Sudan: Human Rights Activists Arrested via
(New York, November 26, 2008) - Sudanese authorities have arrested and detained three human rights defenders in Khartoum, two of whom remain in detention, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Relevant lessons via CIPE Development Blog
They’re blogging in Kabul! via CIPE Development Blog
On April 3rd and 4th the Afghan Association of Blog Writers held their first blogging workshop. (Read more about it on the Global Voices blog). There are roughly 130 bloggers currently active in Afghanistan, which is impressive for a country where electricity shortages and scarcity of technology remain some of the biggest obstacles to blogging.
Although blogging has been quite popular here in the US, is still underutilized in much of the world. Especially in societies where information does not travel freely, it provides people in the country with alternative points of view and those outside the country with access to information. Workshops like this are fundamentally important in helping civil society become more active in political dialogue, even in countries where a...
BaliBuzz: Evidence of Impact at the COP via It's Getting Hot In Here
At the civil society meeting with UN Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, the extent to which the youth climate change movement can impact the UN process became truly apparent.
Representing the international youth delegation, Akhmad Viko of Indonesia asked Mr. de Boer what he thought of the future role of youth in the international climate change negotiations. De Boer’s answer revealed not only an explicit interest in the further inclusion of youth (he answered that there is much more the UN can do to ensure that youth are incorporated in the process) but also an implicit interest in our message and current work.
De Boer went on to discuss the speech delivered by Catherine Gauthier at the UN High-Level event on climate change in September as evidence of the kind of work that youth... Full steam ahead for ‘charity’ even as brakes are applied to NGOs via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
A high-level international symposium on charity legislation, held in Beijing this summer, underlined the Chinese government’s determination to mobilise charitable giving even as the authorities were tightening their surveillance and control of the informal NGO......
Move to prevent green protest shows uneven distribution of free speech via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Chinese Internet authorities have ordered websites—including a Chinese language environmental NGO site operated by China Development Brief (www.greengo.org.cn)—to remove an open letter from twelve organisations calling for a fair trial for jailed environmental activist, Wu Lihong (吴立红).
Anomalously, the move came after China’s official media had already reported on the contents of the letter, which argued that “in order to support public confidence in the rule of law and build a harmonious society” Wu’s trial should be open to the public and based on lawfully obtained......
Open government: Great leaps forward, with sideways shuffles too via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
China is introducing new transparency rules for government—in part, it seems, to curb corruption. But, reports Chang Tianle (常天乐), some progressive localities are ahead of the central government on this issue, and the national rules remain ambiguous as to how much the public has a right to know.
China’s first national regulations on public disclosure of government information have been cautiously welcomed by scholars and NGOs, but most say that China still has a long way to go to achieve transparent government.
The Regulations on Government Disclosure of Information (政府信息公开条例) were approved by the State Council on January 17, 2007 and take effect on May 1, 2008. Article 1 states that they aim to “ensure that citizens, legal persons and other organisations...
HIV/AIDS: NGOs proliferate as the Global Fund steps in via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Although not an HIV hotspot, China’s north-eastern province of Heilongjiang has a cluster of gay NGOs working on AIDS prevention with an apparently broad-minded Centre for Disease Control. But, Nick Young and Mian Liping ask, is this a civil society success story or is it driven by the whiff of international funding?
HARBIN Away from the bright lights of Gogol Street, the main entertainment strip in this northern industrial city with historic ties to Russia, a Saturday night crowd has gathered in a downmarket bathhouse that caters for MSM—“men who have sex with......
EU, UNDP boost government efforts to manage civil society, biodiversity via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
The European Union has deepened its collaboration with the United Nations Development Program in Beijing with a EUR 8.08 million (USD 10.5 million) contribution for a UNDP-managed “Governance for Equitable Development” program, while funds from an earlier EU-UNDP agreement are now beginning to flow to consortia of international NGO and local government agencies partnering on biodiversity conservation projects.
Around 40% of the new governance program funds will be devoted to civil society support projects implemented through the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MoCA), according to Edward Wu (吴晓晖), UNDP’s Team Leader in Beijing for Rule of Law and......
