Nurturing NGO and Transforming Social-governance Mode Development of China NGO from Viewpoint of Harmonious Society

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1 Network of Asia-Pacific Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and Governance (NAPSIPAG) Annual Conference 2005 BEIJING, PRC, 5-7 DECEMBER 2005 THEME: THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN BUILDING A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY Workshop on Enlarging Citizen Participation and Increasing Autonomy of Local Government in Achieving Societal Harmony Nurturing NGO and Transforming Social-governance Mode Development of China NGO from Viewpoint of Harmonious Society Qianyou Zhuang Lecturer Department of Politics Inner Mongolia School of Administration Wulanchabu Street West,Hohhot,Inner Mongolia, China Tel.: (o) ; zqy1971@163.com 1

2 Abstract To establish socialist society of harmony, China has to alter her traditional social-governance mode, whereas such alteration relies heavily on development of NGO. Although China NGO have achieved rapid growth since reform and door-opening, it is far from being complete in that quite a few problems exist in the aspects of external surroundings, legal system, structure of internal governance and self-organizing competence. China NGO is poor in independence, autonomy and public good. From the viewpoint of the establishment of harmonious society, China NGO should be principally oriented toward independent main body of social-governance. To this end, social circumstances have to be cultivated favorable for the growth of NGO; consciousness of being citizen and volunteer spirit be nurtured; range of citizen participation, social recognition and influence be enhanced and strengthened. In addition, the systematic and legal surroundings for NGO will have to be perfected; the related systems of management, supervision and evaluation must be built up and consummated in order for NGO to have more independence. And also, NGO are supposed to complete the structure of internal management, improve their self-organizing capacity as well as autonomy. Key words: NGO social-governance harmonious society Text China will have to alter her social-governance mode to construct a harmonious society. Her traditional social-governance mode was one in which government and society was highly combined, which have distinct vestiges of the planned-economy times. With the deepening of reforms and gradual establishment of socialist market economy system, social lives in China have seen profound changes. Correspondingly, increasingly diversified are the forms of social constitution, employment chances, allocation system and relations of interests. And in turn, more and more social problems have arisen and social-governance has become much more difficult. In view of the vast changes in Chinese society, Chinese social-governance mode will have to be shifted from centralized to multi-elementary mode. And collaboration should be increased between the government and the society so that governmental service level can be promoted and citizen participation be enlarged. In fact, the complete realization of that shift will depend on social independence and local autonomy, keen participation of the public and emergence of multi-elementary governance body. And NGO is just an important main body of self-governance of society. The nurturing and growth of China NGO are the prerequisites and basis for the transformation of Chinese social-governance mode, and are the essential contents for the shaping of harmonious society. From those angles, this paper tries to deal with nurturing and growth of NGO in China. I. I. GROWTH OF NGO IN CHINA SINCE REFORM AND DOOR-OPENING With the step-by-step establishment and consummation of market economy system and increasing weakening of state control over society, NGO in China have developed rapidly since her reform and dooropening. That can be reflected from the sharp increase in the number of NGO: there were as many as 283,000 NGOs nationwide by the end of 2004, according to the statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs. The second is reflected in more full service categories. China NGO s business ranges from education, science & tech, culture, health care to environmental protection, public welfare and charity. Thirdly, performance has been improved. NGO have increasingly strengthened their legal awareness, extended their business scope and service areas, consummated self-discipline procedures, improved personnel qualities, so that the aptitude for self-management and social service has been greatly increased. Meanwhile, the governments at various levels have strengthened their management of NGO and increasingly perfected relevant policies, laws and regulations. And thus the social surroundings for NGO have been improved. NGO have played a positive role in improving the growth and optimization of socialist market economy, social welfare and influence, science & tech, culture, education and employment. It has been proved by practice that NGO have become a bridge linking governments and society an important and indispensable force for pushing economic growth forward and improving social progress. 2

