Visiting NGOs in Shanghai and Nanjing: are they the future?

Everywhere I go, it seems I come across new epicenters of NGO activity.  When I was in Chengdu, I thought Sichuan was the new epicenter of NGO activity in Southwest China.  My recent visits to Shanghai and Nanjing show these cities, particularly Shanghai, are emerging as epicenters of NGO activity in eastern China.   I used to think eastern China lagged behind other areas such as Beijing, Yunnan and Sichuan when it came to NGO growth, but no more.

In Shanghai, I visited the Public Welfare Park in the Pudong New District where the Pudong disrict government has constructed an artsy, modern building that houses about 30 nonprofits, providing them with various support services and contracting with them to provide community services.

There I paid a visit to two movers and shakers in China's nonprofit world: Nonprofit Incubator (NPI) and the NPO Development Center.  Both provide consulting and capacity building training to nonprofits.  NPI is an impressive, professional operation with a public foundation and offices in Beijing, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and employs over a hundred people all told.  It incubates and supports a number of Shanghai's up-and-coming NGOs.  NPI symbolizes the future of what NGOs can be in China.  The NPO Development Center (Ying Lv in Chinese) is a much more modest operation, but has been working in Shanghai for many years providing capacity training to Shanghai's nonprofits.  It was founded by Zhuang Ailing, who was director of the recently-established China Foundation Center for a few months before returning back to Shanghai where she is heading the RenDe Foundation, a newly established public foundation started by the Nanjing-based Amity Foundation.  RenDe will be one of the few foundations in China devoted to making grants to support NGOs.

Much of the credit for what is happening in Pudong and Shanghai more generally goes to Ma Yili, the former director of the Pudong Civil Affairs bureau who is now director of the Shanghai Civil Affairs department.  Ma is seen by many as the driving force behind the Pudong Public Welfare Park, and the local government's efforts to promote nonprofits to contribute to the development of local communities.  These initiatives have been expanded to other districts in Shanghai, and their effects are being felt in other nearby cities such as Nanjing.

In Nanjing, NGOs are on the rise and the Nanjing city government is now considering similar measures to energize the development of nonprofits.  I visited the most prominent NGO in Nanjing, the Amity Foundation, which in 2009 established a NGO Development Center to incubate local nonprofits much as Shanghai's NPI is doing.  Like NPI, Amity is an impressive, professional operation located in a beautiful space next to the leafy campus of Nanjing University.  It is the only NGO that I can think of that has its name displayed prominently on its front gate.

I spoke with the director of the NGO Development Center who told me Amity was being contracted by the central government to develop policy ideas and strategies to promote the NGO sector in Nanjing.   Later I had lunch with the director, and two members of Green Stone, an environmental NGO that is getting Amity support.

I also paid a visit to Tianxiagong (Justice Under Heaven), a new NGO in Nanjing that is essentially a branch organization of the well-known Beijing-based NGO, Yirenping, which engages in advocacy and legal aid for hepatitis B sufferers who encounter discrimination in the workplace.   I spoke with Yu Fangqiang, the young, smart and very persistent NGO campaigner who used to work for Yirenping and now heads the Nanjing office.  He gave me a book they had just produced of interviews with NGOs and individuals in the east China region who were fighting for just solutions to various social and environmental problems.

As organizations that share a mission of supporting and promoting China's NGOs, NPI, the NPO Development Center, Amity and Tianxiagong will all play a pivotal role in reshaping the civil society landscape in this part of China.  Due to their efforts, eastern China is no longer a backwater for NGOs.  Indeed, it may represent the future for China's NGOs.

My travels to visit NGOs in Sichuan

I realize it's been a while since I've posted.  China Development Brief just started a new project involving the updating of the Chinese NGO Directory that was last done in 2001.  Much has changed since then, and the number of NGOs has grown rapidly, so we thought it was high time for a new directory.  This one will focus on the more independent, grassroots, public interest NGOs, unlike the old one which included a number of GONGOs.