Non-profit sector: The management scientists are coming via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs is campaigning to promote charitable giving, while also hoping to encourage higher standards of non-profit performance and accountability. Meanwhile, reports Chang Tianle (常天乐), multinational corporations and management consultants are also hoping to bring business models—or, at least, a more businesslike approach—to the non-profit sector.
Over the past decade China has seen a large increase in non-profit organisations engaging in public benefit programmes and this has been gradually recognised and encouraged by the government. Donations from businesses and individuals have become an important funding source to complement government’s role in social service delivery. This trend is expected to grow rapidly as corporations allocate more funds...
Editorial: “GONGOs” are here to stay, but need to reform and open up via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Non profit organisations established by the Government of China to mobilise resources for public benefit work are frequently regarded by foreigners as fake, “Government-Organised NGOs.” But the signs are that, as the community of more autonomous, “grassroots” groups mushrooms and spreads, China’s political leadership sees all the more reason to maintain its own stake in the non profit sector. This mirrors China’s management of its industrial sectors and in some ways it makes sense.
China’s first generation of GONGOs included the Leninist “mass organisations” such as the Women’s Federation (which no one in those days thought to describe as an NGO of any kind) as well as groups like the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries...
Rural Cooperatives: Getting together again via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
In January the Ministry of Agriculture launched a month-long drive to inform farmers and local officials about the new Law on Farmer Professional Cooperatives (农民专业合作社法). Given China’s long and varied experience of things called “cooperative” it might take longer than a month to get the message through, Chang Tianle (常天乐) concluded after visiting Anhui, Sichuan and......
Government centre aims to converge “parallel lines” of charity via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
February saw the formal launch of a Ministry of Civil Affairs information clearing house designed to facilitate information flows across China’s charitable sector and foster a more favourable philanthropic environment for both donors and beneficiaries.
The Ministry expects the China Charity and Donation Information Centre (中民慈善捐助信息中心) to improve linkages between government, business, and civil society organisations, according to Chen Tao (陈涛), a ministry official who heads the Centre.
“There is an absence of co-ordination and integration among these three parties. They work like three parallel lines that never converge,” Chen told China Development......
Japanese environmental NGOs in China via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Less vocal and publicity-seeking than their Western counterparts, Japanese environmental NGOs have nonetheless achieved a substantial presence in China, reports Robert Efird
Japan and China have been described as “neighbors separated by a mere strip of water,” an expression that emphasizes both the physical proximity of the two nations as well as their extensive and longstanding cultural affinities. These historical and cultural connections help to explain why more Japanese NGOs are engaged in exchange with China than with any other country, while the shared geography is one reason why so much Japanese NGO activity in China is focused on the environment. Yet the activities of Japanese environmental organizations in China remain largely unknown to both non-Japanese NGOs and the...
Editorial: It’s a community, not a movement via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
A paper published last year in The China Quarterly concludes, on the basis of interviews with Chinese university students, that “There is little likelihood of environmentalism among students transforming into an independent grassroots movement or becoming a source of pressure for political change.” The most revealing aspect of this study is not the finding but the fact that the researchers chose to pursue such a line of enquiry.
Why are watchers of China’s civil society so preoccupied with looking for signs of nascent, oppositional movements? The prevailing paradigm for social and political change, it seems, sees a necessary role at some point for barricades (or, at least, a “non-violent” variant.) Such a view is not only anathema to the Chinese authorities, inviting the kind...
New breeze for NGO-government cooperation flagship via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Five Chinese NGOs have been awarded government funds to facilitate village-level poverty alleviation and development projects in Jiangxi Province as part of an Asia Development Bank-supported programme whose progress was discussed at a forum in Beijing on January 19.
This was the second round of funding in a two-year programme that has the backing of the State Council’s Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development Office and its local counterpart in Jiangxi. They are together providing around USD 1.7 million to match a USD 1 million ADB technical assistance......
Hong Kong charity redirects support “upstream” to secondary education via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Hong Kong charity, Sowers Action (苗圃行动), established fifteen years ago to support education on China’s mainland and currently mobilising around CNY 30 million (USD 3.8 million) per year for primary schooling, is deliberating a shift towards vocational education, according to Herman To (杜勇声), a founding member and current Deputy Chair of the......