3 II. II. PROBLEMS IN NGO DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA While NGO in China have gained great growth, they are still confronted with many issues, which are reflected as: (1)Problems in Social Surroundings At present, China is still in a transitional process past systems still have influences and the conversion of governmental functions has not been completed. Therefore, the independence of society is yet in a poor state. The difficulties for NGO to obtain social resources are great NGO are still deficient in social support, citizen awareness and participation, volunteer spirit and public contribution, which are indispensable for NGO growth. Thus, there are yet severe social macro-surroundings for NGO growth in China. (2) Incomplete Legal System First of all, legislation regarding NGO lags behind. Since reforms and door-opening, Chinese government has promulgated a series of decrees, regulations, localized laws and rules, etc. concerning management of social bodies, thus providing policy and legal basis for NGO to carry out activities and management by law. However, seen from the overall situations, the current legal management of NGO in China is far from the actual growth of socialist market economy. It can not match the growth rate and scale of NGO. On one hand, complete legal system regarding NGO has not been formed in China except for fractional administrative laws and rules, which constitutes a big gap compared with the tight legal systems on NGO in developed countries. On the other hand, the existing laws and rules are incomplete, some of which are not to be mended and replenished with fresh problems and situations. And so the contents are stale and can not play effective roles. Some of which are not high enough in qualities: the contents are mainly focused on registration procedures of NGO, which have poor joints with other laws and regulations and lack operability for some practical problems. The typical example is the lack of rules and regulations for finance, taxation, principal internal systems, management of revenue and expenditure, evaluation & supervision, volunteer activities and social recognition, etc. That is disadvantageous to governmental management, social recognition and support to NGO, and has seriously hindered the routine operation and healthy development of NGO. In the next place, there exist many problems in the management system on NGO. First is the high threshold. Apart from a certain quantity of staff and funds, etc., a would-be NGO must look for a Party or governmental office as its responsible institution before it becomes a formal NGO through registration. What is more, the registration formalities are so sophisticated and strict that a large number of NGO-to-be have to register at the local Administration of Industry & Commerce, or conduct underground business due to being unable to come up to the relevant registration requirements. This has, to a large degree, blocked the founding of NGO and is quite unfavorable to the growth of NGO. The second is the over-strict control. In the current system, all matters of NGO, major or minor, are under the jurisdiction of the corresponding responsible institution. NGO have, in fact, become the subordinate branches. This has led NGO to rely too much on government, NGO carrying strong state-running color but without adequate independence. Third is the supervision mechanism to be completed. So far in China, the system of assessment and supervision by the third party has not been formed, the result of which has caused coexistence of good and bad NGO. Some NGO even do illegitimate business, which has had detrimental impact on the reputation of NGO. (3) Problems within NGO Themselves 3

4 Apart from the external surroundings and legal surroundings, there are quite a few problems within the Chinese NGO themselves. NGO are faced with difficulties, mainly including lack of funds, competent personnel, disorder of management and organization, etc. In the regard of funds, the findings of NGO Research Institute of Tsinghua University show that the chief income sources of Chinese NGO are the financial allocation and subsidies supplied by the Chinese governments, representing 50% of the total; NGO membership dues comes next, accounting for 21%;business income ranks third,6% on an average; at the fourth place is the donations and specialized project fees coming from businesses, approximately 6%;the percentage of every other income is lower than 5%.This composition means the mono-source of NGO income and depending too much on other institutions, esp. the governments. In that case, a bottleneck is shaped, which is to the detriment of independence and autonomy of NGO. As far as human resources are concerned, there are not enough NGO professional staff. And they are low in qualities and literacy, without much expertise or creativity. Meanwhile, NGO are in bad need of volunteers whom NGO growth rely on. The lack of human resources has made a serious impact on NGO service extension, expansion of business scope, promotion of service quality and ability. These have restrained sustainable development of China NGO. As for the point of self-building, the internal management structure of China NGO is incomplete. A large number of NGO lack strategy-making departments, mechanisms and systems for democratic strategymaking. At the same time, the financial systems in many NGO are incomplete. This situation is one of the chief reasons for which some NGO sometimes make inappropriate decisions, have embezzlement and corruption, lack public credit and find it hard to raise funds. The existence of above said problems has rendered China NGO weak in such aspects as independence, competence for self-governance, and social influence. That has made it hard for NGO to assume their share of task of social-governance in the multi-elementary governance structure. Hence, more independent and mature NGO will have to be fostered and developed before social-governance mode is switched in China. III. III. MEASURES FOR NURTURING NGO Based on the necessity for transference of SOCIAL-GOVERNANCE MODE, emphasis must be laid on independence, autonomy and social influence in the nurturing of NGO so that they can become the main bodies of social-governance. Chinese governments are supposed to be aware of, at the level of building harmonious society, the position and role of NGO.NGO growth should be included in the program for national socio-economic development, and nurtured in the following aspects. (1) Creating Macro-social Surroundings Beneficial to NGO Growth Macro-social surroundings which are beneficial to the growth of NGO should be created. The growth of NGO requires political atmosphere of democracy, system of market economy and cultural circumstances featuring freedom, rights, equality and participation. Therefore, to push the growth of NGO forward, politically, the process of Chinese democratic construction has to be accelerated continually; and economically, the socialist economy of market should be further improved. Governmental functions should be further transferred. Efforts should be made to build a government of public service. The growth of multi-development of society is to be accelerated actively; cultural construction is further strengthened, 4

