In China, as part of a wide-ranging and unrelenting crackdown on rights-based CSOs, as well as individual activists and human rights lawyers, a Foreign NGO Law of 2016 has made it increasingly difficult for international NGOs to operate and support Chinese CSOs. It comes as little surprise, then, that international funding for Chinese CSOs is drying up. What did come as a surprise, however, was how quickly Chinese CSOs adapted to this situation and reinvented themselves to mobilize local funding to replace the international funding that was no longer coming in.

The full article can be found on Open Global Rights.

Shawn Shih-hung Shieh is the former Deputy Director of China Labour Bulletin, Principal of Social Innovations Advisory, Ltd. and a Contributor to Rights CoLab.

Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash