In a recent posting on her Asia Catalyst blog, Meg Davis reprints an exchange between the two of us on how China's new nonprofit regulations - including new regulations on international NGOs in China's Yunnan Province (for a text of the regulations, see http://www.yunnan.cn/html/2010-02/23/content_1082060.htm) -- were affecting grassroots groups. The essay was reposted to Chinapol (aka C-Pol), an email list of professionals working on Chinese policy issues.
I'm posting it here as well because it gets to an important issue that Meg and I disagree on, and that is, whether or not new regulations (when there were none previously as in the case of Yunnan) represent a tightening of control over NGOs. This is an important issue because China currently has very few laws and regulations governing the NGO/nonprofit sector, and we'll undoubtedly see more laws and regulations. Will this be beneficial or detrimental to NGOs? I realize some people will see regulations as an effort by an authoritarian state to control NGOs, but I'm keeping an open mind. I think having some kind of regulatory structure is better than having none at all for reasons I state below.
Shawn Shieh writes:
Meg,
Thanks for writing this up. I'm actually in the middle of translating the Yunnan regs, so if anyone has the translation already and would be willing to share, I'd be most grateful.
I had one question and a comment. In your discussion of the Yunnan regs on foreign NGOs, you note that foreign NGOs will have to apply for approval with the provincial Civil Affairs and then go on to say that this will make them [government-organized NGOs, or] GONGOs. I didn't understand the connection. How does applying for approval translate into becoming a GONGO?
My comment has to do with the larger question of NGO regulation which has been the subject of some lively discussion on this listserv. You call the Yunnan regs a tightening of control over foreign NGOs, but let me present another way of looking at it. My understanding is that foreign NGOs in China at this point aren't really clear how to register because there are no specific regs governing them, except for foreign chambers of commerce. It's a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy where different govt depts and local govts have to deal with them on a case by case basis. Foreign NGOs have been able to work in China by entering into some creative arrangements with their local counterparts, but it's not an ideal situation. I think it's in this context that the Yunnan govt is now experimenting with clearer regulations governing foreign NGOs, just as other provinces are experimenting with regs for other kinds of NGOs such as community-based organizations (CBOs), trade associations, and foundations. Perhaps the experience with these different experiments may eventually percolate upwards to the center and shape the revisions of the NGO regs that we've been expecting to come out for so long.
So I see these regs as a way to clarify the regulatory environment, rather than as a tightening. It seems preferable to have some kind of clear standards and guidelines for foreign NGOs than to have none at all, although of course the devil is in the details and the implementation. If foreign NGOs continue to be stymied by bureaucratic red tape and are unable to register using these regs, then they may just go back to the old way of doing things. Either way, with or without these Yunnan regs, foreign NGOs that are not registered with Civil Affairs are technically illegal.
I'd be interested to hear what people working in foreign NGOs think about this, on or offline.
On the issue of regulating both domestic and foreign NGOs, I'd like to highly recommend Deng Guosheng's article that just came out in Spring 2010 issue of The China Review, "The Hidden Rules Governing China's Unregistered NGOs: Management and Consequences". It sheds a lot of light on a murky subject.
Shawn
Meg Davis replied:
Dear Shawn and colleagues,
Many thanks to Shawn for his thoughtful comments and questions. I'd like to start by referring to Shawn's useful interventions on other C-Pol threads about the fact that there are a lot of different kinds of GONGOs, some of which are empty shells for the purpose of collecting grant money, and some of which do valid and life-saving work (Shawn, I was hoping to find a post to this on your blog that I could cite in the article - if there is one, could you send it offline?). Saying a group is "like a GONGO" is not necessarily a statement about the value of the work the organization does, but more a comment on the restrictions and controls on that work.
When I wrote the blog post on China's NGO regulations, I would have spent more space elaborating on the Yunnan regs, but the post was already quite long; I'm happy to have a chance to do so now. To start, I need to make reference to international rights law, quoting from the report I wrote for HRW in '05 on restrictions on AIDS NGOs in China:
"Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed but not ratified, China has the right to restrict freedom of association, so long as those restrictions are 'necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others'. Any restrictions should be interpreted narrowly, and be proportionate to the reasons for them; a government should use no more restrictive means than are absolutely required. While the state has the right to ensure that NGOs are honest and transparent, legal requirements should be minimal, clear, and attainable, permitting maximum flexibility for NGOs to establish themselves and perform their daily work. They should be enforced without discrimination."
In other words....states do have a right to restrict registration or establishment of NGOs, and this is something that all countries do. To take the US as an example (not because it's a model, but because it's the system with which I'm most familiar), someone registering a nonprofit needs to first file incorporation papers with the state, and then file much a much longer application with the federal government in order to obtain tax-exempt status. In founding Asia Catalyst, I went through both those processes with the help of a pro bono lawyer. While this was certainly a lot of annoying paperwork that had to be done carefully, the requirements were clear, attainable, non-discriminatory, and did not prevent our organization from getting down to business right away. I didn't have to have guanxi [personal connections] in the state attorney general's office, or in the IRS. My lawyer and I didn't have to buy gifts or take anyone out for expensive meals. We sent in the paperwork registered mail and got a letter of determination back within the legally-mandated time frame, end of story.
The Yunnan regulations are not minimal, clear, and in many cases will not be attainable. They also are not simply a matter of filling out paperwork and mailing it in. They require foreign NGOs to obtain "approval" for their work from multiple different, sometimes vaguely defined departments; the documents required are left to the discretion of those departments.
More to the point, because of the vague way in which these regs are written, in practice there is broad leeway to implement them in a discriminatory manner. In practice, in order to register with the Civil Affairs Bureau, the foreign NGO in question is going to basically need a "mother-in-law" agency (a la the GONGO registration requirements); that is, some senior official or friendly high-ranking department that can pull strings, make calls, maybe take some people out to lunch, and smooth the way to registration. That official or agency will then be held accountable for whatever the foreign NGO does, and will have some say over decisions the foreign NGO makes. If the foreign NGO plans something that someone in power finds anxiety-producing, the first call is probably going to go to the Chinese friends who helped facilitate registration.
Of course, to some degree this is already what happens for foreign NGOs that open offices in China, as most of them will say off the record. Most of them won't say it or anything critical about NGO management on the record (as one journalist pointed out, writing to me offline about how she'd like to write about the Yunnan regs but can't find any foreign NGO to comment for the article). This is just part of why some ticked-off Chinese AIDS activist friends tell me they already think of most foreign NGOs working in China as being GONGOs. If Asia Catalyst ever tries to open an office in Beijing, I expect we'll have to become the same way - it's the nature of the game.
That said, Shawn, I'm intrigued by your reference to "other provinces...experimenting with regs for other kinds of NGOs such as community-based organizations (CBOs), trade associations, and foundations" and would be grateful for references/info, either online, offline or on your blog. If this is part of a larger trend, it would be interesting to do some comparing and contrasting.
However, I'm not persuaded by your prediction that organizations that fail to register in Yunnan will just go back to doing things the way they were before. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the regs are implemented.
Meg
Shawn Shieh replied:
Meg,
I think we have somewhat different interpretations of what a GONGO is, and maybe that's where my original confusion came from. To me, a GONGO is an "NGO" established by a party or government agency but registered with Civil Affairs as an NGO with the agency that established it being its "mother-in-law" or professional supervising unit. The state provides funds and staff for the GONGO, and determines its leadership. Most GONGOs also have an administrative rank. Then there are "real" NGOs, some of which are registered with Civil Affairs and have a professional supervising unit, but nevertheless are private, formed voluntarily and self-governing. I think there is an important and very real distinction to be made between the former (e.g. GONGOs or top-down NGOs) and the latter (e.g. bottom-up NGOs), and we shouldn't conflate them simply because they have a "mother-in-law". It's one thing to have a "mother-in-law" for registration purposes (and as a number of NGOs I've spoken to indicate, the "mother-in-law" is largely pro forma and doesn't really supervise the NGO that closely). It's quite another to have your funding, staff and leader come from the party-state.
I've written a post on the distinction between GONGOs and NGOs in my blog that is available in the June 2010 section of this blog.
Showing posts with label GONGOs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GONGOs. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Defining NGOs in China 1.0
June 29, 2010
I'm on vacation in the U.S. and will be posting to this blog, but more infrequently than normal until I return to Beijing in mid July.
Here's a post I've been meaning to post for some time now about the problematic issue of defining NGOs in China.
This blog is about Chinese NGOs, but that begs an important question: what is an NGO in the Chinese context? This is a difficult question to answer because NGOs have had such a short history in China and have emerged in an inhospitable landscape dominated by the state. As a result, the forms NGOs have taken at this early stage often do not resemble the NGOs we are familiar with.
When we think of NGOs, well-known nonprofits and foundations come to mind -- Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Common Cause, Oxfam, United Way, Ford Foundation. These are organizations that fit a generally accepted definition of NGOs (also known as nonprofits, civil society organizations (CSOs), or voluntary associations) as having certain properties: they are private (e.g. institutionally separate from government), nonprofit, self-governing and voluntary . The above named NGOs are also formal organizations legally registered as nonprofits, with a staff, office, charter and board of directors, though scholars like Salamon and Sokolowski include not only formal organizations but also informal organizations and groups as long as they meet on a regular basis.
Why is it so difficult to apply this definition to China? One source of confusion has to do with the Chinese practice of calling organizations set up by the government (what we call government-organized NGOs or GONGOs) NGOs. In China, the term NGO is used very loosely in official parlance to refer to a wide range of organizations including those set up by the party-state. To give an example, corporatist-type “mass organizations” (qunzhong zuzhi) which were established by the Communist Party after 1949 to “represent” specific constituencies such as youth, women, and workers, sometimes present themselves as NGOs. These include the well-known Communist Youth League, All-China Women’s Federation and All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Then in the 1980s, as China opened up to the outside world, other organizations were established by government agencies to cooperate with overseas organizations on environmental protection, population control, trade promotion and other issues. These GONGOs often present themselves as NGOs to overseas organizations that were interested in working with Chinese NGOs, even though they are funded and staffed by the government, their leaders are appointed by a government agency and have an administrative rank. Wang Ming, a leading NGO scholar at Tsinghua University, calls these top-down NGOs . Many Chinese scholars see GONGOs as the first wave of NGOs in China, even though GONGOs do not meet many of the commonly accepted criteria for NGOs. They are clearly not private, voluntary or self-governing. Yet many are registered with Civil Affairs departments as “social organizations’, a term the Chinese government uses interchangeably with NGOs.
So what about real NGOs in China, what Wang Ming calls bottom-up NGOs? These NGOs do meet the criteria of being private, voluntary, self-governing and nonprofit, but it’s not always easy to spot them because so few are like the well-known nonprofits and foundations we are familiar with in the U.S. and other developed countries. Some are legally registered with Civil Affairs as “social organizations”, and have an office, staff, charter, etc., but many more are registered as businesses, or unregistered, but in reality they operate as NGOs. Many of these business or unregistered NGOs have an office, staff, governing board, etc, but some are loosely organized volunteer or community groups, while others may be just a one person, or virtual online operation running out of someone’s home.
In short, the difficulty with defining NGOs in China is that appearances are deceiving, as many things are in this country. On the surface, GONGOs or top-down NGOs look more like the NGOs we know so well. They are legally-registered organizations with an office, staff, branch offices in the provinces, public visibility, respectability and influence. Yet they are not NGOs according to the criteria above. Now take the bottom-up NGOs. On the surface, they do not look like the NGOs we know. They tend not to be legally registered, to be small operations that avoid the public eye, and yet they meet the definition of NGOs. They are in many ways similar to private enterprises and businesses in China during the 1980s that operated in a grey area of illicitness between the legal and illegal.
This blog is dedicated to the real NGOs in China, those that are established voluntarily by citizens with a sense of purpose, self-governing, nonprofit and not part of the state apparatus. At the same time, I don’t believe in drawing a hard and fast line between GONGOs and NGOs. Some GONGOs have become more independent in recent years and may evolve into something resembling NGOs in the future, and thus need to be included in the story of NGOs in China for reasons that I’ll write about in a future post.
I'm on vacation in the U.S. and will be posting to this blog, but more infrequently than normal until I return to Beijing in mid July.
Here's a post I've been meaning to post for some time now about the problematic issue of defining NGOs in China.
This blog is about Chinese NGOs, but that begs an important question: what is an NGO in the Chinese context? This is a difficult question to answer because NGOs have had such a short history in China and have emerged in an inhospitable landscape dominated by the state. As a result, the forms NGOs have taken at this early stage often do not resemble the NGOs we are familiar with.
When we think of NGOs, well-known nonprofits and foundations come to mind -- Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Common Cause, Oxfam, United Way, Ford Foundation. These are organizations that fit a generally accepted definition of NGOs (also known as nonprofits, civil society organizations (CSOs), or voluntary associations) as having certain properties: they are private (e.g. institutionally separate from government), nonprofit, self-governing and voluntary . The above named NGOs are also formal organizations legally registered as nonprofits, with a staff, office, charter and board of directors, though scholars like Salamon and Sokolowski include not only formal organizations but also informal organizations and groups as long as they meet on a regular basis.
