Ministry of Civil Affairs

A department of the State Council in charge of social administrative affairs, the ministry shoulders the following major responsibilities:

To formulate the basic guidelines, policies, regulations, rules and regulations for civil administrative work, study and put forward development plans for social administrative undertakings; study and put forward standards for special care and preferential treatment, pensions and subsidies for various types of recipients and the standard for the pension of state employees after their death or after they incur injury; formulate the plan and implementation rules for taking care of demobilized army men, retired army men and workers who have worked in the military but have received no military ranking; organize and coordinate disaster relief work, organize and check the seriousness of disasters, manage and distribute disaster-relief materials and funding from the central Government and supervise the use of the materials and funding, organize and guide the donation for disaster-stricken regions and conduct international cooperation on reducing disasters; establish and implement the system of ensuring a minimum living standard for citizens; organize and provide guidance for social assistance activities such as poverty relief, guide social relief and assistance, guide the democratic election of villagers committees, democratic decision-making, democratic management and supervision as well as the building up of neighborhood committees in urban areas, and promote the openness in village affairs, the build up of democratic political system and urban community development; formulate guidelines, policies and regulations in regard to marriage; formulate the overall plan for setting up administrative divisions, handle the approval of establishing, dismissal, altering, and change of the names and borderlines of administrative divisions as well as the relocation of the governments at the county level or above, take charge of the order of listing and short-form naming of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central Government and special administrative regions, take charge of the approval of the names of administrative divisions at the county level or above, the approval of the naming and change of names of important natural and geographical entities, international public domain, space geographical entities and border areas, formulate plans for translating place names in ethnic minority regions and in foreign countries into Chinese script, standardize and administer the establishment of symbols for place names in the country, take charge of the examination and approval of books and materials on standardized names of places in and outside China; organize, coordinate and guide the finalization and administration of the borders of county-level administrative areas in the provinces, the investigation and mediation of border disputes among provinces; shoulder the administrative management of the protection of the interests of people with special difficulties such as the old-age people, orphans, and households of infirm and childless old people, provide guidance for the guarantee of the rights and interests of the disabled, formulate related guidelines, policies, regulations and rules; formulate guidelines and policies regarding funeral and interment work and promote the reform of funeral and interment practices; stipulate guidelines and policies on adopting children, provide guidance to the work involving child adoption both in China and in relation to areas outside China, work out guidelines and policies on taking in and sending home those leaving homes for various reasons, and coordinate such work between provinces; take part in activities with international organizations on civil affairs, take charge of bilateral and multilateral exchange and cooperation among governments, non-governmental organizations and international aid organizations in relations to civil affairs and take care of the settling down and sending home of international refugees in China.

The ministry has 10 offices and departments, namely: the general affairs office, non-governmental organizations bureau, relief arrangement bureau, disaster relief department, local government and community building department, administrative division department, social welfare and social affairs department, finance and ministerial organs department, foreign affairs department and personnel and education department.