Civil Society

Along with the rapid socio-economic development in China, many NGOs that are devoted to envrionment protection, poverty alleviation, community development, legal aid and health care, are continuously springing up througout the country. Among them, many belong to grassroot NGOs. The VTC at CANGO is set up timely to satisfy neeeds for internal development of grassroot NGOs. The VTC, which is a four-year training project, is funded by EED, the German Church Development Service Agency, and implemented by CANGO.

The sole purpose of the project is to strengthn self capacity building including net-working of grassroot NGOs and to help them achieve sustinable and healthy organizational development. Considering their different needs and problems confronting them in the process of development, the training focuses on five inter-related subjects: NGOs Basics; Fundraising and Resource Mobilization; Project Design and Management; Leadership in NGOs; and, Strategic Planning for NGOs. There were six training workshops so far conducted in 2003 with a total of 147 participants from 105 organizations.

The Participatory Urban Governance program aims to foster public participation in urban governance. It adresses two main constituencies: on the one hand the local state represented by the municipal government and on the other hand the local community, consisting of formal and informal groups and networks of citizens. The project will influence political institutions guiding state-society relations and shape urban policies in a way that they become more socially just and inclusive.

Highly motivated and well-trained German and Chinese volunteers do internships at German and Chinese non-governmental organizations (NGO), which work in similar sectors.

Since internship experiences also have an effect on future job choices, one goal of the project is to show talented young people that there are also job perspectives in the non-business and non-state sector. Involved NGO receive the help of competent interns and are being able to build up partnerships with foreign NGO. The project thus operates both on the individual and organizational level.

Chinese NGO can expand their agenda on Germany, a European country that is increasingly engaging China on all levels and in all sectors. Likewise Chinese NGO can increase their organizational capacities with the help of volunteers from home and abroad.

The project aims at fostering civil activism, strengthening Chinese non-governmental organizations, building trans-national networks and thereby enhances a friendly, tolerant and cooperative relationship between both countries.

The project is jointly carried out by the China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO) and the German Asia Foundation and is being supported by the Center for International Migration and Development (CIM).

To learn more about the project, please click here for a German and a Chinese project description.

To learn more about the project partners, please click here to see the profiles of 18 Chinese NGO that have been indicating that they are willing to host both a Chinese and a German intern for at least 3 months.

For further information please consult the project managers in Germany and China: