Eliminating Rural Poverty in China

United Nations ESCAP
HRD Section

Elimating Rural Poverty in China

Setting the Right Strategies

A large part of the population of China is living in rural areas. The problem of rural poverty has been successfully attacked over the past few years. A few of the anti-poverty programs are presented below.

China's poverty alleviation programme began in 1980. In the late 1970s the policy of collectivisation was abandoned, and rural China moved into its modern era. The land that had been farmed by the collectives was distributed to households, based on the number of persons in the household. This represented a nationwide land reform process. In the period of 1980-86 there was a wide ranging restructuring of the rural economy, with far-reaching consequences for rural prosperity in those areas which were in a good position to benefit from this restructuring.

A poverty alleviation strategy was effectively formulated between 1986 and 1993. Several critical sub-strategies of the overall strategy can be detected. The core of these being, designating beneficiary counties, the allocation of State funds, and the formation of the Leading Group and Leading Group office structure to administer the work.

Poverty almost invariably has to be targeted in a very directed poverty alleviation strategy. In China's case it began at the State level by designating 331 counties as poor counties. It was these counties which State money and efforts would target. Individual provinces were free to designate additional counties as poor, rendering them eligible for additional provincial assistance, and a further 468 counties were designated. This process gave a total of 799 counties which were to be the beneficiaries of a special poverty alleviation programme.

Second, it was recognized that any serious poverty alleviation programme requires funds. A major fund of Y 1 billion was set aside in 1986, with some Y 800 million added to it annually. These funds were to be available as loans to poor farmers or for rural enterprises which were designed to benefit poor farmers. As a largely revolving fund, the capital input was thus considerable over the total period.

A third strategy obviously called for within the poverty alleviation programme was a co-ordination and implementation structure. The State Council established a Leading Group for Economic Development in Poor Areas. This Group brought together more than 20 ministries; in effect it contained all of the government agencies whose work was relevant to poverty alleviation, thus providing a mechanism which could both influence the initiatives taken by the various ministries and seek to co-ordinate their work in this particular area.

However, a Ministerial Council such as the Leading Group required an implementation arm, and this arm was the State Leading Group Office. This office was available to service the Leading Group and to administer the policies and programmes for which the Leading Group was responsible. It could also carry out the research necessary to ensure that the policies adopted by the Leading Group were well-based and well-directed.

The three strategies outlined above represent, as mentioned, the core of the overall strategy. However, other aspects seem to have great potential and are regarded by many as indeed important.

One of these strategies was to strongly encourage all levels of government which had reached the stage of enjoying a good level of development, to adopt a poorer area and promote its development. Under this scheme a Ministry, a city, a Province or even a county was encouraged to focus some of its energies and resources specifically on a selected county or area, until that county or area had overcome poverty. Apart from the tangible benefits for poor counties of this strategy, it also ensured that the more developed areas did not forget, or grow ignorant of the needs of, their poorer fellow citizens.

Another of these strategies was basically a Food-for-Work strategy designed to build the necessary infrastructure of poor rural areas. The scheme provided a fund through which road, irrigation and other construction projects could be carried out by Village Heads selecting poorer farmers to do the work. Those employed on the projects would sometimes receive food, but more often vouchers which could be exchanged for food or other basic necessities.

While not implying that the above outlined strategies represent the only national poverty alleviation strategies adopted by the Chinese Government, there is little doubt that each of them has been a very successful strategy which other governments could well seek to replicate.

Taken from the publication: “Making an Impact: Innovative HRD Approaches to Poverty Alleviation”, ESCAP, 1997