Look to China for lessons in reducing poverty

MONTEVIDEO: China has radically changed the lives of millions of people with an effective poverty reduction strategy, which provided other developing countries with a roadmap of “possible paths” to higher standards of living, a top Uruguayan politician has said.

“What the Chinese government has achieved is an impressive transformation of people’s lives,” Javier Miranda, president of Uruguay’s Broad Front (FA) party, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

“In a world of some seven billion inhabitants, having lifted almost 10 % of the (global) population out of poverty has had an enormous impact on improving humanity’s quality of life,” said Miranda, a 56-year-old lawyer who has presided over the party since 2016.

China’s success in overcoming the historical problem “means that there are possible paths that, with commitment, dedication and long-term planning, it is possible to carry out policies to alleviate and eradicate poverty,” he said. Miranda has seen the achievement of China’s poverty reduction in person. In 2017, he visited a town in the mountains of southwest China’s Yunnan province, where living conditions have been vastly improved through better housing and easier access to technology and education.

“In certain corners of China, you can see how the government’s planned policies, led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), reach the most vulnerable sectors,” Miranda said.

The success of anti-poverty efforts relies “fundamentally on a government that is committed to a long-term policy of growth with equality,” Miranda said, adding that in Latin America, “we have a lot to learn.”—