Poverty Reduction and Development for the vulnerable groups in Contiguous Extremely Poor Areas

1. The Study Background and Important significance

The Chinese Government has attached great importance to poverty alleviation and development. After over 30 years of reform and opening-up, China has enjoyed sustained, rapid and stable economic development, and successively formulated and implemented the Seven-Year Priority Poverty Alleviation Program (1994-2000), Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010) and Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020), which have dramatically reduced its rural population and significantly improved the conditions of poor areas. As a result, China has become the first developing country to realize the MDGs - reducing the ranks of its poor by 50 percent - ahead of schedule, and exerted a widespread influence on the world stage. However, according to the poverty line set by the Chinese Government, China still had more than 70 million poor people in 2014. They were mainly distributed in 128,000 poverty-stricken villages of 832 poor counties in 14 contiguous extremely poor areas with harsh natural conditions, backward infrastructure, weak public services and a fragile ecological environment where poverty relief is costly and difficult, so they are the “hard nuts” for our poverty alleviation efforts.

The 18^th CPC National Congress has promised to build China into a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. In June 2015, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a mobilization order of bringing all current poor population out of poverty by 2020. To realize such a promise, it is imperative to take targeted measures in poverty alleviation across the board. The Chinese Government boasts the advantage in involving manpower and material resources in the poverty-relief program, and has actually invested lots of these resources to help the poor overcome poverty at an earlier date. And the examination mechanism reform for local governments in poor areas has made the governments more aware of poverty alleviationrather than just economic growth. Even though more poverty alleviation resources have been mobilized, more targeted and effective poverty alleviation measures must be taken to get a better payoff. It is a precondition for eradicating rural poverty to accurately identify the poor population, find out their complicated causes for poverty, and draft more targeted poverty alleviation strategies.

It is proposed in the Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020) that under the same conditions, priority should be given to the key groups of poverty alleviation, including poor ethnic minorities, women, children, the aged and the disabled, because they are the venerable groups in the society most easily falling into poverty and are generally regarded as the focus of poverty alleviation in the world. Although attention has been to these key groupsin China’s large-scale poverty alleviation campaigns, the analysis, research into and support for these special groups, especially their requirements, is insufficient in varying degrees. If the poverty problem hinders the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, taking targeted measures in poverty alleviation and eradication for the key groups is the biggest influencing factor for achieving the goals of the rural poverty elimination strategy on schedule.

In order to take targeted measures in poverty alleviation, it is critical to accurately identify the objects of poverty alleviation, analyze their causes for poverty and implement different types of policies. Hence, strengthening the research into the poverty problem of vulnerable groups is of great practical significance to improving the pertinence and effectiveness of poverty alleviation and eradication measures. Based on the previous special studies on the poverty problem of ethnic minorities, this study series titled “The Poverty Reduction and Development of Vulnerable Groups” is specially designed for four groups – women, children, the aged and the disabled, respectively.

As vulnerable groups in the society, they are often marginalized in development, which therefore increases the vulnerability of poverty. The Chinese Government and domestic and international development agencies have been paying high attention to their poverty problem. The development of women and children, among others, is one of the most important contents of the MDGs, as four out of the eight commitments are directly relating to women and children. As a signatory country of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), China has enacted the Program for the Development of Chinese Women and the Program for the Development of Chinese Children, underscored the development principles of equality between men and women and “children first”, and taken a range of targeted measures to support the development of women and children and help poor women and children get rid of poverty. In addition, China is also a signatory country of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It has set out the Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of the Rural Disabled People (2011-2020) to support their poverty eradication from rehabilitation, skill and financial aspects. The poverty of the rural aged people is a prevailing problem. Due to the rapid aging process, the outflow of young farmers and a low social security level, the living standard of old farmers could not be guaranteed. China has provided backing for the poor aged people in rural areas by gradually improving the social security level, including the medical care and provision for the aged.