I just realized how big an undertaking this directory is when I took a trip to Sichuan to visit some NGOs in Chongqing and Chengdu to get a better sense of the NGO situation in the southwest.  I visited Wu Dengming's Green Volunteer League (GVL) which is one of the oldest environmental NGOs in the country, having been established in 1995, a year after Friends of Nature.  Wu is a feisty and energetic 72 years old and is still as active as ever.  I interviewed him about his life and we talked for about 4 hours.  In between, he was visited by two Europeans who were making a documentary about water in China and wanted to interview Wu over the next two weeks.   Wu told me there were now a few more NGOs in Chongqing, which used to be a backwater for NGOs.

My next stop took me to the 512 Voluntary Relief Services Center, which started as a network of NGOs that responded to the Sichuan earthquake.  I've written in a number of places about this Center which is led by the intrepid husband-and-wife team of Gao Guizi and Guo Hong.  Guo Hong is a sociologist and NGO researcher at the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences where the 512 Center is located.  I'd visited them twice before over the last few years, and it was good to see them again.  Gao took me down the alley next to the Academy where we sat and had a simple bowl of zhajiang mian, which I thought was a Beijing-style noodle dish, but Gao told me Sichuan has its own version of the noodles, less sauce and just some ground pork sprinkled over a bowl of noodles with a little spicy saucy at the bottom.  I was told I had to stir the noodles around to get the sauce mixed in.  It was very satisfying, and I have to say, better than the Beijing version.  And only 6 RMB!  

Both Gao and Guo are very thoughtful, knowledgeable observers of the NGO scene, especially in Sichuan, and they spent about 3 hours talking to me about the numerous NGOs that have emerged in the province.  I was impressed.  It seems that Sichuan may have supplanted Yunnan as the center of NGOs in southwest China. 

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and Civil Society Activism

Kudos to the Nobel Peace Prize committee for selecting three women activists from Africa and the Middle East.  They are President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman, a pro-democracy campaigner in Yemen.  Their selection turns the spotlight on the pivotal role of women in promoting development, democracy and peace.  But I also like the committee's decision because it shows that activism comes in all shapes and forms.  One women is an elected leader, another the leader of the Women for Peace movement uniting Christian and Muslim women in Liberia, and the last the founder of Women Journalists Without Chains, a civil society advocacy organization in Yemen.

I also like the fact that civil society activists got much of the credit.  Women like Gbowee and Karman did not just burst onto the scene, but have been building their organizations and movements for years.   According to the New York Times, Gbowee's Women for Peace was started in 2002, while Karman's Women Journalists Without Chains was established in 2007.  Their achievements are the result of years of patient, determined, brave activism.  As Thorbjorn Jagland, the head of the committee, noted the 2011 prize recognized those “who were there long before the world’s media was there reporting.”

There are many civil society activists like this in China -- women and men alike -- who have yet to get the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize committee or the international media, but deserve more of our attention for their work. 

A View from the Top: will upcoming policy changes make it easier for NGOs?

Recently, CDB (English) has created a special section, A View from the Top, that monitors changes in official thinking and actions on China's civil society.  For the section, I scan media reports and select reports that I think are significant and give us some insight into what is going on in the black box that we call the Chinese government. 

Just looking over the reports listed, you can see that over this past year there have been multiple reports suggesting that new policies are forthcoming making it easier for NGOs to register and fundraise.  But there are also reports showing that many difficulties remain.  One of them is an interview with Zheng Gongcheng of the National People's Congress Standing Committee.  Mr. Zheng discusses the obstacles holding up the Charity Law which was originally expected to be passed in 2009.  I made some comments on this article in another listserve, and am posting them here.

 "I don't think there's much that is new in this interview with Zheng Gongcheng.   What he does confirm is that there are multiple reasons holding up the Charity Law, as well as other regulations being revised by MOCA like the registration and management regs for social organizations. 

One of these is disagreement among policymakers over the content of these regulations.  One contentious issue that Zheng touches on is whether charity organizations (he seems to use this term instead of social organization) should have to get a supervising unit (yewu zhuguan bumen) in order to register.  This is an old issue that has been debated for at least the last 10 years, and raises concerns among more conservative, security-minded policymakers who don't want to give charity organizations too long of a leash.  Zheng interestingly takes a clear stand on this by saying he thinks a supervising unit violates the independent legal nature of a charity organization. 

