Transcript PPT 4.6M - IFPRI 2020 conferences
Keynote Speech at International Conference on Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People
Review and Outlook of Poverty Alleviation and Development in China
Fan Xiaojian Director and Deputy Group Leader of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development Oct 17 2007, Beijing China
Contents
I. Major Achievements and Contribution made by Poverty Alleviation for Development in China II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics IV. Challenges and Prospects
Foreword
Since the founding of new China 58 years ago, especially since reform and opening up carried out 30 years ago, China has made tremendous progress in poverty alleviation in China. The progress we have made is the result of a sustained economic growth, a series of development policies for social equity and special programs for poverty alleviation taken by the Government. The fundamental experience is that the Chinese Government has adopted and formulated a series of strategies and policies which have suited for our national conditions in poverty alleviation in different development periods.
I. Major Achievements and Contribution made by Poverty Alleviation for Development in China 1. Substantive reduction of the rural poor population
30000 25000 20000 rural abject poor population (10000) rural low-income poor population (10000) incidence of rural abject poverty (%) incidence of rural low income poverty (%) 15000 35 30 25 20 15 10000 10 5000 5 0 0 年份 Size of rural poor population and poverty incidence in China from 1978 to 2006
I. Major Achievements and Contribution made by Poverty Alleviation for Development in China 2. All social undertakings in the poor regions achieved remarkable progress. Infrastructures in the poor regions have been greatly improved, and human spirit in poor areas has gone through fundamental changes.
3. Remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation and development promoted political stability, social equity, national unity and border consolidation, thus becoming important factor to ensure an enduring social order.
I. Major Achievements and Contribution made by Poverty Alleviation for Development in China 4. Poverty alleviation and development in China also made positive contribution to the world poverty reduction.
Distribution of poor population living with less than 1 USD per day 1981 —1995 From: the World Bank website 站 Distribution of poor population living with less than 1 USD per day in 2000 From: World Resources Institute, 2006
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage 1: broad-sense poverty alleviation in the planned economic system (1949-1977) 1. Background:
planned economic system established; rural cooperative movement and people’s communes mobilized; capital for industrial development accumulated through system arrangement including collective ownership of major agricultural production materials such as land, mandatory low-price purchase of agriculture products, and even distribution.
2. Strategic measures to raise rural productivity
★ launch large-scale infrastructure construction ★ establishing agri-technology extension service network basically covering the whole country ★ setting up national rural cooperative credit system ★ pushing forward rapid development of rural fundamental education and basic medical care ★ preliminarily setting up rural social security system with focus on community’s “Wubao” of five quarantine system and assistance to rural extremely poor people.
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage II: large-scale poverty mitigation driven by system reform (1978 1985) 1. Background:
China started the transformation from planned economy to market economy. The rural areas took the lead in reform and opening up to the outside world.
2. Policy measures to facilitate poverty alleviation
★ Establish household contract responsibility system, reform rural distribution system, and introduce market orientation into the price formation and distribution mechanism for agricultural products.
★ Vigorously develop urban and township enterprises.
★ Promote transfer of rural redundant labors to non-agricultural industries
.
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage II: large-scale poverty mitigation driven by system reform (1978 1985)
★
Mobilize earmarked strategies on poverty alleviation and development
1980 Established the “Development Fund for the Assistance to Economically Underdeveloped Regions” 1982 – Launched agricultural development project for Sanxi Region, which consists of Dingxi Region and Hexi Region of Gansu Province, and Xihaigu Region of Ningxia Autonomous Region 1984 - Started the food for work projects which supply goods in kind, and built infrastructures in poverty stricken areas 1984 - Defined 18 poverty stricken zones as key areas in poverty alleviation programs.
This period was the most effective one in the poverty alleviation history in China – rural extremely poor population dropped from 250 million to 125 million, with average reduction of 17.86 million year on year. Poverty incidence went down from 30.7% to 14.8%, averaging 9.4% annually.
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage III: development-oriented poverty alleviation targeting at specific areas (1986 - 2000) 1. Background:
with rolling out market-oriented economic reform, disparity between middle west areas and coastal areas in the east increased gradually, and the rural economic growth and the improvement of farmers’ living conditions in areas of unfavorable conditions slowed down.
2. Strategic measures on poverty alleviation 1).
Roll out earmarked strategies on rural poverty alleviation, and implement the planned, organized and large-scale poverty alleviation and development programs ★ Establish specific institutions ★ Formulate the strategy of development-oriented poverty alleviation ★ Define poverty standard and key supporting areas ★ ★ Continue to implement policies of financial assistance like “Development Fund for the Assistance to Economically Underdeveloped Area”, “Food for Work Project”, “Sanxi Development” and etc Reduce poverty through favorable credit policies
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage III: development-oriented poverty alleviation targeting at specific areas (1986 - 2000)
★ Implement the “ National Eight-Seven Poverty Alleviation Plan ” 1993 since By 2000, the rural poor population was reduced to 32 million and the poverty incidence decreased to around 3%. Poverty also changed from a widespread phenomenon to the spot phenomenon, the incidence of which showed the pattern of “spot, line and area”, and the type of poverty has changed from absolute poverty to relative poverty.
2). Emergence of urban poverty and responsive measures
★ Background: due to industrial restructuring, transformation of employment system, and reform of distribution system and social welfare system, social differentiation deepened, the income disparity increased, and urban poverty became a prominent issue.
★ Responsive measures: roughly established the fundamental framework of urban social security system; promote reemployment of laid-off workers and increase job opportunities
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage IV: poverty alleviation for development in the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way. (from 2001 on) Poverty alleviation measures:
1. Implemented the China Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Program (2001-2010) Promptly address food and clothing needs of the remaining poor population; further improve the production and living conditions of poverty stricken areas, and reinforce the poverty reduction achievements.
