Wang Zhenyao(黄振耀)

Editor's Note:

The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) will be held in June in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It will be the first time for China's NGOs to join in a three-party dialogue, communicating with NGOs from Europe and Latin America directly. People's Daily Online (PO) talked to Huang Haoming (Huang), executive director of the China Association for NGO Cooperation, and Wang Zhenyao (Wang), dean of the One Foundation Public Interest Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, on these issues.

PO: The concept of this three-party talk between China, Europe and Latin America is a brand new one. What motivated it? And what are the difficulties?

Wang: There are two major difficulties, and both concerned with communication at the current stage.

The first one is language. We need translators for at least three languages during a meeting and the negotiations usually turn complicated and time-consuming.

The other one is about culture. We come from three continents and often have totally different views on one issue once the discussion moves in depth.

PO: What are the expectations you have for this dialogue platform?

Huang: The first expectation in Rio is to make more friends in the same fields as us. The more friends we have, the more channels and opportunities we have.

The second expectation is that we hope we can start fleshing out dialogue mechanisms between the NGOs from China, Europe and Latin America. We can also do routine exchanges of publications in order to learn from real cases on different continents.

Wang: I suggest China's NGOs find more value in their own heritage while they compare experiences with groups in other countries.

I noticed during the exchanges that there are a lot of elements regarding sustainable development in China's past, even from ancient times, that were neglected by us but picked up on by foreigners.

Also, in order to improve our own situation, we have to know how the outside world perceives us in order to improve. For example, Chinese enterprises have been keeping a relatively low profile when investing in foreign countries.

I have been asked by many experts from Latin America how Chinese firms operate because all they have heard about is some bad rumors, such as that Chinese factories are all sweatshops and our products are not environmentally friendly. The misunderstandings lie in lack of communication.

Through the comparisons and communications I mentioned above, we can have a better sense of direction since we have a better understanding of our advantages and disadvantages.

PO: How do you see the development of China's NGOs and its involvement in international affairs?

Huang: China's NGOs barely had any say in the international community until the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Now there are 29 NGOs from China that have consultative status in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The 29 NGOs fully involved with UN's are all working on important issues such as joining the global climate change negotiations.

Another good trend in the development of China's NGOs is that many young people are joining the organizations. They have better language skills and a more international perspective, which is helpful in bringing China's NGOs to the world stage.

However, China's NGOs are still at an early stage of development. The number of NGOs is less than 5 percent that of the US. And due to the lack of comprehensive mechanisms and sufficient funds, China's NGOs still have fewer opportunities to get involved in international affairs.

PO: How can we keep the international conversation between NGOs from different continents going in the future? What could we learn from NGOs from other countries?

Huang: First of all, we have to build mutual trust as the basis of communication. Otherwise, it cannot last long.

Second, for China's NGOs, we have to try to raise more funds to keep things going.

Third, we should seek more ways of communication other than direct talks. We can exchange publications and maintain routine discussions on the Internet.

Besides, learning from those organizations' development experience, we can also learn some negotiation skills and their sustainable development models, which are more mature than ours.