File photo/VCG
Poverty alleviation in China is an important part of the global efforts to eradicate poverty. Chinese President Xi Jinping, the guardian of poverty alleviation campaign has once again urged for all out efforts to win the tough battle against poverty and make new progress in the process of building a moderately prosperous society.
In the 18th National Congress, the blue print for the future was made clear which was to double the 2010 GDP and per capita income for urban and rural people by 2020 and to build a moderately prosperous society in all aspects by getting rid of poverty by lifting impoverished people out of poverty.
China has recorded its rural population living in poverty decrease from 770 million to 55.75 million between 1978 and 2015. An additional 12.4 million were lifted out of poverty last year.
As per the available statistics, a total of 55.64 million people were lifted out of poverty - an average of 13.91 million per year, resulting in a reduction of poverty incidence from 10.2 percent in 2012 to 4.4 percent last year, which is a big achievement of President Xi in the last five years.
The success in the poverty alleviation campaign have been achieved by adopting the targeted measures in rooting out the poverty.
If we look back to 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002, the rural impoverished population has dropped significantly, and the problem of inadequate food and clothes has been minimized.
Meanwhile, various policies and measures beneficial to the development of impoverished people, such as infrastructure and industrial development, labor training, subsidies in agriculture sector, assistance in education and health care and so on, the impoverished population has become more self- reliant as the focus of campaign shifted from providing direct material aids to fostering the abilities and self-reliance of the impoverished population.
China has achieved the target of reducing the impoverished population as per the goal set by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, far ahead of the scheduled date of completion, which is a great contribution to global poverty alleviation.
The achievements and success of China in the campaign of poverty alleviation has opened doors for developing economies to learn from the experiences of China and to adopt such targeted policies for getting rid of poverty which has become the toughest battle for all.
In the UN Millennium Summit held in September 2000, based on problems of poverty alleviation, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and sexual discrimination, world leaders came up with the set of goals and indicators with time limits, aiming to fight extreme poverty and hunger, to create universal access to primary education, to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Since the reforms and opening-up, China’s historical achievements in poverty alleviation has sped up global poverty alleviation efforts, and reversed the rising trend of world impoverished population in past many years. The fact the China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty shows China’s incomparable contributions to enhancing human rights.
From 1981 to 2010 , the top three countries and regions with the largest number of extremely impoverished population were: Sub-Saharan Africa, India and China, according to the “World Development Indicators” issued by the World Bank on April17, 2013.
While the proportion of impoverished population in Sub-Saharan Africa and the India continued to increase in the past 30 years, the proportion of Chinese people who formed part of the world’s extremely impoverished population dropped from 43% in 1981 to 13%, which was truly significant achievement at that time.
As per the statistics, China has bundle of experiences to share with the world in wiping out the menace of increasing poverty rate as it is the first country that has fulfilled the MDGs. Its progress especially in terms of poverty alleviation is a great contribution to the world.
As far as the success of poverty alleviation campaign is concerned, the upcoming 19th National Congress session will be a great thumbs up call for the people who have contributed to their best for achieving the settled targets. The 20th Congress will be paying historical salute to the delegates in 2022 as the specific campaign will be a chapter of history at that time.
It must be mentioned here that China categorizes those with an annual income lower than 2,300 yuan ($335 in 2011) as poverty-stricken, according to a standard set in 2011.
International community is focusing on China as after diminishing poverty successfully, China is emerging as a moderately prosperous society, and advances its position as a prosperous, democratic and culturally advanced socialist modern country and bravely plunging into the international affairs.
The author is a correspondent based in Beijing, China. He may be connected at zamirasadi@gmail.com