Why is it so difficult to apply this definition to China? One source of confusion has to do with the Chinese practice of calling organizations set up by the government (what we call government-organized NGOs or GONGOs) NGOs. In China, the term NGO is used very loosely in official parlance to refer to a wide range of organizations including those set up by the party-state. To give an example, corporatist-type “mass organizations” (qunzhong zuzhi) which were established by the Communist Party after 1949 to “represent” specific constituencies such as youth, women, and workers, sometimes present themselves as NGOs. These include the well-known Communist Youth League, All-China Women’s Federation and All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Then in the 1980s, as China opened up to the outside world, other organizations were established by government agencies to cooperate with overseas organizations on environmental protection, population control, trade promotion and other issues. These GONGOs often present themselves as NGOs to overseas organizations that were interested in working with Chinese NGOs, even though they are funded and staffed by the government, their leaders are appointed by a government agency and have an administrative rank. Wang Ming, a leading NGO scholar at Tsinghua University, calls these top-down NGOs . Many Chinese scholars see GONGOs as the first wave of NGOs in China, even though GONGOs do not meet many of the commonly accepted criteria for NGOs. They are clearly not private, voluntary or self-governing. Yet many are registered with Civil Affairs departments as “social organizations’, a term the Chinese government uses interchangeably with NGOs.
So what about real NGOs in China, what Wang Ming calls bottom-up NGOs? These NGOs do meet the criteria of being private, voluntary, self-governing and nonprofit, but it’s not always easy to spot them because so few are like the well-known nonprofits and foundations we are familiar with in the U.S. and other developed countries. Some are legally registered with Civil Affairs as “social organizations”, and have an office, staff, charter, etc., but many more are registered as businesses, or unregistered, but in reality they operate as NGOs. Many of these business or unregistered NGOs have an office, staff, governing board, etc, but some are loosely organized volunteer or community groups, while others may be just a one person, or virtual online operation running out of someone’s home.
In short, the difficulty with defining NGOs in China is that appearances are deceiving, as many things are in this country. On the surface, GONGOs or top-down NGOs look more like the NGOs we know so well. They are legally-registered organizations with an office, staff, branch offices in the provinces, public visibility, respectability and influence. Yet they are not NGOs according to the criteria above. Now take the bottom-up NGOs. On the surface, they do not look like the NGOs we know. They tend not to be legally registered, to be small operations that avoid the public eye, and yet they meet the definition of NGOs. They are in many ways similar to private enterprises and businesses in China during the 1980s that operated in a grey area of illicitness between the legal and illegal.
This blog is dedicated to the real NGOs in China, those that are established voluntarily by citizens with a sense of purpose, self-governing, nonprofit and not part of the state apparatus. At the same time, I don’t believe in drawing a hard and fast line between GONGOs and NGOs. Some GONGOs have become more independent in recent years and may evolve into something resembling NGOs in the future, and thus need to be included in the story of NGOs in China for reasons that I’ll write about in a future post.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Challenges for Grassroots NGOs in China
March 12, 2010
Following on the last post on grassroots NGOs, here's another post (in Chinese and English) from Yu Fangqiang, who works for Yirenping Center for Anti-Discrimination Law, a Chinese NGO that was in the news last year when its office in Beijing was raided by Chinese authorities, and its publications confiscated. I met Fangqiang and interviewed him a few months prior to that raid when I was in Yunnan interviewing a HIV/AIDS NGO. Fangqiang was working with that NGO to develop a program to provide legal assistance to people who were being discriminated against because they were HIV positive. Not surprisingly for someone who works on the front lines, Fangqiang's observations about the challenges facing grassroots NGOs in China are right on the mark. He also has some interesting criticisms about the way in which international NGOs and foundations deal with grassroots NGOs, giving them funding for projects but ignoring their core funding needs to pay for staff, office equipment, and other expenses that an NGO needs to survive.
