As at the end of 2005, there were 23.65 million needy people in China with a per capita annual income below 683 yuan (US$85.4), the nation's poverty line. However, using the UN poverty threshold of US$1 per capita per day as a benchmark, China in fact has a population of 200 million poverty-stricken people, the second largest in the world after India.

 

The aid-the-poor program that started in 1986 has greatly reduced China's needy population. However, its task of poverty relief is still very arduous, according to sources from the First Forum on Sustainable Development in Poverty-stricken Areas, which was held in Tianjin's new Binhai district last weekend.

 

Most of the 23.65 million needy people in China (using the national poverty line benchmark) live in remote areas with unfavorable natural and ecological conditions, said Tian Ruizhang, vice president of the China Association for Poverty Alleviation and Development (CAPAD).

 

Their very existence is further threatened by an ever-widening economic gap between the city and the countryside, and differences in levels of development in the eastern and western parts of the country.

 

According to Professor Li Yining, dean of the Peking University Institute of Poverty Research, which sponsored the forum, it is common for the poor to place greater importance on immediate interests than long-term ones, often ignoring eco-construction and resource conservation. Fighting an uphill battle against a deteriorating ecology and overexploitation of natural resources, impoverished people in remote areas find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of poverty.

 

Since 2000, Guizhou and Hunan provinces, both rich in hydroelectric resources, have been a part of the East-West power transmission project.

 

However, the project seems to have fallen short of its objectives in that it hasn't actually created jobs for people from the two provinces. "More than 90 percent of the workers employed in the state-invested project come from other provinces," according to Lei Ming, vice dean of the poverty research institute.

 

"And worst of all is that it is the local governments that will be held responsible for any environmental pollution that arises from the huge project."

 

Lei said that this raises the importance of development models that cater to local conditions.

 

"Urbanization and poverty elimination are not contradictory to each other. Consequently, moving surplus labor from the poorer areas to towns and cities is a feasible plan," Prof. Li told China Business News on Sunday.

 

To that end, "aid-the-poor funds should be better used for skills training for migrant workers so as to reinforce their competitiveness," suggested Lu Jiehua, a professor from the Peking University Institute of Population Research.

 

Last year, the central government launched a campaign to build a new socialist countryside, which "is good tidings for poor peasants who are eager to cross the threshold from poverty to prosperity," said Hu Fuguo, president of the CAPAD.

 

Participants at the forum suggested that the central government should allocate a special fund each year for poverty alleviation in addition to increasing funding for agricultural development.

 

"If we cannot help the peasants to realistically shake off poverty, the construction of a new countryside is nothing but empty talk," Prof. Li stressed.

 

The Tianjin Binhai Declaration was adopted during the two-day forum. The document proposes the following six measures for sustainable development in poverty-stricken areas:

 

l         Encourage the export of surplus labor from poor areas to towns and cities;

l         Enhance economic cooperation and exchange between the developed eastern parts of the country and impoverished areas mostly in central and west China;

l         Mobilize people from all walks of life to participate in the national anti-poverty war;

l         Lessen the medical and educational burdens on impoverished parents with children;

l         Promote global anti-poverty cooperation, and assist poor areas in receiving economic aid from international organizations and developed countries;

l         Increase investment in eco-construction for sustainable social and economic development in poverty-stricken areas.

 

(China.org.cn by Shao Da, May 17, 2006)