Civil Affairs Official: Authorities To Adopt New Form of Civil Society Supervision

Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) officials are developing a new "evaluation system for civil society organizations," according to a March 28 speech by Liao Hong, a MOCA official who manages the day-to-day operations of the ministry’s leading group that is developing the system. The MOCA efforts coincide with heightened central government concern about the activities of these organizations. The system is in a preliminary stage of development.

Liao said that although Chinese civil society organizations have "made a positive contribution in pressing for economic development and the establishment of a harmonious society," some face problems of "quality." These problems include insufficient personnel or funding, for-profit activities that are inconsistent with nonprofit status, and management styles that focus too much on administrative matters and are insufficiently democratic. He asserted that these problems have "hampered the healthy development of civil society organizations, and affected China's economic and social development." Experts at an August 2005 MOCA-sponsored conference on the creation of such an evaluation system noted similar problems, and called for increased supervision of Chinese civil society organizations and the elimination of illegal groups. Liao said that these systems will be incorporated into an amended version of the 1998 Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations, which he said will be issued soon. He also noted that China currently has 319,000 registered civil society organizations, or 171,000 social organizations, 147,000 nongovernmental, noncommercial enterprises, and 975 foundations.

Liao said that many details of the evaluation system are currently under evaluation. These details include:

• Who will conduct the evaluations (registration entities, sponsor organizations, or the public).
• How the evaluation results will be used (as a source of better information for government officials regarding the development of civil society organizations, or as a direct link to rewards and punishments).
• Who will fund the evaluations.

On March 15, Jiangxi provincial MOCA officials called for the establishment of similar evaluation systems, and said that they should allow civil society organizations to operate under the "supervision of public opinion and the media" as well as that of registration authorities and official sponsor organizations.

The MOCA effort to develop an evaluation system for civil society organizations began in late 2004 and early 2005, according to Liao's speech, at the same time that Chinese officials began to express heightened concern about the activities of foreign and domestic civil society groups. For more information, see Section V(a) of the Commission's 2005 Annual Report, on The Development of Civil Society.

MOCA Efforts to Establish an Evaluation System For Civil Society Organizations

According to Liao's speech, Civil Affairs Minister Li Xueju mentioned the need to develop a civil society evaluation system in a December 10, 2004, speech. MOCA officials set up a leading group to explore the creation of the such a system in March 2005. MOCA sponsored research into the evaluation of civil society organizations in June and July of 2005 in Jinan and Qingdao municipalities in Shandong province. Chinese officials hosted domestic and international conferences on the subject in August and November 2005. Experimental projects are currently being carried out in Shandong province.