The 14th Five Year Plan for Social Organizations: Opportunities for NGOs

In my last blogpost, I wrote about the 14th Five Year Plan (FYP) for Social Organizations released in October 2021 and its blueprint for imposing greater controls and supervision over Chinese social organizations in an effort to create a "high-quality" social organization sector.   While the FYP instills little optimism for the development of an independent civil society, it does identify areas in which NGOs in China can contribute to the development of the sector, and to sustainable and inclusive development in China and globally. 

Sections 3.6 and 3.7 of the FYP call for strengthening the internal management, governance and technical skills of social organizations. These areas are critical to developing more professional and disciplined social organizations, and include strengthening social organizations' financial and human resource management, governance, legal compliance, communications and public relations, marketing, and digital capabilities. 

Section 3.7 identifies attracting more talent to the sector as another critical need, and calls for encouraging more majors and courses on social organization management and social work, and more continuing education services and training for those working in the sector.

Section 3.8 includes a number of areas that NGOs can contribute to both in terms of policy advocacy and service provision that align with national strategies:

Support social organizations nationwide to provide professional services focusing on national strategies such as rejuvenating the country through science and education, strengthening the country through improvement of talent, innovation-driven development, rural revitalization, coordinated regional development, sustainable development, and addressing the aging of the population. Support regional and provincial social organizations focusing on the development of the western region, the revitalization of old industrial bases in the northeast, the promotion of high-quality development in the central region, the first development in the eastern region, the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the integration of the Yangtze River Delta Region.

This includes China's "going out" strategy in line with the Belt and Road Initiative and the recently release White Paper on International Development Cooperation in the New Era.

Properly implement the "going global" of social organizations, orderly carry out overseas cooperation, enhance the ability of Chinese social organizations to participate in global governance, and strengthen the influence of Chinese culture and China's "soft power.” (Section 3.8) 

One other area of opportunity for NGOs will be in the provision of community services through community-based organizations (CBOs) or what the FYP refers to as "community social organizations" (shequ shehui zuzhi). This aligns with the rollout of a major government initiative (see the Ministry of Civil Affairs' Special Action Plan for Cultivating and Developing Community Social Organizations (2021-23)) to strengthen the infrastructure for community services directing more attention and resources from sources such as government procurement and philanthropy to improving community services in urban and rural areas. This is elaborated on in Section 3.8 of the FYP:  

Promote social organizations to serve communities. Focus on consolidating and expanding the results of poverty alleviation and effectively linking with rural revitalization, and give play to the active role of social organizations in mobilizing social forces, linking resources from all parties, and providing professional services. Focus on special groups and mobilize social organizations to participate in public welfare undertakings such as elderly care, childcare, and assistance to the disabled. Focus on the concerns of the masses, give full play to the active role of social organizations in expanding public participation, promoting democratic consultations, resolving social conflicts, and spreading a culture of the rule of law, so as to better participate in grassroots social governance. 

Implement the "Special Action Plan for Cultivating and Developing Community Social Organizations". Speed up the development of community social organizations, and guide all localities to use more resources such as policies, funds, and talents for the construction of community social organizations. Give full play to the role of hub social organizations such as federations of community social organizations and community social organization service centers…. and guide community social organizations to link social workers and volunteers to participate in community governance, provide community services, cultivate community culture, carry out community consultations, resolve community conflicts, and promote community harmony. 

 　　　

While the focus of this initiative is more on building the capacity of community social organizations to provide more professional community services, there may also be opportunities for policy advocacy on formulating more enabling policies to support this sector.