V. Social Involvement in Poverty Reduction

The Chinese nation has a fine tradition of helping the poor and assisting the needy, and the Chinese government has always attached great importance to carrying forward this tradition. All social sectors, mobilized and organized by the government, actively participate in the work of development-oriented poverty reduction in an effort to promote this undertaking.

To promote the development of the old revolutionary base areas, ethnic-minority areas, border areas and poor areas, China has put energetic efforts into poverty reduction work in some key poverty-stricken counties in those areas, with help coming from a number of organizations, including all departments and units of the Party central committee and state organs, people's organizations, institutions managed in accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China on Civil Servants, key large-sized state-owned enterprises, state-holding financial institutions, central committees of non-Communist parties and All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce, and state key research institutions and universities. Over the past few years, those units and organizations have provided various forms of help to their targeted recipients in such aspects as sending cadres to the aided counties, helping them with infrastructure construction, industrialized operations, training of labor force and provision of labor services to other places, investment introduction, ecological construction and medical health services. They also provide their targeted recipients with assistance in culture, education, science and technology, in addition to aid in disaster relief. At present, the number of such units and organizations has reached 272, and the number of key poverty-stricken counties that have received aid has reached 481, accounting for 81.25 percent of the total number of such counties. From 2002 to 2010, these departments and units sent in total 3,559 cadres to do poverty reduction work in their aid-targeted poverty-stricken counties, ploughed in 9.09 billion yuan-worth of direct aid, both in cash and in kind, helped their recipients of aid introduce 33.91 billion yuan of support funds, and trained 1.684 million people of different caliber for the aid-recipients. Making full use of their own advantages in human resources, fund raising, information and knowledge, the central committees of all the non-Communist parties and All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce have been paired up with some poverty-stricken areas so as to effectively carry out poverty reduction work.

(Table 1. Central committees of the non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce and key poverty-stricken areas they are paired to help)

Pairing the more-developed provinces and municipalities in the east with the impoverished regions in the west in poverty reduction is a policy adopted by the Chinese government in its efforts to achieve common prosperity. Since 1996, the government has made arrangement for 15 economically more developed provinces and municipalities in the east to help 11 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) in the west get rid of poverty. The basic framework of this east-help-west cooperation is mainly comprised of government assistance, enterprise cooperation, social aid and human resource support. From 2003 to 2010, some 2,592 cadres were sent from the east to the west to hold temporary leading posts there, and 3,610 were sent from the west to the east for the same purpose. About 4.44 billion yuan-worth of assistance funds was provided and 5,684 enterprises were recommended by governments of the eastern regions for cooperation in this regard, resulting in 249.76 billion yuan actually ploughed in and 1.42 billion yuan in social donations, in addition to 226,000 technical personnel trained and 4.672 million people from the poverty-stricken areas providing labor services elsewhere.

(Table 2. East-west aid pair-ups in 2001-2010)

The military and armed police force are an important force in China' s poverty reduction efforts. Over the past decade, following the development-oriented poverty reduction program of the state and the localities where they are stationed, the military and armed police force, giving full play to their particular advantages, have taken the initiative in participating in the poverty reduction work. They have helped with infrastructure construction, including basic farmland development, irrigation works, country roads and improvement of small river basins. At the same time, they have donated funds to help education in poor areas, provided scientific and technological services, as well as medical care services.

(Table 3. Poverty reduction work done by the military and armed police force from 2001 to 2010)

People's organizations, social organizations, private enterprises and the general public also take an active part in the poverty reduction drive. In line with the actual conditions and specific requirements of the impoverished regions and people, these organizations have helped with industrial development, infrastructure construction, education and public health development, improvement of production and living conditions and ecological environment construction by pairing with the places in need of help, implementing poverty reduction projects and holding specific aid activities. They have also mobilized the public-spirited personages with professional skills to engage in volunteer work to help people out of poverty. The private enterprises have been actively fulfilling their corporate social responsibilities and engaged in poverty reduction by donating money, hiring workers and setting up businesses and training bases.

(Table 4. Poverty reduction work done by some people' s organizations and social organizations)