This article was taken from an online colloquium on Yazhou Diaocha (Asia Investigation), http://yazhoudiaocha.com/commentary/225.php
2nd Online Colloquium: Challenges for Grassroots NGOs
2009年05月17日 05:01 | 评论(0)
于方强 : 草根组织的挑战
Fangqiang Yu : Challenges for Grassroots NGOs in China
(Scroll down for English text)
在中国大陆组建一个非官方背景的NGO，是相当困难的一件事。这种困难来自：政府政策束缚、官方背景NGO的资源垄断、社会诚信缺失、草根NGO自身能力不足、资金支持方的要求脱离现实。
政府政策束缚
中国大陆《宪法》规定：中华人民共和国公民有言论、出版、集会、结社、游行、示威的自由。但要在大陆结社（组建一个NGO），就必须按照《社会团体登记管理条例》的要求去登记，否则不承认其法律地位。没有合法的地位，公开接受社会捐赠，追究起来是犯罪行为。该法例规定，成立一个组织，除了要有固定的住所、专职工作人员和3万元以上的注册资金外，还必须要有业务主管单位的批准文件。而"业务主管单位"，则是指各级政府部门。这也被称为中国特色的"双重管理制度"----即非政府组织由民政部门和另一行政部门共同管理。而在现实中，很少有行政部门愿意成为"业务主管单位"，因为这会惹来很多"麻烦"。近期，有消息透露，《社会团体登记管理条例》正在修订，不符合注册条件的组织可以采用"备案"的形式获得合法的身份。但根据全国近二十个省市的新规定来看，"备案"令人失望的预期增强。
官方背景NGO的资源垄断
因为大陆严格的非政府组织管理方式，导致一些带有官方背景的NGO才有能力注册。比如一些听起来是NGO的残疾人联合会、妇女联合会、工人委员会等，都是官方背景的NGO，这些组织在中国被称为"GONGO"。甚至现在，还有一些官方NGO的工作人员薪酬由政府拨付。这些"GONGO"曾在很长一段时间内垄断了公益资源，包括资金、人才、社会信任度等。以去年发生的"512汶川大地震"为例，全国的捐款仅能通过中国红十字会、中华慈善总会发放到灾区。其他的机构公布捐赠账号和公开募集捐款，都有违法犯罪的风险。清华大学NGO研究所的一份研究报告也证实了这一点。
社会诚信缺失
从1978年改革开放后，中国大陆在政治、经济上经历了巨大的社会变革。原本的"熟人社会"由于急剧的城市化演变而支离破碎，传统社会价值观也因"金钱至上"的私利主义迅速瓦解。在这种情况下，一个不具有合法地位的草根NGO，需要面临苛刻、甚至无理的质疑和更长时间的社会考验。社会普遍不相信来自民间的个人可以毫无功利目的去做一件对社会有利的事。在由于社会诚信的缺失，商业支持也变得更为功利----他们更愿意将资金投入到令政府满意的领域或者机构。
草根NGO自身能力不足
很多投身NGO的人，都是在试图实现自己的理想。而对于财务、机构管理、对外交流方面则能力较弱。当前大陆很多NGO领袖，不仅没有"公民社会"的概念、不能亲身示范做一个"公民"，还多半是社会的失败者----他们被旧有体制所淘汰，才被迫接触到一个全新的NGO领域，能力视野都有很大的局限。这就会出现财务不透明、人才流失、使命感丧失等"治理危机"，一旦因此而遭受社会质疑时，往往难于招架。
资金支持方的要求脱离现实
现在，中国大陆已经存有很多草根NGO。除了极个别民政注册外，他们或者未注册，或者工商注册。支持这些草根NGO成长的基金会也越来越多，比如：全球基金、亚洲基金会、福特基金会、盖茨基金会等。这些机构对中国草根NGO的成长做出了巨大贡献，但其带来的不良影响也非常深远。他们无视中国大陆草根NGO的现实，而仅仅把草根NGO当成完成项目的工作，往往只支持活动费用，不支持人员工资、行政费用、设备购买、办公室租金。很多草根NGO为了生存而不得不做假账，出现严重的财务问题，资金支持方对这种现象不寻求更好的解决方法反而大加指责，进一步恶化了中国大陆草根NGO的生存环境。这些资金支持方需要明白一个关键道理：在一些特定领域，如IDU人群、MSM人群、HIV感染者、流动人口，草根NGO与社群有着异常紧密的联系，官方或官方NGO没有草根NGO，根本无法完成项目目标。
作者简介：于方强，北京益仁平中心反歧视法律援助事务负责人，关注大陆公民社会发展，涉足领域包括AIDS、HBV、劳工、助学、罕见病等。
Challenges for Grassroots Organizations in China
In mainland China it is extremely hard to start-up a non-governmental organization (NGO) without a background in government. The difficulties are due to restrictive government policies, monopolization of resources by NGOs with government background, a lack of trust throughout the overall society, the lack of capabilities among the grassroots' organizations, and unrealistic expectations from funders.
Restrictive Government Policies
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China requires that all its citizens have the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to peaceably assemble, organize, demonstrate and petition. However, in order to organize in mainland China (i.e., to establish an NGO), one has to register the organization according to the Social Organizations Registration and Administration Act. If the organization does not do this it is not protected under the law. It is criminal for such an organization to publicly accept outside donations without a legal status. In addition, to establish such an NGO, they must have a regular business location, full-time staff, a registration capital of more than thirty thousand yuan and official documents with a stamp of approval from the governmental agencies, which have been designated as "supervising offices."