Village-based program Industrialization orientation Training for labor transfer
II. Policy Options in Different Stages of Poverty Alleviation Stage IV: poverty alleviation for development in the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way. (from 2001 on)
By 2006, the number of people living in absolute poverty has fallen to 21.48 million, and poverty incidence dropped to 2.3%.
2. A complete anti-poverty policy system encompassing development oriented poverty alleviation programs, disaster relief, “five guarantees” scheme and “subsistence allowance” scheme was established. 3. Development-oriented, preventive and relief-oriented anti-poverty policy system for urban areas has also been improved gradually.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics
Ideological emancipation, structural reform, institutional innovation and policy support running through the entire reform program have brought along sustained and rapid economic growth, which have created a favorable macro-environment for large-scale poverty reduction. In this process, the Government of China clearly recognized that market can not benefit all the people automatically while the economic growth and the generalized preferential policy measures cannot solve all the poverty-related problems. Therefore, we carried out a special poverty alleviation program targeted on poor population, which is a development-oriented poverty alleviation program in line with the context of China. The core of this program is government leadership, public participation, self-reliance, development oriented poverty alleviation and all-round growth.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 1. Government leadership
1. Integrate poverty alleviation and development into national economic and social development plans 2. Set up and improve governing structure should at both central and local level, and consolidate relevant responsibilities of governments at all levels 3. Increase capital input continuously 4. Formulate pro-poor policies 5. Mobilize all social sectors to participate in poverty alleviation Poverty alleviation institutions at all levels
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 2. Public participation
1). 6 provinces in East China, 3 municipalities directly under the Central Government and 6 municipalities with independent budgetary status were assigned to help reduce poverty in 11 western poor provinces.
2). 272 government and Party agencies at central level and large state-owned enterprises were assigned to help reduce poverty in 481 key poverty-stricken counties.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 2. Public participation
3. All social sectors should be mobilized to participate in poverty alleviation.
4. We hope to promote the cooperation with international organizations, bilateral agencies and international non-governmental organizations to jointly carry out poverty alleviation activities.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 3. Self-reliance
1. Change outdated concepts of the poor farmers 2. Entitle the poor farmers rights to participate 3. Promote capacity building of the poor farmers 4. Facilitate self-governance of villagers through poverty alleviation and development activities
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 4. Development-oriented poverty alleviation
1. Help poor villages develop infrastructure for access to road, electricity, mail, radio and television.
2. Improve land productivity of poor farmers by developing farmland water conservancy projects.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 4. Development-oriented poverty alleviation
3. Support poor farmers in developing crop production, animal production and small scale processing projects.
4. Organize diversified vocational and technical trainings to introduce new agricultural technology and practices.
5. Develop large-scale labor transfer and voluntary relocation of farmers and creating job and development opportunities.
III. Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program with Chinese Characteristics 5. All-round development
1. Popularize 9-year compulsory education, and basically eliminate illiteracy among adults; 2. Provide free textbooks and exempting extra charges for all the students from poor rural families in the central and western regions in the primary and secondary schools, and subsidize living expenses for the poor in boarding schools; 3. Gradually set up a new type of rural cooperative medical care system; 4. Actively urge poor rural families to have fewer children and get rich as soon as possible; 5. Convert farmland for forestry and carry out other large-scale projects; 6. Establish the rural minimum cost of living allowance system.
IV. Challenges and Prospects 1. Challenges
1. Huge poor population and entrenched poverty; 2. Development in poor areas still lagging behind; 3. Increasing factors leading to poverty, with unabated recurrence of poverty; 4. Unbalanced socio-economic development; development of public service and social security system falling behind; conflict between natural ecology and economic development being prominent; implementation system of social development and poverty alleviation policy to be improved and the efficiency of poverty reduction to be enhanced immediately.
IV. Challenges and Prospects 2. Prospects 1). Objectives and priorities of development-oriented poverty alleviation in the next three years
provide sufficient food and shelter to rural poor; try to accomplish the village based poverty alleviation plan; provide the access to television in administrative villages, access to highway in places where conditions permit, access to electricity in natural villages; further improve drinking water supply for human and animals and improve medical care system, popularize the nine-year compulsory education in an all-round way. Based on the new characteristics and development of poverty as well as the requirement of scientific development concept and building a harmonious society, new poverty alleviation plan will be formulated in line with local conditions and new policy measures will be adopted.
IV. Challenges and Prospects 2. Prospects 2). Favorable macro-environment and sound development basis for poverty alleviation in the forthcoming period
★ Promote sustained and rapid development of national economy; ★ Constantly improve social security and assistance system; ★ Achieve more harmonious development of economy and nature; ★ Build modern agriculture following a guidance of “industry promoting agriculture, urban areas promoting rural areas” ; ★ Improve physical conditions for rural development and increase farmers’ income; ★ Develop rural social undertakings, and bring up new type of farmers; ★ Gradually realize a coordinated socio-economic development in urban and rural areas.
IV. Challenges and Prospects 2. Prospects 3). Drive forth poverty alleviation and development steadily
★ Persist in development-oriented poverty alleviation, and integrate development with security ★ Innovate mechanism, pool resources and increase investment in poverty alleviation ★ Improve fund management and enhance investment efficiency ★ Address food and shelter needs of poor people, improve people’s income and self-development capacity, and let the poor people benefit from the achievements of reform and development.
4). Continue to actively participate in the global poverty alleviation course.