Qinghai NGOs seek to knit graasroots together via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
A grassroots NGO in Qinghai Province, the Sanchuan Development Association (三川发展促进会, SDA), has negotiated grant support from the US-based Eurasia Foundation to establish an NGO resource centre in the provincial capital, Xining, to provide information, networking and practical support for Qinghai’s growing NGO......
Government, NGOs, promote greener consumption via China Development Brief - Environment
While the adverse impacts of industrial production and pollution are receiving ever more public attention in China, new government and NGO initiatives are also emphasising the difference that consumers, including government agencies, can make to the local and global......
NGO service group aims to grow “learning networks” via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
An informal, national network of around 45 NGOs serving autistic children and their families has provided both a learning opportunity and an inspiration to the Beijing-based Capacity Building & Assessment Centre (CBAC, 倍能组织能力建设与评估中心), which is now hoping to facilitate similar networks with funding support from an international development agency in......
Shanghai dances with NGOs via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Shanghai’s municipal and district governments, busy creating whole new urban districts, are also experimenting in social service delivery, in some cases contracting service provider NGOs. But, Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, development of the sector remains piecemeal, still largely dependent on individual relationships and......
Where the doctor can’t help via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Self-help groups of people living with incurable illnesses or disability provide an invaluable forum for information sharing and personal support. But although they are appearing in China, as Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports, their growth is hampered by problems of legal status and......
International friendship needs people-to-people links via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
November’s China-Africa summit in Beijing was like a coming-out ball for China as a new global force. As well as substantially boosting aid, trade and political ties, it further isolated Taiwan’s pro-independence movement and, as a bonus, gave Beijing extra, pre-Olympics practice in hosting major international events. But there was no sign of civil society at the party; and they should be invited next......
Art and Society: Less socialist, more real via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Yang Shaobin (杨少斌), born to a coalmining family in Hebei Province, has put together an exhibition of oil paintings and installations that, according to the catalogue, “dialectically thinks about the linkages between Chinese history, culture and social development.” Nick Young looks at these and other pictures, wondering what “dialectically” might mean......
Water quality map exerts public pressure on polluters via China Development Brief - Environment
Organisations and individuals concerned about water pollution now have a powerful online tool to learn about the water quality of rivers and lakes in their vicinity and to know the sources of......
Symposium presents “social enterprise” as key to sustainability via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Although oceans apart in some respects, social entrepreneurs from the UK and China share common experiences and challenges in their organisations, as they found at a symposium in Beijing on October......
A quiet but dogged advocacy via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Driven barking mad by information requests from foreign correspondents and researchers keen to investigate environmental or labour rights activism as a manifestation of China’s civil society, China Development Brief thought there must be a better litmus of state-society relations, grounded in the hopes and deeds of ordinary people. Like, say, dog owners. Chang Tianle (常天乐) sniffs out the story....
Amber light for farmers’ organisations via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
A recently published World Bank study of farmers’ associations in China reviews a number of policy experiments that are now culminating in a draft Law on Farmers’ Economic Professional Cooperatives (农民经济专业合作社), which is expected to be released for public consultation before the end of the year, writes Nick Young. But, the authors of the World Bank study warn, although a clear legal framework would be a major breakthrough, local governments should support the development of farmers’ organisations without being tempted to direct or dominate......
Online directory aims to strengthen environmental community via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
Over 70 environmental activists and journalists gathered in Beijing on October 11 to attend the launch of an online directory of Chinese environmental NGOs produced by China Development Brief with funding support from the Ford......
NGO activists set sights at Peoples Congresses via China Development Brief - Reporting the latest news on China's social development
NGOs in China have long strived to improve their relationship with government and influence policy-making in various ways, writes Chang Tianle. Now, as elections for local People’s Congresses are being held, a few NGO leaders have seen this as an opportunity to mainstream themselves.
Li Dan (李丹), 28-year-old leader of the China Orchid AIDS Project (东珍纳兰文化传播中心), which focuses on welfare of AIDS orphans and affected families in Henan Province, is one of......