A promise delivered
benefits the locals in different ways. It offers nine jobs for a yearly salary of about 40, 000 yuan ($5,816) each. Another 15 households that are incapable of working were invited to join the program as stakeholders with a 50,000 yuan ($7,270) loan from local banks.
The concept of a targeted approach to poverty alleviation was put forward in the context that after China had lifted over 740 million people out of poverty in the last 40 years, further reduction becomes more difficult as the poor population gets smaller.
“In the past, when a policy was introduced, it helped rid large groups of people of poverty. Now what remains is the most difficult part of the work,” said Liu Yongfu, Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. Today, with these targeted measures, poor households in China like the ones in Lichang Village are supported. The duck farm in Lichang Village generates an annual profit of more than 800,000 yuan ($116,000), of which 35 percent goes to the public account of the village. It provides financial support for those most in need. Wang said that the care center is one of the initiatives funded with this money.
What CIPG’S efforts represent is a nationwide battle against poverty in tandem with many other organizations in China, be they central or local, state-owned or private.
On a wasteland in Bijie, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, a poverty alleviation team of Evergrande, a Fortune Global 500 company based in south China’s Guangdong Province, is building the company’s 447th cattle breeding base in Guizhou, where a new batch of pure-species Angus cattle imported from Australia will be kept. For decades, Bijie has been one of the poorest mountain areas in west China. Considering its optimum temperature and rich pasture, Evergrande introduced the breeding of Angus cattle in the hope that this imported variety may generate extra profit for the locals by feeding China’s increasing demand for high-quality beef.
Evergrande got involved in poverty alleviation initiatives in December 2015, when it volunteered to offer help to Dafang, one of Bijie’s 10 counties, and donated 3 billion yuan ($436 million) for poverty alleviation. In May 2017, Evergrande expanded its help to the nine other counties and invested another 8 billion yuan ($1.16 billion).
In addition to financial support, Evergrande selected 321 cadres from the group to lead a team for poverty alleviation. Its ambition is to lift the 924,300 poor people of Bijie out of poverty by 2020.
This east-west poverty alleviation collaboration started in 1996, when a policy was formulated in the central government’s conference on poverty alleviation and development to pair developed coastal areas in the east and poor areas in the west.
In 1988, to develop a country with a vast territory and great development gaps between the east and the west, the central government decided that priority should be given to the eastern coastal areas to allow them to develop first, after which they would help the western areas.
No one left behind
Dulong Township, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, is where the Drung people have lived for generations. With a population of about 7,000, the Drung is one of China’s smallest ethnic groups. As the township is located in a valley among steep mountains, traffic is the key to poverty alleviation there.
In 1996, the government built a road for the township, which was for some time the only passage connecting the township to the outside world. However, the road worked for only half of the year, while for the other half, heavy snow sealed the mountains, making access impossible. When the road was impassable, the transportation of goods depended on horses. Each year before the mountains were sealed, the government had to organize horse caravans to transport necessities to Dulong Township. Each trip took five to six days.
The problem was solved on April 10, 2014, when a 6.68-km tunnel through the mountains was completed. With a better road, came a better life. In 2017, the per-capita net income of Dulong Township reached 4,959 yuan ($722), more than four times that of 2009.
“On the march toward common prosperity, no one must be left behind.” This is what President Xi said repeatedly to poverty alleviation workers. At the 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum, he announced the target of eliminating poverty across China by the end of 2020. This means there is not much time left for poverty alleviation workers countrywise.
Wang is not too worried about the time factor because Zuoquan County has completed its poverty alleviation mission. In May 2019, the county will be assessed by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. Wang is confident about the result, but he points out that this does not mean the end of their work.
“What we do next is to continue to develop our programs and consolidate the results of poverty alleviation,” he said.
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