Civil Society in Vietnam

CIVIL SOCIETY_RESEARCH PAPER

ĐINH THỊ THU HƯƠNG – 3Q16

TOPIC: There’s an argument that the existence of Vietnam’s non-governmental organizations is a byproduct of aid, and therefore, lacks fundamental philosophy that unifies and encompasses the development of the NGOs community. Worse still, competition for reducing aid is tearing them apart. What do you think? Support your arguments with reasoning and specific example.

ABSTRACT

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is not the new concept in Vietnam at present time. In fact, they are more considered as the third key sector that play a vital role on the stage of development of society, beside the state and private sector. However, with all the rapid development and notable achievements that VNGOs have brought, there are still some questions about its independence, especially in terms of finance. This paper, with the information from various reports and studies about VNGOs, aims to find the level of dependence of VNGOs on aids and sponsors and the ways they are trying to overcome challenges in order to become more autonomous.

Contents

1.        Introduction        4

2.        What is VNGOs?        4

3.        Are they a byproduct of aid?        5

4.        Is there a competition of aids between them?        8

5.        How do they become more independent in terms of finance?        9

6.        Conclusion        10

REFERENCES        12

1. Introduction

Vietnamese non-governmental organization (VNGOs) can be seen as one of the four main categories of civil society in Vietnam, including mass organizations, socio-political professional organizations (umbrella and network), VNGOs and community-based organizations (Wyndham & Ly, 2011). In fact, the number of NGOs in Vietnam has increased tremendously just in the short period of more than two decades since it was officially used in Law on governmental organizations in 1992 for the first time (in Clause 9, Article 20). The contribution of NGOs for socio-economic development process has been recognized. Yet, there are still some questions about their functions and management: Do they survive thanks to sponsors and aids? Are they lack fundamental philosophy of NGOs? Is there a competition for aid between them? How do they become more financial independence? All of these key questions will be discussed in this paper.

1. What is VNGOs?

First of all, before finding the answers to all these questions, I will define the general concept of VNGOs which will be discussed in this research.  An important thing needed to note is that there is no precise definition of the NGOs all over the world, for their roles and sizes vary from place to place, depending on the historical, cultural-political, and social contexts in different countries (Lewis, 2010).

In Vietnam, currently, Vietnam NGOs includes organizations which are established and operating under Decree No.45/2010 of the Government on the organization, operation, and management of associations. They are considered to work on the principles of voluntary, self-financing, self-governance, self-responsibility before the law and non-profit charities in the aspects such as social, humanitarian, research and development, medical health, education, environment, law, etc. These organizations mainly include individuals working with the purpose to protect the legal right and benefits of members, associations, and the public society. They support each other to contribute to the social and economic growth of the whole country (Khieu, 2013).

In short, with the natural and fundamental characteristics of NGOs in Vietnam, we can identify an organization as a VNGOs based on three main following factors: voluntarily and legally establishment, not belong to governmental administration mechanism, and its purpose is non-profit (Linh, 2009).

1. Are they a byproduct of aid?

First, it can be said that the idea about ‘NGOs’ model has resulted from charity organizations working with a view to helping marginalized people affected by natural disasters, war, and poverty. This idea appeared very early in the history of human beings when the state cannot always fulfill their function of taking good care of social welfare for every single citizen. Hence, there was a room for individuals to associate and help each other which based on the willingness of people and aids, in order to implement charity and humanitarian work (Linh, 2009). It is true for many communities, and Vietnam is not an exception. Thus, there is nothing wrong when we see that the initial concept of NGOs in general, and VNGOs in particular, is based on aids.