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Civil Society organizations grow rapidly in recent years in China. According to statistics, there are about 280,000 civil society organizations (including 3 categories: social organizations, private non-enterprise organizations, foundations) registered at different levels of Civil Affairs Bureaus by March 2005. Civil society organizations began to play an active role in public service delivery within the context of public administration reform which aims to transfer some of the government’s functions to business sector and the third sector.
Building good relationship between civil society and government in China is a means to increase the mutual understanding of civil society and government, to develop the role of civil society organizations in service delivery and to contribute to China’s social reform agenda of ‘small government and big society’.
In this context, British Council partners the NGO Research Institute of Tsinghua University to look at the UK’s model of cooperation between government and the third sector) and to explore how the UK’s model could be adapted to a China’s context.
The purpose of the COMPACT Project is to promote partnership between government and the third sector in China by drawing from experience and practice of UK Compact. The Compact on Relations between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector (the COMPACT) is a partnership framework between the government and the volunteer and community departments. The COMPACT was adopted by the UK’s Home Office in 1998. One of the key principles of the COMPACT is that government works in partnership with the voluntary and community sector can result in better policy and services and better outcomes for the community. At local level, local Compact are signed by local public bodies and local voluntary and community organizations.
The COMPACT Project runs two years from April 2005 to March 2007. In the first year we do a research on the UK’s COMPACT and disseminate the major finds to our target audience (including Ministry of Civil Affairs, local civil affairs bureaus and NGOs) through two seminars. In the second year we choose four communities in Shanghai, Ningbo, Yunnan, Jiangxi (one for each) as pilots to introduce the principles of COMPACT and develop a local ‘Compact’ for local government and NGOs. The project will produce a final report with policy recommendations on building mutual understanding and developing partnership between government and the third sector in March 2007. The final report will be submitted to relevant government bodies.
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