Amelie Van Den Bos, Global Village of Beijing

Amelie Van Den Bos is program coordinator for Global Village of Beijing (GVB), and she is helping to organize Earth Day 2000 in China.

Telephones are ringing off the hook, and it's hard for me to write this diary entry! This is the aftermath of the Earth Day 2000 China Launching Ceremony -- journalists want more information and interviews, and they want them now!

Everyone at the office has bags under their eyes from a hard week that is almost over. We had a staff meeting to discuss Global Village of Beijing's accomplishments and areas for improvement, then a banquet to celebrate everyone's efforts. Sheri Liao went around the table, praising each of her staff members. The truth is that because non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a recent phenomenon in China, it isn't easy to get a group of people together who will bear the burdens of overwork and underpay for the environmental cause.

As I was explaining to the person who will eventually replace me, GVB is the largest Chinese NGO in Beijing, and it has been a struggle all the way. Although China has government-sponsored NGOs, GVB was formed independently from the government and registered with the Civil Affairs Bureau as a nonprofit company. GVB therefore must pay annual taxes, which are one of the deterrents to establishing independent NGOs.

Getting the money to operate a successful NGO and implement its programs is another challenge to NGOs in China. As the Chinese economic and legal systems do not yet accommodate NGOs, private donations from Chinese people to charity organizations are quite rare. Most of GVB's funding comes from abroad, from international organizations like the United Nations and World Bank, and foundations like Global Green Grants and the Rockefeller Foundation. Finally, because many Chinese people have not heard about the existence of NGOs, we often have to spend at least half an hour legitimizing ourselves at the beginning of activities involving unfamiliar groups of participants. (People here often associate non-government with anti-government.)

Just because it's hard doesn't mean more and more NGOs aren't being created. Part of GVB's mission is to help other NGOs get on their feet by providing advice and, in a few cases, start-up funds. Because of China's geographical size, population, environmental conditions, and political system, it is perhaps people in China who are most in need of the services offered by NGOs -- raising public environmental awareness so people will act in an environmentally conscious way on the individual level and demand action from their government.

To survive, NGOs in China must seek partnerships with the government, create a solid base of media support, and develop international support. How can the international community help NGOs in China (in addition to providing funding)? They can provide sustainable NGO training, assist with NGO networking, and demand NGO participation at all levels of program exchange.

This week has shown how much NGOs in China are capable of accomplishing. They are ready to collaborate in celebrating the first countrywide Earth Day in China. As a result of the last two decades of economic reform, NGOs in China are on the rise. Indeed, they are absolutely necessary for China to address its overwhelming environmental problems and develop a new civil society