordination is also key, something that all the big non-governmental organizations attest to, as they have their own organizational systems of this kind in place. This allows them to maximize the aid that the money can provide, something that is absent at a governmental level in Italy.

 This particular 45500 donation-by-text campaign has triggered huge waves of solidarity across the country and has received over 9.7 million euros of donations so far. However, it is not specified anywhere on their website where exactly the money is going.

 The general public has been told not to send donations of food and clothes through their own initiatives, but to donate to big campaigns like these. Yet it is not made particularly clear to the people donating that the money from this specific phone campaign, for example, will in fact be used towards the reconstruction of state buildings in the devastated areas, rather than for houses, schools, gyms, and other municipal centres. The Civil Protection simply claims ambiguously that “the funds will be allocated to the earthquake-stricken regions.”

 Zamangi reveals how “The culture of accountability does not exist in Italy, despite it being crucial: if you spend money to buy balloons you can temporarily cheer up some young children in the tents but you have not resolved any of the victims’ long term problems.”

 Experts urge the public to be aware of what they are donating towards, and recommend donations to NGOs over various other campaigns if wanting to be sure the money goes directly to the victims.

 nkd