Perceptions of Third Sector Governance in Asia

In the early 1990s when the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) emphasized good governance as a precondition for development in Africa and Asia, a Chinese scholar Dr. Yu Keping started to use the term ‘governance’ in his political writings, which were circulated among a narrow circle of mostly Western-educated scholars. In a communist regime this was a sensitive matter for he described governance as decision-making with public participation as a necessary ingredient—a major tenet of democracy. Later on, the advocacy for good governance mainly by the international community, the increase in research and training programmes and the expansion of the third sector made ‘governance’ more popular to the Chinese (Ding, 2005). Around the same time, the introduction of doi moi or market-based reforms in Vietnam increased the role of private organisations while reducing the role of government in key areas of development, especially in the field of welfare and social services (Duong and Hong, 2006). This followed the arrival of international organisations along with terms like ‘governance’.