In the past 10 years, the Guangdong government has placed significant importance on the development of NGOs, promoting them to play a bigger role in facilitating economic development, social governance, and international cooperation. At present, there are 71,614 NGOs in Guangdong (known locally as social organizations), among which 1,466 are foundations and 1,913 are charities.
Numerous official documents and guidelines have been issued to increase the capacity of NGOs, from regulating their usage of funds to guiding organizations to enhance their operational capacity.
For instance, the “NGO Capacity Building Guide” and the “Training Guide for NGO Management Talents” were released in June 2022 to guide organizations to focus on expanding and enriching their talent pools, and enhance their services by improving internal organization structure.
In terms of the supervision of NGOs, the province has gone through the transition from government management to social credit supervision and comprehensive supervision.
A series of documents such as the “Opinions of the Department of Civil Affairs in Guangdong Province on NGO Information Disclosure” and the “Notice on Further Promoting the Integrity and Self-Discipline of Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce” have been issued to improve NGO information disclosure to the public and impose timely punishments for organizations which violate rules and regulations.
Therefore, the supervision of NGOs has been changed from a single administrative passive management model to a proactive management model with the participation of government departments, NGOs, third-party evaluation agencies, and the public.
The provincial government has also emphasized regulating the operation of NGOs, standardizing the charging of membership fees of trade associations and chambers of commerce, and clearing zombie organizations.
In 2016, the Department of Civil Affairs in Guangdong Province revised the “Management Measures for NGO Evaluation”, forming a scientific and standardized evaluation framework that meets the requirements of NGO development.
At the same time, the government launched several flagship projects to engage NGOs in different aspects of social development. For example, a program has been in place for many years which gathers around 100 NGOs to reach out to and help left-behind and distressed children in rural areas.