The fact that one non-governmental organization will be co-administered by a civil affairs governmental office and another public administration office represents the unique "Chinese way" of double administration. However, in reality what happens is that few public administration offices actually are interested in bearing the "troubles" of being a "supervising office." Recently the Social Organizations Registration and Administration Act has been amended. It now states that organizations that are disqualified from registering may still get legal status under a separate filing system. However provisions of the amended Act, enacted in nearly twenty provinces and cities across the country, are expected to still be discouraging.
Monopoly of Resources by NGOs with Government Background
Because of the rigorous administration of NGOs, only those with government background are able to register. Some NGOs - such as Disabled Persons' Federation, Women's Federation, National Labor Union, etc. - all have governmental background. These organizations are called "GONGO" in China. Some of the staff of these NGOs are even on the government payroll. These "GONGOs" have long monopolized the philanthropic resources of China, including their funding, human resources, social trust, etc. Take for example last year's Wenchuan Earthquake. Donations from all over the country were only distributed to the stricken region via the Red Cross Society of China or China Charity Federation. Other organizations that publish bank account numbers to solicit and accept donations run the risk of being charged by the court, according to a research report done by the Center of NGOs, at Tsinghua University.
A Lack of Trust Throughout Society
Since the Reform and Opening Policy of 1978, Mainland China has seen tremendous social changes both politically and economically. The past "society of acquaintances" completely fell apart due to the rapid urbanization process. In addition, its traditional social values were devoured by the "money first" principle driven by self interests. In this context a grassroots NGO with no legal status faces harsh and even irrational doubts and a long road to societal acceptance. In general, the public does not believe that one person, with no government affiliation, would do something beneficial for society without a self-interested motive. Also because of this lack of trust, enterprise sponsorships prefer funding causes or organizations that the government has endorsed.
The Lack of Capabilities Among Grassroots Organizations
Admittedly, many people involved with NGOs are idealists who want to realize their dreams for society. They might not be all that great in dealing with finances, administration and external communication. However, many NGO managers in mainland China are people who were 'failures' in society - they are abandoned by the old system and are forced to this whole new world of NGOs, with enormous limitations in both their capability and their visions. "Administration crises" can easily arise in their organizations because of non-transparent financial records, loss of talent, and an eroding sense of mission. Once these difficulties become public, they are almost always unable to be resolved.
Unrealistic Expectations from Funders
Today, there are already many grassroots NGOs in mainland China. Most of them are unregistered, others are registered as business organizations. Fewer are registered at a civil affairs office. There are increasingly more foundations that support these NGOs, such as the Global Fund, The Asia Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Gates Foundation. Even though these agencies have made tremendous contributions to the growth of NGOs in mainland China, their negative impact can be just as profound. They tend to see these NGOs as tools to accomplish their local projects, so they only fund their own specific activities and ignore the broader reality, which is that these NGOs also need to pay bills, salaries, administration costs, office supplies, rent, etc. Consequently, grassroots NGOs sometimes resort to manipulating their books in order to survive and this leads to very serious financial problems. When this happens, funders tend not to seek better solutions, but instead they severely criticize the NGOs, which creates an even more difficult situation.
One important thing these funders need to know:
In specific areas, these NGOs have critical close connections with vulnerable groups such as Injecting Drug Users (the IDU population), Men who have sex with men (the MSM population), people infected with HIV, and the migrant population. The government or governmental NGOs simply cannot accomplish their projects without the assistance from grassroots NGOs.
About the author:
Fangqiang Yu, Managing Partner of Beijing Yirenping Center for Anti-Discrimination Law. He focuses on the social development of citizens living in mainland China, and specialized in AIDS-, HBV-, labor-, education assistance-, rare disease-related fields.
Following on the last post on grassroots NGOs, here's another post (in Chinese and English) from Yu Fangqiang, who works for Yirenping Center for Anti-Discrimination Law, a Chinese NGO that was in the news last year when its office in Beijing was raided by Chinese authorities, and its publications confiscated. I met Fangqiang and interviewed him a few months prior to that raid when I was in Yunnan interviewing a HIV/AIDS NGO. Fangqiang was working with that NGO to develop a program to provide legal assistance to people who were being discriminated against because they were HIV positive. Not surprisingly for someone who works on the front lines, Fangqiang's observations about the challenges facing grassroots NGOs in China are right on the mark. He also has some interesting criticisms about the way in which international NGOs and foundations deal with grassroots NGOs, giving them funding for projects but ignoring their core funding needs to pay for staff, office equipment, and other expenses that an NGO needs to survive.