5 esp. in public literacy, awareness of being citizen and volunteer spirit. Public awareness and level of participation shall be promoted in order for better circumstances to be build up for social recognition of NGO and for obtainment of social resources. (2) Consummating Legal System on NGO The first step is to draw up and consummate laws and regulations in order to achieve the goal of NGO administration by law. China should, pursuant to the current situations for NGO, formulate and establish, step by step, the corresponding systems of laws and rules at various levels. These laws and regulations should make clear the nature, aim, position, form of organization, sources of funds, rights and duties, etc. of NGO. They should also make clear the requisites for the founding of NGO, the institutions where NGO are registered and administered, and other essential formalities. The following laws and regulations shall be developed as soon as possible on how NGO is composed of and administered, finance revenue and expenditure, contributions and donations, evaluation and supervision and so on. The system of preferential policy should be completed on taxation, personnel, employment and welfare guarantee, etc. so as to let NGO and their operation legalized, systemized and standardized; and let their routines have laws to abide by and regulations to follow. Next is the reform and improvement of NGO administration system. The idea must be changed that NGO should be guarded against and confined. The limits to NGO should be loosened gradually and NGO be given more space for growth. The existing systems of NGO administration are to be changed little by little; the procedures for NGO registration be simplified; the threshold for NGO to get legal status be lowered. The role of government should be switched gradually from in charge of NGO business to guiding and supervising NGO and coordinating relations. The NGO operation system shall be built up and completed, including the mechanisms of supervision and assessments by the third party, the methods of rewards, punishment and checking, the measures of stimulating competition, etc. The efficiency and quality of service shall be improved, and independence of NGO be increased. (3) Completing Internal Management Structure, Organization System, Regs & Rules of NGO so as to Improve Self-organizing Competence The first is to complete the system of NGO internal management. The main tasks are to develop and consummate various systems and rules for NGO to follow in their business; to build up and consummate democratic strategy-making departments and systems thereof; to overcome the tendency toward bureaucracy; to develop and complete the system of finance and accounts, manage to make revenue and expenditure standardized, items of accounts in order, open and transparent in order to ensure integrity and clean-handedness of NGO. The second is to increase support from governments. NGO can not go healthy without the support and assistance from governments in terms of funds, human resources and so on. In the regard of funds, governments should offer more help to NGO in governmental purchase and specialized projects and so on; help NGO carry out business and service by law, increase their income from service and business operation in order for NGO to have multi-sources of income. As for human resources, Chinese governments are expected to gradually reform and complete the systems on personnel management, employment and social security for NGO; systematically tackle the problem of shortage of human resources in NGO. Furthermore, governments shall strengthen the training and ideological education for NGO staff, and improve their expertise, service techniques and ethical standards. 5

6 In brief, through the nurturing, the gradually-created social surroundings and the completed assistance in legality, system and policy are bound to increasingly strengthen the independence, autonomy and social influence of NGO, and render them the independent main bodies that will bear the responsibilities of social-governance. This is a process where NGO develop themselves, Chinese social-governance mode will be transferred and multi-mode of governance be shaped it is a process which is indispensable for the establishment of harmonious society in China. 1. References 1. Jiahou Jin Ken of Social-governance of China NGO Academic Journal of Guangdong College of Administration Vol.15, Issue 5 2. Liping Sun Evolution of Relations between State & Society in China since Reforms Transformation & Breaking Tsinghua University Press July Ming Wang on Issues of Chinese Legal Policy on NGO Xijin Jia Academic Journal of Tsinghua University (Sheet of Philosophy & Social Sciences, Issue 1, 2003) 4. Ruijuan An Analysis on Existing Problems in China NGO Development Wei Qu Academic Journal of Harbin Industrial University (Sheet of Philosophy & Social Sciences, Issue 2, 2004) 5. Xiangyang Chen Status & Challenges of China NGO Chinese Economy Times 26th, May Yunfeng He Main Problems Facing NGO Development in the Country at Present Kai Ma Academic Journal of Shanghai Normal University (Sheet of Philosophy & Social Sciences, Issue 3, 2004) 7. Guosheng Deng Fresh Surroundings for NGO Growth in China Society Monthly Issue 10, NGO Research Institute Preliminary Analysis on Questionnaire regarding China NGO of Tsinghua University Web site of China NGO( Brief Introduction of Writer Writer: Qianyou Zhuang, Institution: Inner Mongolia School of Administration Position: lecturer Specialty: politics Area of specialization: administration; citizen society Educational background: graduated in 2000 from Inner Mongolia University with a Master s Degree of History Address: Department of Politics in Inner Mongolia School of Administration Wulanchabu Street West, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. Tel.: (o) ; zqy1971@163.com 6