Changing role

Growing numbers

The number of NGOs in China has nearly doubled in the last 10 years with registered social organizations rising to about 460,000 by 2011. The sector is likely to see even stronger development as more friendly policies are in store.

With the impressive growth in financial resources and the sheer number of local NGOs, international NGOs need to reposition themselves to shoulder more in terms of transferring their knowledge about capacity building and best practices in international development work, says Jessica Teets, assistant professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont, US.

"I foresee more extensive collaboration between local governments and international NGOs and between international NGOs and grassroots groups in the future, especially with the easing of fundraising and registration regulations," says Teets, who has been studying Chinese civil society since early 2000 and has been visiting China every summer for fieldwork on the NGO sector since 2003.

The Chinese government is also playing an equally important role, and is now more than aware of the key role international NGOs can play in the transition, experts say.

Though operating in China as an international NGO still has some hurdles, such as the strict and time-consuming registration regulation - recent reports from China Charity & Donation Information Center show that fewer than 3 percent of the more than 1,000 US-based NGOs operating in China are registered - all the seven global foundations and operational NGOs admitted that they now feel more welcome in China, as it is their knowledge which is being more appreciated.

Take the case of Half the Sky Foundation, an organization set up in 1998 by adoptive parents in the US to help children in China's welfare institutions. The organization found its footing last year, when the government came out with the Rainbow Program, which aims to co-train child welfare workers at the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption and the provincial governments over the next several years.

"Although we have always celebrated the new light in the eyes of each and every child in our programs, we have done so with the sobering knowledge that there were so many other children we had not yet reached," says Carma Elliot, executive director of Half the Sky China, adding it has always been the foundation's intention to train and mentor rather than establish and run programs.

"The increased financial and organizational commitments from our government partners have made it possible for us to start that orderly transition. We have dreamed of such an opportunity for a long time," say Elliot, who joined the Beijing-based organization in January 2011 at the end of her tenure as British Consul-General in Shanghai.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has also been seeing increasing interest in its technology from the government in China.

The Switzerland-based organization, which was invited by the Chinese government to protect the giant panda in 1980, is now working more closely with government agencies like the State Forestry Administration, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce.

"Our strength comes from the fact that we are a global organization. When we approach the issues in China, we bring to the table the knowledge we have gained globally. The Chinese government is very much interested in these technologies, this know-how and experience. They want to take advantage of the opportunity to learn more," says Jim Gradoville, chief executive of WWF's Beijing Office.