This article was taken from an online colloquium on Yazhou Diaocha (Asia Investigation), http://yazhoudiaocha.com/commentary/225.php
2nd Online Colloquium: Challenges for Grassroots NGOs
2009年05月17日 05:01 | 评论(0)
于方强 : 草根组织的挑战
Fangqiang Yu : Challenges for Grassroots NGOs in China
(Scroll down for English text)
在中国大陆组建一个非官方背景的NGO，是相当困难的一件事。这种困难来自：政府政策束缚、官方背景NGO的资源垄断、社会诚信缺失、草根NGO自身能力不足、资金支持方的要求脱离现实。
政府政策束缚
中国大陆《宪法》规定：中华人民共和国公民有言论、出版、集会、结社、游行、示威的自由。但要在大陆结社（组建一个NGO），就必须按照《社会团体登记管理条例》的要求去登记，否则不承认其法律地位。没有合法的地位，公开接受社会捐赠，追究起来是犯罪行为。该法例规定，成立一个组织，除了要有固定的住所、专职工作人员和3万元以上的注册资金外，还必须要有业务主管单位的批准文件。而"业务主管单位"，则是指各级政府部门。这也被称为中国特色的"双重管理制度"----即非政府组织由民政部门和另一行政部门共同管理。而在现实中，很少有行政部门愿意成为"业务主管单位"，因为这会惹来很多"麻烦"。近期，有消息透露，《社会团体登记管理条例》正在修订，不符合注册条件的组织可以采用"备案"的形式获得合法的身份。但根据全国近二十个省市的新规定来看，"备案"令人失望的预期增强。
官方背景NGO的资源垄断
因为大陆严格的非政府组织管理方式，导致一些带有官方背景的NGO才有能力注册。比如一些听起来是NGO的残疾人联合会、妇女联合会、工人委员会等，都是官方背景的NGO，这些组织在中国被称为"GONGO"。甚至现在，还有一些官方NGO的工作人员薪酬由政府拨付。这些"GONGO"曾在很长一段时间内垄断了公益资源，包括资金、人才、社会信任度等。以去年发生的"512汶川大地震"为例，全国的捐款仅能通过中国红十字会、中华慈善总会发放到灾区。其他的机构公布捐赠账号和公开募集捐款，都有违法犯罪的风险。清华大学NGO研究所的一份研究报告也证实了这一点。
社会诚信缺失
从1978年改革开放后，中国大陆在政治、经济上经历了巨大的社会变革。原本的"熟人社会"由于急剧的城市化演变而支离破碎，传统社会价值观也因"金钱至上"的私利主义迅速瓦解。在这种情况下，一个不具有合法地位的草根NGO，需要面临苛刻、甚至无理的质疑和更长时间的社会考验。社会普遍不相信来自民间的个人可以毫无功利目的去做一件对社会有利的事。在由于社会诚信的缺失，商业支持也变得更为功利----他们更愿意将资金投入到令政府满意的领域或者机构。
草根NGO自身能力不足
很多投身NGO的人，都是在试图实现自己的理想。而对于财务、机构管理、对外交流方面则能力较弱。当前大陆很多NGO领袖，不仅没有"公民社会"的概念、不能亲身示范做一个"公民"，还多半是社会的失败者----他们被旧有体制所淘汰，才被迫接触到一个全新的NGO领域，能力视野都有很大的局限。这就会出现财务不透明、人才流失、使命感丧失等"治理危机"，一旦因此而遭受社会质疑时，往往难于招架。
资金支持方的要求脱离现实
现在，中国大陆已经存有很多草根NGO。除了极个别民政注册外，他们或者未注册，或者工商注册。支持这些草根NGO成长的基金会也越来越多，比如：全球基金、亚洲基金会、福特基金会、盖茨基金会等。这些机构对中国草根NGO的成长做出了巨大贡献，但其带来的不良影响也非常深远。他们无视中国大陆草根NGO的现实，而仅仅把草根NGO当成完成项目的工作，往往只支持活动费用，不支持人员工资、行政费用、设备购买、办公室租金。很多草根NGO为了生存而不得不做假账，出现严重的财务问题，资金支持方对这种现象不寻求更好的解决方法反而大加指责，进一步恶化了中国大陆草根NGO的生存环境。这些资金支持方需要明白一个关键道理：在一些特定领域，如IDU人群、MSM人群、HIV感染者、流动人口，草根NGO与社群有着异常紧密的联系，官方或官方NGO没有草根NGO，根本无法完成项目目标。
作者简介：于方强，北京益仁平中心反歧视法律援助事务负责人，关注大陆公民社会发展，涉足领域包括AIDS、HBV、劳工、助学、罕见病等。
Challenges for Grassroots Organizations in China
In mainland China it is extremely hard to start-up a non-governmental organization (NGO) without a background in government. The difficulties are due to restrictive government policies, monopolization of resources by NGOs with government background, a lack of trust throughout the overall society, the lack of capabilities among the grassroots' organizations, and unrealistic expectations from funders.