This disagreement becomes particularly intense when the laws/regs are sent to the NPC and State Council where other departmental interests insert themselves.  I think MOCA realizes the regulatory environment for charity organizations is far from perfect and is committed to improving the environment, as we can see from the various initiatives they've taken in the past few years to revise the regs, and issue various other measures including the approval of local experiments in Beijing and other parts of the country.  And I think the debates over issues like the nature of charity, fundraising and registration that were renewed after the 2008 earthquake, and the most recent media reports on problems in the Red Cross and other GONGOs, have put more pressure on MOCA to improve the regulatory environment.

But MOCA is a relatively weak ministry and when other departments raise concerns, it lacks the clout to get the necessary support.  MOCA's case would be helped if a powerful leader took an interest in their cause and championed it, but I don't see this happening, especially in the run up to the 18th Party Congress next year.  Wen Jiabao perhaps, but he seems to be relegated to the sidelines?  So I'm not hopeful at least for the short term. 

Another reason for the delay has to do with consideration of how these laws and regs may affect other laws and regs in the pipeline. Zheng mentions the laws related to social security and social assistance and says that they might have to precede the Charity Law.  MOCA also has to coordinate and get the support of other departments that would be involved in the implementation of these laws and regs.  So in addition to security concerns, there are concerns about the timing and implementation of the laws and regs.  This is also tied to the local experiments going on in various areas of registration and fundraising.  Zheng alludes to this and implies that allowing local experiments and regulations to move ahead of the national level ones may be the preferred and realistic course of action given the logjam at the national level. 

I'm interested to see if the recent debates and revelations of scandals in various GONGOs will get the attention of the leadership.  It seems the debate over fundraising, charity and other related issues is being ratcheted up, as exemplified by the media scrutiny in the last few months.  I'm struck by all the reports of charity scandals that have come out recently, and can't recall this level of scrutiny in the past.  We'll have to see if anything comes out of this growing public awareness and scrutiny."

China Development Brief (English) August Updates

I realize I haven't posted in a while, but below is the reason why.   Here's our monthly newsletter about new developments at CDB (English):

Translations for August

This month, thanks to the hard work of our CDB Translators, we are pleased to offer translations of five articles highlighting the diversity of China’s NGO/nonprofit sector.   They include articles about:

Lesbian organizing in China

A survey of major public welfare events of 2010 voted on by the readers of CDB and two other NGO publications;

Students who tell their story of starting a NGO in Xiamen;

A Shanghai autism NGO's community building efforts;

The first national forum for NGOs serving the intellectually disabled 

Theme of the Month: Mainstreaming

One theme that emerges from the articles on NGOs serving the intellectually disabled is a desire on the part of many NGOs to find ways to join the mainstream of society.  Mainstreaming strategies include collaborating with and seeking funding from local governments, media, the business sector, and the communities in which they work.   This theme reflects an important change in the thinking and strategies of NGOs that in the past tended to be marginalized and were often better known and appreciated by those in the international community than by the Chinese themselves. 

Upcoming Translations in September

Below is a list of articles that will be appearing in the month of September on CDB (English)’s website. 

1)  “From Opposition to Dialogue”, an article about recent actions taken by the Green Choice Alliance, a network of 34 NGOs, on industrial pollution cases. 

2)  “An Interview with Ma Jun”, an interview with one of China’s best-known environmentalist who is a central player in the Green Choice Alliance.

3)   “A Conversation about Rural Library Projects”, a CDB-moderated discussion with several NGOs about their different approaches and assessments of the effectiveness of rural libraries.

4)  “China’s Huiling: Harmonious Cooperation Requires Rule of Law and Culture”,   Huiling, one of China’s most prominent NGOs serving the intellectually disabled, discusses some of the obstacles it faces in working with the disabled in China’s communities, including unfavorable legislation for civil society organizations.

5)  “Beijing LGBT Center”, a profile of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Center, one of the best-known LGBT NGOs in China, with a discussion of the future of the LGBT movement in China.

