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More than two decades ago, Zhang Kun, a 65-year-old businessman and former teacher in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, embarked on a philanthropic journey to help poor children.
In 1988, Zhang came across a letter from a poor student seeking financial help to finish her education. He helped the writer and then paid dozens of visits to schools in remote rural areas to find more children in need. Over time, his philanthropic mission attracted a group of like-minded donors. Together, they have supported around 4,000 students over the past 23 years.
However, Zhang has had difficulty getting approval for his charitable organization from the local government. Five times in the past seven years, he tried to register with the civil affairs department of the local government, but his applications were rejected each time.
According to the Regulation on Registration and Administration of Social Organizations, which became effective in 1998, non-governmental organizations(NGOs) must find a government department or agency to be their supervisory body before they can be legally registered. Zhang had not been able to find a supervisory body.
In July 2011, Minister of Civil Affairs Li Liguo announced at a meeting that independent nonprofit organizations in the fields of charity, social welfare and social services would be allowed to register directly with civil affairs departments, without first finding a supervisory body.
Although the local government had announced the introduction of the liberalization policy when Zhang handed over his application materials for a sixth time, he wasn’t very hopeful. But this time, to his surprise, his One Thousandth Charity Services Center successfully completed the registration process within two hours on October 1, 2011.
Zhang’s success, widely reported by the local media, soon led to the registration of a number of local NGOs.
As of the end of 2010, China had a total of 440,000 registered social organizations, while another 3 million remained unregistered. The simplified NGO registration policy is intended to encourage more NGOs to register and offer more public services.
Qing Lianbin, a sociology professor at the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that NGOs that are increasingly active in community development should receive more support from the government.
At a seminar on social management attended by provincial-level leaders in December 2011, Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, reiterated the importance of improving social management by incorporating lessons learned from good community-level experience.
“The task of improving social management is a vital function of community-level organs, and the government will increase allocations of manpower and material resources to allow local bodies to carry out these functions,” Zhou said.
Changes In 2011, the Chinese Government attaches great importance to improving social management.
Last February, Chinese President Hu Jintao, also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said that officials need to adopt more innovative social management methodologies and improve their work efficiency.
In March 2011, the government work report endorsed by the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, said that the Chinese Government will accelerate reform of the social management system. The outline of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-15), adopted in March, lists “strengthening and making innovations in social management through seeking both temporary and permanent solutions” as a key target.
On May 30, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting, which was dedicated to studying methods to encourage innovation in social management.
At the end of September, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security was renamed as the Central Committee for Comprehensive Social Administration and entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating and strengthening social management.
Gong Weibin, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that in the past social management functions in cities were mainly conducted by employers, as part of the planned economy. But this traditional pattern is no longer feasible due to rapid social and economic changes.
“One remarkable change is the emergence of new social groups in Chinese society, such as entrepreneurs, professional managers at multinational companies, small business owners, self-employed people, migrant workers from rural areas,” Gong said.
He added that people’s demands and lives are becoming more and more diversified.“People are no longer satisfied with having the basic means of subsistence. They want to develop themselves and protect their various rights,” he said.
Experiments
In 2011, the Beijing Municipal Government spent a total of 200 million yuan ($31.25 million) to contract local NGOs to deliver a wide range of social services under 600 projects. Both the amount of funding and the number of projects doubled compared with 2010. This change is seen to be the result of the positive feedback given by residents to services provided by NGOs.
For example, a primary school for children of migrant workers with more than 700 students reported a shortage of music, physical education and English teachers in 2010. Contracted by the government, an NGO recruited volunteer teachers from among the students of nearby universities. The solution proved highly effective. The university students were pleased to have the opportunity to put what they learned to good use and the poorly-funded school received a contingent of well-qualified teachers.
The government of Beijing’s Dongcheng District initiated a pilot project that divided the district into 589 “grids” and equipped each “grid” with its own administrator. The grid-management trial is expected to allow the government to respond more quickly to residents’ needs.
“In the past, residents often did not know how to deal with and approach government departments. Now whenever they have such needs, they can talk to us and we will contact the relevant departments on their behalf,” said Suo Chunzhi, a “grid” administrator.
Based on better understanding of people’s daily needs, the government of Dongcheng District has also launched a program titled“1510,” meaning each of the district’s residents will be able to access to 10 most common daily services by walking no more than 15 minutes. Moreover, the government has certified some restaurants, clinics, grocery stores, barber shops, household appliance repair shops, part-time maid agencies and fruit shops, and regularly monitors the quality of their products and services. A yellow page listing all the service providers within a community is distributed to every local household, with government-certified providers marked in a different color. The government has also purchased kiosks on wheels for shoe repairers, bicycle repairers and newspaper vendors so that they can provide better services.
“Simply by making a call to the community service center, the elderly and the handicapped can receive various services from governmentcertified restaurants and shops at their own homes, with their bills paid by the government,”said Han Xiuhua, head of Dongwai Street Community Committee in Dongcheng.
The Shanghai Social Innovation Park, which was launched in July 2010, is the result of a partnership between the local government and a local NGO, Non-Profit Incubator. Funded by the local government, the park, the first of its kind in the country, is aimed at providing social welfare by cultivating social enterprises. Focusing on providing on-site job training and employment opportunities for disabled people, the park hosts a restaurant that recruits mentally handicapped employees, an art gallery with disabled painters and teachers, a graphic design studio with hearingimpaired trainees and a massage clinic with blind masseuses.
In July, the government of Guangdong Province issued eight documents on encouraging social management innovation. Concrete measures outlined in the documents include improving e-government platforms, procuring more public services from the NGOs and providing more services at the grassroots level.
“The government’s responsibilities lie in providing efficient public management and services instead of extending its power into every corner of society,” said Vice Governor of Guangdong Chen Yunxian.
