By Li Lei (李磊), Phoenix Finance (凤凰财经), April 24, 2013
Zhang Guoyuan of the NGO Disaster Preparedness Center suggests that the government develop a more formal and official method of communicating with NGOs, in order to allow these groups to avoid redundancy and better support government efforts. The Center, which is comprised of NGOs from ten provinces, includes more than 200 NGOs, and has received funding support from the One Foundation, focuses on small and medium-sized disaster relief, but has also played a role in this major disaster relief effort. Unfortunately, as employees described, due to a lack of coordination between different disaster relief organizations and volunteer groups, there have been certain bottlenecks in reaching disaster victims. Zhang acknowledged that local government had extended significant efforts toward informing these groups of relief plans and strategies, but suggests that an official unit dedicated to coordination might be a more effective means of utilizing the energies of the public and civil society.
