Targeted efforts to achieve 2020 poverty elimination goal

Since the 1980s, the Chinese government has started a robust poverty relief campaign and thus established a poverty reduction path with Chinese characteristics through three decades of active exploration. The country's poverty relief efforts take a pragmatic approach and have a sound systematic framework. They pursue the ideal of poverty eradication with practical and effective measures.

From the formulation of an overall program for regional poverty relief to the identifying of "counties of poverty", to promoting poverty relief for entire villages and then for individual families, the country's poverty reduction work has gradually progressed from an overall to the individual. Such a targeted poverty relief approach has helped more effectively identify the roots of poverty and allow differentiated and targeted measures to lift impoverished population out of poverty.

Meng Qingtao, a researcher on human rights studies, Southwest University of Political Science and Law

The Chinese government's white paper on its progress in poverty reduction and human rights reviews the achievements the country has made in lifting impoverished ethnic groups out of poverty. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, convened in late 2012, China has formulated a series of special poverty relief policies to accelerate its work of poverty reduction in these regions. Through the making and implementing of targeted plans, earmarking special funds and supporting their characteristic industries, the country has considerably improved infrastructure in these regions and raised the living conditions of local residents.

While creating a better life quality for ethnic groups through these targeted and viable measures, the country has also employed innovative methods to combine its poverty relief work with their distinctive industries and resources to create more opportunities and driving forces for their sustainable development and finally self-development.

Wang Liwan, a researcher on human rights studies, China University of Political Science and Law