In 1988, Zhang came across a letter from a poor student seeking financial help to finish her education. He helped the writer and then paid dozens of visits to schools in remote rural areas to find more children in need. Over time, his philanthropic mission attracted a group of like-minded donors. Together, they have supported around 4,000 students over the past 23 years.
However, Zhang has had difficulty getting approval for his charitable organization from the local government. Five times in the past seven years, he tried to register with the civil affairs department of the local government, but his applications were rejected each time.
According to the Regulation on Registration and Administration of Social Organizations, which became effective in 1998, non-governmental organizations(NGOs) must find a government department or agency to be their supervisory body before they can be legally registered. Zhang had not been able to find a supervisory body.
In July 2011, Minister of Civil Affairs Li Liguo announced at a meeting that independent nonprofit organizations in the fields of charity, social welfare and social services would be allowed to register directly with civil affairs departments, without first finding a supervisory body.
Although the local government had announced the introduction of the liberalization policy when Zhang handed over his application materials for a sixth time, he wasn’t very hopeful. But this time, to his surprise, his One Thousandth Charity Services Center successfully completed the registration process within two hours on October 1, 2011.
Zhang’s success, widely reported by the local media, soon led to the registration of a number of local NGOs.
As of the end of 2010, China had a total of 440,000 registered social organizations, while another 3 million remained unregistered. The simplified NGO registration policy is intended to encourage more NGOs to register and offer more public services.
Qing Lianbin, a sociology professor at the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that NGOs that are increasingly active in community development should receive more support from the government.
At a seminar on social management attended by provincial-level leaders in December 2011, Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, reiterated the importance of improving social management by incorporating lessons learned from good community-level experience.
“The task of improving social management is a vital function of community-level organs, and the government will increase allocations of manpower and material resources to allow local bodies to carry out these functions,” Zhou said.
Changes In 2011, the Chinese Government attaches great importance to improving social management.
Last February, Chinese President Hu Jintao, also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said that officials need to adopt more innovative social management methodologies and improve their work efficiency.
In March 2011, the government work report endorsed by the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, said that the Chinese Government will accelerate reform of the social management system. The outline of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-15), adopted in March, lists “strengthening and making innovations in social management through seeking both temporary and permanent solutions” as a key target.
On May 30, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting, which was dedicated to studying methods to encourage innovation in social management.
At the end of September, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security was renamed as the Central Committee for Comprehensive Social Administration and entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating and strengthening social management.
Gong Weibin, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that in the past social management functions in cities were mainly conducted by employers, as part of the planned economy. But this traditional pattern is no longer feasible due to rapid social and economic changes.
“One remarkable change is the emergence of new social groups in Chinese society, such as entrepreneurs, professional managers at multinational companies, small business owners, self-employed people, migrant workers from rural areas,” Gong said.
He added that people’s demands and lives are becoming more and more diversified.“People are no longer satisfied with having the basic means of subsistence. They want to develop themselves and protect their various rights,” he said.
Experiments
In 2011, the Beijing Municipal Government spent a total of 200 million yuan ($31.25 million) to contract local NGOs to deliver a wide range of social services under 600 projects. Both the amount of funding and the number of projects doubled compared with 2010. This change is seen to be the result of the positive feedback given by residents to services provided by NGOs.
For example, a primary school for children of migrant workers with more than 700 students reported a shortage of music, physical education and English teachers in 2010. Contracted by the government, an NGO recruited volunteer teachers from among the students of nearby universities. The solution proved highly effective. The university students were pleased to have the opportunity to put what they learned to good use and the poorly-funded school received a contingent of well-qualified teachers.
The government of Beijing’s Dongcheng District initiated a pilot project that divided the district into 589 “grids” and equipped each “grid” with its own administrator. The grid-management trial is expected to allow the government to respond more quickly to residents’ needs.
“In the past, residents often did not know how to deal with and approach government departments. Now whenever they have such needs, they can talk to us and we will contact the relevant departments on their behalf,” said Suo Chunzhi, a “grid” administrator.
Based on better understanding of people’s daily needs, the government of Dongcheng District has also launched a program titled“1510,” meaning each of the district’s residents will be able to access to 10 most common daily services by walking no more than 15 minutes. Moreover, the government has certified some restaurants, clinics, grocery stores, barber shops, household appliance repair shops, part-time maid agencies and fruit shops, and regularly monitors the quality of their products and services. A yellow page listing all the service providers within a community is distributed to every local household, with government-certified providers marked in a different color. The government has also purchased kiosks on wheels for shoe repairers, bicycle repairers and newspaper vendors so that they can provide better services.
“Simply by making a call to the community service center, the elderly and the handicapped can receive various services from governmentcertified restaurants and shops at their own homes, with their bills paid by the government,”said Han Xiuhua, head of Dongwai Street Community Committee in Dongcheng.
The Shanghai Social Innovation Park, which was launched in July 2010, is the result of a partnership between the local government and a local NGO, Non-Profit Incubator. Funded by the local government, the park, the first of its kind in the country, is aimed at providing social welfare by cultivating social enterprises. Focusing on providing on-site job training and employment opportunities for disabled people, the park hosts a restaurant that recruits mentally handicapped employees, an art gallery with disabled painters and teachers, a graphic design studio with hearingimpaired trainees and a massage clinic with blind masseuses.
In July, the government of Guangdong Province issued eight documents on encouraging social management innovation. Concrete measures outlined in the documents include improving e-government platforms, procuring more public services from the NGOs and providing more services at the grassroots level.
“The government’s responsibilities lie in providing efficient public management and services instead of extending its power into every corner of society,” said Vice Governor of Guangdong Chen Yunxian.