Check Out Our NGO Resources

We also encourage you to peruse our other NGO resources:

             A Special Issue: New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China (August 2011)

 A Bibliography of Sources on Civil Society ;

 Laws and Regulations Pertaining to the Civil Society Sector;

 Announcements about jobs, conferences and activities in the nonprofit sector.  

Updating CDB’s Directories of NGOs

We are currently in the process of updating CDB’s Directory of International NGOs in China,  and Directory of Chinese NGOs.  The updating of these two directories is a rather large undertaking that will take some time.  We thank you for your patience as we try to get the new information up as quickly as our limited resources will allow. 

Volunteer Translators and Interns

CDB (English) depends heavily on the help of our volunteer CDB translators and interns.   If you are interested in being a CDB translator, check our website here.  We are always looking for good interns who will play an important part in the development of CDB(English).  If you are interested, check our website here.

If you know of others who wish to receive monthly CDB (English) newsletters, please have them email inquiries@chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.  If you do not wish to continue receiving newsletters, please reply to this email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” and we will take you off our mailing list.

  

Best wishes,

  

Shawn Shieh, Editor

China Development Brief (English)

CDB (English)'s Inaugural Special Issue on Philanthropy and Civil Society

I am very pleased to announce our inaugural special issue on New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China is now available on our new website (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  (P.S. We are not the same as the old China Development Brief which is at www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com). 

Thanks to the fine work of our CDB translators, the 12 articles that make up this special issue have been appearing on our website for the last month.   Together, they provide a compelling and insightful glimpse into an important change taking place in China's nonprofit, philanthropic community.  For each article, I have written a brief introduction to provide context, and inserted explanatory notes through the text.  To provide coherence and context, I have also provided a Preface and Table of Contents for the special issue.

The Preface

·      tells how the special issue was produced;

·      provides a short primer on the nonprofit/philanthropic sector in the PRC;

·      summarizes the key findings of the 12 articles. 

It has been a busy summer for us at CDB(English).   In addition to getting our website up, and our special issue released, I have been traveling in the U.S. promoting CDB(English), and meeting with potential funders and partners.   I gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  Both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the Wilson Center and National Committee for those interested.

We hope you will take the time to explore the articles and other resources we provide on our website.   These resources include translations of Laws and Regulations governing the nonprofit sector, a Bibliography of sources on civil society, and Announcements of jobs, conferences, and activities of interest to an international audience. 

We will continue to provide translations of selected CDB articles, and develop the other NGO resources on our website.   We will be sending you monthly newsletters alerting you to new material on our website in addition to new CDB (English) developments and events.  If you know of others who wish to receive monthly CDB (English) newsletters, please have them email inquiries@chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.  If you do not wish to continue receiving newsletters, please reply to this email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” and we will take you off our mailing list.

CDB (English) would like to thank CDB, the Ford Foundation, and our CDB (English) translators and interns for their support.   As a translation project of CDB, CDB (English) would not be possible without the hard work of CDB staff who invest long hours to report on the nonprofit sector in China.   We also appreciate the financial support of the Ford Foundation who believed in us from the very start.  Finally, our translations and other resources would not be possible without the work of our CDB Translators, and interns: Emily Chesborough, Stephanie Roach, and Justin Pena. 

Promoting CDB (English)'s special issue on philanthropy and civil society in China

I'm pleased to finally announce that our special issue is now online at China Development Brief (English) (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  The special issue comes with a Preface and Table of Contents.  The Preface provides some information about the special issue, a brief primer on the nonprofit and philanthropic sector in the PRC, and the key findings from the 12 articles translated for the special issue.  I'm very happy with the result and believe CDB's reporting provides a very insightful, thorough look into a very important development in China's civil society.  I'll be emailing a monthly newsletter about the special issue and other developments at CDB (English).  If you'd like to get on the email list, please send me an email at profshawn@gmail.com.

When I was in the U.S. in July, I also gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  For those interested, both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the National Committee (http://www.ncuscr.org/programs/same-bed-different-dreams) and the Woodrow Wilson Center (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/same-bed-different-dreams-the-new-philanthropy-and-civil-society-china).