Program Summary

In China, local participatory community organization is still in its infancy and has yet to establish efficient operating procedures within community organisations under current market regulations. Plan China will help develop and improve the institutional capacity and economic sustainability of rural economic organizations, which will in turn, drive the development of their communities’.

Why we are doing it?

Cooperatives, associations and other community economic organizations have been widely established in developed countries to unite individuals and enhance their abilities to improve theirs, or other’s lives. To date, China has only 150,000 cooperatives and their members make up only 9.8% of the population which is much lower than developed countries. For example, there are 40 million farmers in Shaanxi province with less than 10 thousands science and technology advisors, which means one science and technology advisors has to help 4,000 farmers. Without good organization and coordination, most farmers are not able to get access to science and technology training.  There are new challenges for Chinese farmers relating to environmental issues, water, soil erosion and outdated farming techniques. In addition, for this generation of farmers, women are the main labour force in the fields as most men in the under-developed countryside areas have moved into the cities to seek their fortune, The women farmers have not had the gradual development of their farming skills like their male counterparts nor the physical capacity to carry out some existing farming methods.

Our Approach

Plan China will, over 5 years, help develop local rural communities through training of local community leaders, supporting the establishment of cooperatives and organizing agricultural networks, thus improving the quality of life for rural women, children and other community members.

Program Goals

Improve the quality of life for rural women, children and other community members.

Program Activities

1. Facilitate the formation of new rural community organizations and enhance the capacity of existing ones. After a community needs assessment and community organizational analysis, Plan will help community members to form new cooperatives or consolidate existing ones. Through trainings and study tours, we aim to improve information flows for community organisations, enhance their skills to deal with traders, and expand their scale.
2. Plan will help rural communities link with agricultural and marketing experts, provide trainings on agricultural technologies and marketing for community members, as well as form a volunteer network comprised of agricultural experts to support ongoing agricultural training. We will train up some locals to be experts to drive the development of their communities by themselves.
3. Build a community based information sharing network. The trained local community experts will provide a variety of training programss for community members on finance, agricultural technologies, marketing, etc. In the meantime, they will help build the capacity of local organisations.
4. Community programs integration and development: Plan China and local Microfinance association will selectively support some local economic organizations through loans and programs which could thus help those organizations expand their size and reach.

Program Partners

GungHo or ICCIC (The International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives), is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1939 in Hong Kong.

Future of the Program

We are starting to pilot a comprehensive cooperative program in Shaanxi with our partner GungHo in 2008.

Impact

Through the cooperation with other partners, this program will: Test a model of rural economic organizations and attempt to scale up nationally; Build a regional IT support network and expand and develop community organizations helping community members, especially women and children.