Funding should be subject to general rules of civic accountability. It should not be attached to unusual conditions or interference by funding agencies. Human rights activists in Egypt have also suggested that budgets be monitored by a public auditing agency. On the other hand, there is a strong argument to be made against foreign funding. First, we have made very little use of funds available to civil society institutions.
Actual progress made through foreign funding, while hard to measure, seems meagre.
Another related issue is that of dependency, in the broad sense. If the state comes to rely on foreign funds rather than taxes, its reliance on society will be reduced, implying a lack of accountability to the public. NGOs whose life and death depend on foreign funds, of course, will show the symptoms of the same condition. In this same point, however, lies the insoluble puzzle. Political or cultural Islamists claim they can easily generate funds from within, through charity or by evoking highly charged political issues, with the charge coming from a certain interpretation of religion.