Internet can help eliminate stubborn, intractable poverty

WITH MORE AND MORE impoverished citizens getting access to internet, and many rural students receiving quality education via the internet, the internet has become a key part of the country’s poverty alleviation efforts. Beijing Daily comments:

The Cyberspace Administration of China and the China Foundation of Internet Societies have jointly issued a list of internet poverty alleviation typical cases in 2019. It includes the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation’s poverty alleviation health insurance for poor families, Alibaba’s village livestreaming project that aims to help the farmers use livestreaming to sell their agricultural products and the China Internet Development Foundation’s ChineseTibetan bilingual mobile phone donation project.

These typical internet poverty alleviation projects are of great significance to China's poverty alleviation work nowadays. According to the central government’s plan, by 2020 all the impoverished population in China will be rid of poverty according to the existing poverty standard. Those people that have still not cast off poverty are the most extremely impoverished population that live in poverty-stricken areas with poor natural and economic conditions. They are the hardest challenge for poverty alleviation work.

Internet poverty alleviation initiatives are a significant development that can help overcome the challenge of intractable poverty. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Council Leading Group Office for Poverty Alleviation and Development have jointly issued an Internet Poverty Alleviation Action Plan in October 2016, with the aim of encouraging and guiding online enterprises and network organizations to actively participate in poverty relief work.

The typical internet poverty alleviation projects show that e-commerce platforms can fully leverage their comprehensive strengths to build a poverty alleviation mechanism based on their platforms. To help the impoverished population get rid of poverty permanently, we should not only provide external support, but stimulate their internal vitality. The impoverished population in povertystricken areas and agricultural products should be incorporated into the national living service industrial chain, in order to promote sustainable development in impoverished areas and achieve the poverty alleviation goal.