Poverty Elimination:
Humanity’s Common Goal
Poverty alleviation is a serious challenge facing the world and a major issue to be resolved. The initiative, Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, launched by the United Nations in 2016, sets 17 sustainable development goals, among which the mission of “elimination of all forms of poverty throughout the world” ranks first. At present, 750 million people in the world are still shackled in extreme poverty.
Since the start of reform and opening-up four decades ago, the Chinese government has mobilized various sectors of society to implement poverty alleviation strategies in institutions and mechanisms, and has accumulated rich experience in this regard. It has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty and promised to eradicate poverty completely by 2020. According to statistics compiled by the World Bank, the incidence of poverty in China dropped from 88.3 percent at the end of 1981 to 1.85 percent at the end of 2013, contributing more than 70 percent to global poverty reduction, which renders China the country with the largest population lifted out of poverty in the world.
Meanwhile, China energetically conducts international poverty alleviation cooperation, contributing its strength to world poverty reduction. Over the past 60 years, China has provided nearly RMB 400 billion in aid to 166 countries and international organizations, dispatched more than 600,000 aid workers, declared unconditional debt waiver for government interest-free loans to heavily indebted poor countries and the least developed countries seven times, and provided assistance to more than 120 developing countries in their efforts to realize the Millennium Development Goals.