In addition to government efforts, China has taken a number of steps to
mobilize and organize people in all walks of life, including in the eastern
coastal provinces and in multi-level party and government organs, to join the
development and construction effort in poverty-stricken regions.
The government has organized 15 eastern provinces and municipalities to
support development in 11 corresponding poverty-stricken provinces, autonomous
regions and cities in western regions. It has organized 116 central party and
government organs and 156 large state firms to help and support 481 key targeted
counties. And it has organized all social sectors to participate in the process
of closing the country's yawning income gap.
The Glorious Enterprise program encourages private firms to invest in
impoverished areas. The Hope Project organized by the Communist Youth League
Central Committee sponsors children in poor households to finish compulsory
education. The non-communist parties in the country organized the
Knowledge-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program, utilizing their own advantages
to help poor regions extend practical technologies. The Happiness Project
organized by the Chinese Population Foundation sponsors poor mothers, and the
Women-oriented Poverty Alleviation Program organized by the All-China Women's
Federation aims to increase women's income.
From December 2005 to February this year, the China Foundation for Poverty
Alleviation (CFPA), the largest of its kind in the country for poverty relief,
invited bids from 10 Chinese and foreign NGOs for implementing a village-level
poverty alleviation project in 22 key poverty-stricken villages of east China's
Jiangxi Province, under the entrustment of Jiangxi Provincial Poverty
Alleviation and Development Office.
Six NGOs were chosen in April 2006. They were Heifer Project International
from the United States, Jiangxi Provincial Association Promoting
Mountain-River-Lake Regional Sustainable Development, Jiangxi Youth Development
Foundation, The Ningxia Center for Poverty Alleviation and Environment
Improvement, China Association for NGO Cooperation and Research Association for
Women and Family.
Under the scenario, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty
Alleviation and Jiangxi Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Office
will provide a budgetary allocation of 11 million yuan (1.35 million dollars) to
the six NGOs for implementing the project in six townships in the counties of
Le'an, Xingguo and Ningdu in Jiangxi Province. Each village is to gain access to
500,000 yuan. The project is scheduled to complete in 2007.
Farmers who are accustomed to government-sponsored poverty relief are amazed
at the new mode. "NGOs are different from government projects in poverty relief.
NGO workers would come to our homes and talk patiently on everything with each
of us," said Dong Xiaoping, a farmer with Liukeng Village in Le'an County.
"If we succeed in accomplishing the project, we may find a way to improve the
management mechanism of domestic poverty reduction funds and promote the
subsistence and development of domestic NGOs," said Duan Yingbi, president of
the CFPA.
With assistance from government and all walks of life, China also highlights
the approach for poverty relief -- to support poor people and encourage them to
overcome the common attitude of "wait, depend on, and ask" and establish a
spirit of self-reliance and hard work, said Liu Jian.
