In general, in areas such as poverty reduction, health, the environment, social welfare, and charity provision, NGOs are encouraged and allowed to play a greater role. However, in more sensitive areas such as religion, political reforms, and human rights, the influence of NGOs is much weaker. Also, some NGOs are more powerful than others. Most commercial-related organizations such as business associations at different levels and in different levels and in different regions are extremely powerful in influencing the government's policy-making process: it is not difficult to find business professionals sitting in the people's congresses and the People's Political Consultative Conferences at different levels of government, whereas workers and farmers are not allowed to organize themselves and thus lack effective mechanisms to articulate and aggregate their interests.