Restrictive Government Policies
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China requires that all its citizens have the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to peaceably assemble, organize, demonstrate and petition. However, in order to organize in mainland China (i.e., to establish an NGO), one has to register the organization according to the Social Organizations Registration and Administration Act. If the organization does not do this it is not protected under the law. It is criminal for such an organization to publicly accept outside donations without a legal status. In addition, to establish such an NGO, they must have a regular business location, full-time staff, a registration capital of more than thirty thousand yuan and official documents with a stamp of approval from the governmental agencies, which have been designated as "supervising offices."
The fact that one non-governmental organization will be co-administered by a civil affairs governmental office and another public administration office represents the unique "Chinese way" of double administration. However, in reality what happens is that few public administration offices actually are interested in bearing the "troubles" of being a "supervising office." Recently the Social Organizations Registration and Administration Act has been amended. It now states that organizations that are disqualified from registering may still get legal status under a separate filing system. However provisions of the amended Act, enacted in nearly twenty provinces and cities across the country, are expected to still be discouraging.
Monopoly of Resources by NGOs with Government Background
Because of the rigorous administration of NGOs, only those with government background are able to register. Some NGOs - such as Disabled Persons' Federation, Women's Federation, National Labor Union, etc. - all have governmental background. These organizations are called "GONGO" in China. Some of the staff of these NGOs are even on the government payroll. These "GONGOs" have long monopolized the philanthropic resources of China, including their funding, human resources, social trust, etc. Take for example last year's Wenchuan Earthquake. Donations from all over the country were only distributed to the stricken region via the Red Cross Society of China or China Charity Federation. Other organizations that publish bank account numbers to solicit and accept donations run the risk of being charged by the court, according to a research report done by the Center of NGOs, at Tsinghua University.
A Lack of Trust Throughout Society
Since the Reform and Opening Policy of 1978, Mainland China has seen tremendous social changes both politically and economically. The past "society of acquaintances" completely fell apart due to the rapid urbanization process. In addition, its traditional social values were devoured by the "money first" principle driven by self interests. In this context a grassroots NGO with no legal status faces harsh and even irrational doubts and a long road to societal acceptance. In general, the public does not believe that one person, with no government affiliation, would do something beneficial for society without a self-interested motive. Also because of this lack of trust, enterprise sponsorships prefer funding causes or organizations that the government has endorsed.
The Lack of Capabilities Among Grassroots Organizations
Admittedly, many people involved with NGOs are idealists who want to realize their dreams for society. They might not be all that great in dealing with finances, administration and external communication. However, many NGO managers in mainland China are people who were 'failures' in society - they are abandoned by the old system and are forced to this whole new world of NGOs, with enormous limitations in both their capability and their visions. "Administration crises" can easily arise in their organizations because of non-transparent financial records, loss of talent, and an eroding sense of mission. Once these difficulties become public, they are almost always unable to be resolved.
Unrealistic Expectations from Funders
Today, there are already many grassroots NGOs in mainland China. Most of them are unregistered, others are registered as business organizations. Fewer are registered at a civil affairs office. There are increasingly more foundations that support these NGOs, such as the Global Fund, The Asia Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Gates Foundation. Even though these agencies have made tremendous contributions to the growth of NGOs in mainland China, their negative impact can be just as profound. They tend to see these NGOs as tools to accomplish their local projects, so they only fund their own specific activities and ignore the broader reality, which is that these NGOs also need to pay bills, salaries, administration costs, office supplies, rent, etc. Consequently, grassroots NGOs sometimes resort to manipulating their books in order to survive and this leads to very serious financial problems. When this happens, funders tend not to seek better solutions, but instead they severely criticize the NGOs, which creates an even more difficult situation.
One important thing these funders need to know:
In specific areas, these NGOs have critical close connections with vulnerable groups such as Injecting Drug Users (the IDU population), Men who have sex with men (the MSM population), people infected with HIV, and the migrant population. The government or governmental NGOs simply cannot accomplish their projects without the assistance from grassroots NGOs.
About the author:
Fangqiang Yu, Managing Partner of Beijing Yirenping Center for Anti-Discrimination Law. He focuses on the social development of citizens living in mainland China, and specialized in AIDS-, HBV-, labor-, education assistance-, rare disease-related fields.
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