Turning the tide in fight against rural poverty
Print Edition
DROUGHT-STRICKEN Dongxiang Autonomous County, high on the Loess Plateau of northwest China’s Gansu Province, is one of the poorest and most isolated places in the country.
Around 300,000 people from the Dongxiang ethnic group are scattered in the county’s mountain ravines.
Fifteen years ago, 17-year-old Ma Dawu couldn’t bear the poverty and left Bulenggou Village, which lacked access to water, roads and electricity until two years ago.
“Bare hillsides and shabby adobe houses were all that I saw in the county,” Ma recalled.
However, poverty reduction projects since 2013 have transformed his hometown. More than 50 village households have moved to new homes with running water and electricity, and roads connect them to the outside world.
Earlier this year, local officials and residents identified poor households across the county and entered their information into a database to design targeted poverty relief measures.
Local government provided the households with 25 mu (1.7 hectares) of land — enough to raise 3,000 sheep. It has also made 19 training courses available in skills such as driving, raising poultry and welding.
Ma decided to come back about a year ago, and now he is starting a farm with other villagers.
“I’ll expand my business to agricultural and food processing in the future to help more villagers beat poverty,” Ma said.
China’s fight against poverty in Dongxiang started more than three decades ago, and relief work has accelerated since the United Nations highlighted poverty relief as a core mission in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.
China was the first developing country to meet the MDG target of reducing the impoverished population by half ahead of the 2015 deadline. China has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty in the past 15 years, accounting for about 70 percent of those brought out of poverty worldwide.
Dongxiang is one of 592 impoverished counties in the country, most of which are located in central and western provinces such as Shanxi, Henan and Guizhou.
Despite its progress, China still has more than 70 million people living under the country’s poverty line of 2,300 yuan (US$376) in annual income.
China aims to lift all people out of poverty by 2020. This is a challenging task requiring a monthly poverty reduction goal of about 1 million people for the next five years, according to Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the country’s top poverty reduction watchdog.
Though the government’s poverty relief fund has nearly doubled in four years, the results have fallen below expectations: only 12.32 million people emerged from poverty last year, compared with 43.29 million in 2011.
“The remaining areas are all hard nuts to crack,” Liu added.
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