中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

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Chinese, South American and European CSOs join hands in progress for change

The "Second China-Europe-South America Dialogue Meeting" has just concluded in Beijing. A total of 20 distinguished CSO (civil society organizations) delegates attended the meeting and discussed issues of common concern relating to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and sustainable development post-2015.

The Vice-President & Director General of United Association of China Zhang Xiao’an and Vice-Chairman & Executive Director of China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO) Huang Haoming received interviews from People’s Daily Online.

NGOs’ Internationalization

Chinese NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have more exchanges with European NGOs, including dialogues and communications, but they exchange less with South American counterparts due to the long distance and language barrier, said Mr. Huang. However, South America has a quite developed NGO system, and the system plays a pivotal role in economic, social and environmental protection. Therefore, the talk enables Chinese NGOs to learn from international NGOs on how to talk to governments and citizens.

Such talk can benefit Chinese NGOs greatly and it also becomes a great opportunity to understand the world trend. Chinese NGOs have chosen many real cases, through which the foreign counterparts can actually understand China’s economic development, social progress, and seek common ground.

The core of the conference

Economic development, social progress and sustainable development are the three main directions of the development for the world. How to balance these three goals is the core issue of this talk, which is involved in Millennium Development Goals.

Zhang pointed out China had completed several targets for sustainable developments ahead of the plan, for example, it has halved the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day between 1990 and 2015. At the same time, Chinese government will also incorporate these targets into national development goals, using the big picture to stimulate the inner part, which not only promotes domestic development, but also acts as the basis of national strategies.

What kind of role are the NGOs playing?

NGOs function a lot in the field of sustainable development, said Zhang, It did help fill some gaps. The talk this time has come across some new eco-friendly technology applied by the NGOs, for instance, renewable energy and eco-agriculture that are conducive to environmental protection and the promotion of sustainable development projects and implementation.

In terms of other aspects, the recent example is China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation helping Children in the remote poor area solve their lunch problems. These children had to bring firewood to cook meals themselves after tramping miles to the school.

The foundation has solved the problem for the kids in some schools in Yunnan Province. Similar problems like left-behind children and elderly people are yet to be solved. NGOs are still actively playing their own role in the field of sustainable development.

Government, NGOs and enterprises

In the past, NGOs have quite limited communications, said Zhang. “As we recently work on building a platform, there were several national consultations held to create a dialogue in the last year.

More than a hundred of NGOs have come to the symposium, internationally and domestically. During the forum, they shared what they have done so far for the purpose of sustainable development, and got to know other organizations are doing the similar things like they do.”

Moreover, there were enterprises with intentions and related government organizations coming to the meeting, for better communication with NGOs, explaining the policies and building mutual trust. Such symposium is very beneficial to the great goal of development.

The rise of NGO

Recently, as Chinese government has loosened some registration criteria for some kinds of NGO, the number of NGOs has increased rapidly, along with the training for those NGOs.

For example, China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO) conducts training sessions for more than 10,000 NGO delegates from the world every year. The session will include basic knowledge of NGO, project management, strategic management, media research, government cooperation, international financing. It is quite influential in the country.

Source:http://english.people.com.cn/90882/…