USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文双语Français
Home / China

Govt should set an example in charity

By Michele Geraci | China Daily | Updated: 2011-08-25 07:39

Despite the successes that the Chinese economic development model has achieved over the last 30 years, one area - among others - seems to lag behind: that is, the charity sector. I believe that some of the reasons for this are to be attributed to a slow development of civil society in China, general public mistrust in certain organizations and certain individuals, and the lack of a clear government policy and legislation on the matter.

On the latter point, it is true that outsourcing private "charitable" initiatives to private citizens deprives the government of the required control and monitoring functions on the sector and may create social and geographical imbalances, whereby some areas are the target of certain charitable initiatives while some others are not, and some charitable initiatives are pursued while others are not.

In the West, at least, historically, countries had largely outsourced charity activities to religious organizations, mostly the Catholic Church, which over the centuries has helped channel donations from the rich to the needy, both in their home countries and abroad. No matter how many cases of corruption, fund misuse and other inefficiencies, the net effect has been positive.

Govt should set an example in charity

Today's Top News

Editor's picks

Most Viewed

Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US