Despite the fact that many poverty-relief plans have been adopted for those special groups, they remain the most difficult groups in the fight against rural poverty, so serious studies are required to provide the basisfor the introduction of more targeted and effective measures. First of all, as vulnerable groups in the society, these four groups can hardly benefit from general poverty alleviation policies or projects. A piece of experience in China’s poverty alleviation is always combining development-oriented poverty reduction with social security. Nevertheless, since children and the elderly are not the employed population, they find it hard to directly benefit from the development-oriented poverty reduction program. Additionally, women and the handicapped also call for special policy support from such a program on account of their physical conditions and institutional barriers. To make poverty reduction effective for these special groups, general measures are inadequate and their special needs should be taken into consideration. In reality, however, special poor groups usually fall in two categories. Neither the study on the poor nor the research into the special groups could clearly explain the situation of special poor groups. For instance, poor women refer to the overlapping part between the poor and women. Despite of massive research findings on rural women and common poor population, poverty is under-researched in the studies on rural women while women are under-researched in the studies on poverty. In view of this, this study series focuses on the conditions of special poor groups. Secondly, fighting poverty not just implies income increase, but also means improvements in education, health and many other respects that are all-important for special poor groups. For example, health and medical care is especially important for the disabled and the aged, just like education for children. From the perspective of multidimensional poverty, many questions demand our in-depth studies, including what the poverty status of special groupsis, how they fell into poverty, what the strengths and weaknesses of policies are, and others. The poverty alleviation needs of these special groups are multi-faceted, which entails the policy coordination among health, education, poverty reduction, and social security departments. For that reason, a more holistic perspective should be adopted to study those special poor groups.

Given that the current poor population in China is mostly distributed in 14 contiguous extremely poor areas, what is the status quo of poor women, children, the aged and the disabled among the poor groups in these areas? What are the major causes for their poverty? How should we take different types of policies? The correct answers to these questions based on solid field research will undoubtedly provide a reference for the drafting and implementation of targeted poverty alleviation measures for these groups so as to help them overcome poverty more effectively.

2.The Target and Characteristics of This study series

This study series includes four projects, i.e., The Assessment of and Suggestions on Supportive Policies for Poor Women in Contiguous Extremely Poor Areas – A Case Study of Wuling Mountainous Area, The Living Situation of Poor Children in Contiguous Extremely Poor Areas and Assistance Policy Assessment and Suggestions, A Study on Current Situation of the Poor aged people in Contiguous Extremely Poor Areas and Policy Suggestions, and The Poverty Status of the Disabled in Contiguous Extremely Poor Areas and Poverty Reduction Policy Suggestions. These four projects are respectively undertaken by the research teams of the College of Sociology at Central China Normal University, the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University, the School of Labor and Human Resources atRenmin University of China and some other institutions. The major research work was completed in 2013 and 2014. This study series is funded by Oxfam.

This study series is mainly targeted at:

First, Summarizing the anti-poverty experience of special groups in China. China’s anti-poverty experience has constituted a major part of the anti-poverty thesaurus of all mankind. Over the past three decades or so, China has made active explorations into and scored favorable results from fighting for gender equality, eliminating women’s poverty, breaking the intergeneration circulation of poverty, improving the situation of children in poor families, supporting the rehabilitation and re-employment of the disabled and improving the social security for the impoverished population. The summary of abundant experience accumulated is a contribution to mankind’s fight against poverty. Based on extensive research as well as empirical material and policy analysis, this study series elaborates on the anti-poverty experience of special poor groups in China and, to a certain expert, enriches the research in this area. The study shows that enhancing the human capital of special poor groups, providing multi-level social security and social services and improving their employment status are critical ways to lift them out of poverty. China has offered formal education and various kinds of training for special poor groups to help them master necessary skills, thereby greatly improving their human capital. Meanwhile, a multi-layered social security and support system has been built to satisfy their diverse needs. For example, the country has constantly improved the social security and support for the rehabilitation of the disabled, children’s education, women’s health and the survival and health of the elderly. Notably, the core of development-oriented poverty reduction is helping labor force from special poor groups get employed. With special support, the poor people with labor capacity can have a job and obtain a higher income, which is a piece of valuable experience from poverty alleviation for special groups in China.

Second, Providing policy suggestions for the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation measures for special poor groups. It is emphasized in existing poverty alleviation policies that more support should be given to special poor groups, but current research could not clearly answer the questions (such as what is the status quo of special poor groups, what policy requirements do they have, etc.) to meet the decision-making demand. Therefore, this study series focuses on the gaps between the supply and demand of poverty alleviation policies for special poor groupsand how we can make improvements. It indicates that China’s rural areas are in a period of drastic change, which necessitates corresponding changes in various social policies and poverty-relief measures, especially they are supposed to consider the diverge needs of special poor groups. It is true that social security and support have largely satisfied the demand of special poor groups, but the overall security and support level is quite low. For the extremely poor families and those without labor capacity, social security or support remain insufficient for them to shake off poverty, while heath, rehabilitation and education still place much pressure on them. Furthermore, there is no multi-level mechanism to respond to the special needs of special groups. The government alone is unable to fit their diverse needs, so more professional agencies and social organizations should get involved, but there is a long way to go in this regard. What’s more, it remains a research topic how we can combine general poverty alleviation plan with poverty alleviation for special poor groups. Most anti-poverty work for special poor groups is only taken into consideration by some relevant departments, such as the All-China Women’s Federation and China Disabled Persons’ Federation, and it is not until recently that children’s poverty reduction has been included into poverty alleviation plans. Besides, many poverty alleviations plans fail to consider the needs of special groups. Even the needs of special groups are taken into account, the plans may lack of feasibility because their needs are not well understood by poverty alleviation departments. Therefore, while implementing the targeted poverty alleviation strategy, we must integrate various policy measures with the special needs of special groups, vigorously intensify social security and support, and execute a more targeted mix of supportive policies.

The distinct features of this study series lie in the accurate description of current situation, the precise identification of problems and the provision of pertinent suggestions. The conclusion is grounded on solid field research. The investigation and survey on poor women involved 291 objects from 3 counties of 3 provinces in the Wuling Mountainous Area, including staff from women-related institutions, village cadres and villagers. The research group for poor children and old people conducted questionnaire surveys and typical case interviews in 123 villages in 108 townships, 62 counties of 15 provinces in China’s poverty-stricken areas. The survey on the disabled covered 38 townships of 5 provinces in the country’s continuous extremely poor areas and collected 2,215 valid questionnaires.

In 2015, the research achievements of this study series were published by Social Sciences Academic Press in the Research on Targeted Poverty Eradication in China’s Contiguous Poor Areas Book Series (4 volumes), including Aid for the Female: Assessment for the Poor Women in Countryside,Love for the Children: Assessment for the Poor Children in Countryside, Care for the Old-age: Assessment for the Poor Aged People in Countryside, and Support for the Disabled: Assessment for the Poor Disabled People in Countryside. We expect that these research results can serve as areference for China to take more targeted and effective poverty reductions actions in the next five years.

3. Achievements and the Causes Analysis

3.1 Achievements and Causes of Rural Women

The continuous improvement on China’s economy brings much benefit to rural poverty-stricken women. Economic development creates more job opportunities, especially in labor-intensive industry and service industry. They absorb a great number of female labors and have their income increased. In overseas-funded enterprises in Pearl River Delta southeast of China, women have become the most important labor force.  

Meanwhile, the state policy also benefits the poverty-stricken women when it focuses on poverty population in general. Started from 1994, the state government has successively issued the 8^thNational 7-year Poverty Reduction Plan (1994-2000), China Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Program (2011-2020) and other guiding documents for poverty-reduction. Adjustments have been made constantly on detailed measures for special poverty alleviation, industry poverty alleviation, social poverty reduction and many other measures. Although these policies don’t particularly stress on gender sensitivity, they benefit a great many of poor women when they are trying to enhance poverty-reduction effect throughout the whole country.

In enforcement of generalized welfare rural policies, poor women are among the most benefited ones. For example, the increasing extension of the lowest income protection policy guarantees poor women, especially senior ones to have income. Though it might be low, it is rather steady. The unified allowance for rural school-ages children effectively increases rural children enrollment rate. In the past, young girls had been considered inferior to boys and there were many more drop-out female students than male ones. Now, with the generalized education allowance, the girls who may have difficulty in getting into school can enjoy rights of education. The enrollment rate of rural female students has been obviously raised. It is especially effective in poverty-stricken areas that the rate is improved fast through the enforcement of the policy. The cooperative medical service policy alleviates difficulties of poverty-stricken women to enjoy medical services. It has effectively reduced their possibility to impoverishment due to illness.

Creating job opportunities and increasing women’s income. Equal involvement in economy is Chinese government’s primary goal in achieving gender equality, women’s status improvement and women development. For this purpose, multiple policies and measures to strengthen vocational trainings for women have been launched, actively creating public-service jobs,  Moreover, related laws and regulations have been issued to build up legal guarantees to eliminate employment discrimination, ensure equal labor rights and equal employment for women, such as the approval of International Labor Organization’s "Convention concerning Discrimination in employment and occupation" (Convention No. 111) and issue of Labor Contract Law and Employment Promotion Law in 2007.

It is an important method to reduce women’s poverty by improving women’s health in poverty-stricken areas. In poverty-stricken areas, the government has launched a series of projects aiming at improving women and children’s health condition. For the safety of drinking water, there is “Water Cellar for Mothers” project, supporting construction of water cellars in dry mountainous areas to improve the quality of drinking water. For the problem of low hospitalized delivery rate among pregnant women, the government provides financial support so that more poverty-stricken pregnant women can enjoy regular health checks and be hospitalized in delivery, which effectively reduces maternal and infant mortality. Maternal and child health stations have been established throughout the country to provide health service for women and children.

It is an essential means to build up women’s capacity and combat poverty by improving poor women’s education level. Favorable policies related to education for poverty-stricken women include "Two exemptions and one subsidy" (free fees, free books, and gradually provide subsidy for boarders’ living cost) policy and Rural Boarding School Construction. The former one is made to relieve educational expense burden for poverty-stricken families, improving protection on female students’ educational rights and reducing their drop-out rate and illiterate rate. The latter one improves educational condition for left-behind children and reduces their migrant parents’ economic and psychological burden. In poverty-stricken areas, there are a series of other plans to promote female students’ education, like “Spring Buds Program”, which is particularly designed to provide financial support for poverty-stricken families to let their female children enjoy equal rights on education. Governments at all levels also provide illiteracy education and vocational trainings for adult women. Vocational trainings have proved to be very helpful to increase poor women employment. For example, through domestic service training for rural women, a great many of women are able to work in families in urban areas. Now, domestic service industry has become one of the most important channels for poverty-stricken women to enter into non-agricultural job market.

It is an important measure to integrate women’s poverty reduction into the main policies for pushing forward development of poverty-stricken women. Based on the needs of poverty-stricken women, All-China Women’s Federation unites Poverty Alleviation, Education, Health and many other departments to conduct poverty reduction activities jointly. Since 1995, the central government has issued three “China’s Women Development Outline" successively and include women’s poverty reduction into the state’s working objectives. In large-scale national poverty reduction campaigns, indicators on women’s poverty reduction have been developed. In 2004, in the Global Poverty-reduction Convention held in Shanghai, the Chinese government made a policy statement on relieving and eradicating poverty. The statement stressed on the principle of equal priority and on actively supporting poverty-stricken women to participate in implementing poverty alleviation projects. It specifically makes clear that the number of the participating women should not be less than 40% of the total participants.

Meanwhile, in practices of support Chinese government in poverty-reduction, international organizations and NGO’s programs all take women’s poverty reduction as an important objective, and develop related measures and monitoring indicators. For example, in all programs of Oxfam Hongkong implemented in mainland China, gender perspective has always been emphasized. Themed programs are designed to enhance social involvement of women and children, improve women’s livelihood and advocate gender equality. Their programs include trainings, community services, public education to policy research and advocacy. Through these programs, information on gender equality has been spread, women’s status raised. More than 70, 000 people have been benefited. In mainland China, a large number of local grassroot NGOs that dedicated to enhance women’s poverty reduction is gradually arisen. Among them, there is China Women Development Foundation, who targets women in western poverty-stricken areas. Just in 2010, it cooperated with different government sectors and departments and implemented many projects that focus on women, such as Water Cellar for Mothers, Health Express for Mothers, Poverty Alleviation Fund for Mothers and Vision Recovery and Poverty Alleviation Program for Mothers. The total investment reached 77.1 million CNY. More than 500,000 women were benefited.

The government's attention and efforts from all walks of life have created a very good environment for poverty-stricken women in combating poverty. The achievements on poverty-reduction also effectively push forward the China’s poverty alleviation process.

3.2 Achievements and Causes of Rural Children

3.2.1 Basic livelihood guarantee: The government has made increased efforts to guarantee more children living in poverty a basic minimum living standard.

The “Rural Minimum Living Security Policy” is the legal basis, which guarantees poverty-stricken children a minimum standard of living. The policy not only provides a children’s allowance to support impoverished households with children, but also aims to include orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDS into the policy’s coverage. Orphans are generally provided for under the “Rural Five-Guarantee Policy” and the “Basic Livelihood Guarantee Policy for Orphans”. For HIV/AIDS affected children, the government has also issued policies to ensure proper living conditions. Furthermore, the Chinese government has enforced a Nutrition Improvement Plan as part of the implementation of compulsory education to provide nutrition security for impoverished rural students.

The number of children enjoying a minimum living standard is increasing and the standard is improving year by year. The minimum living standard policy provides a last guarantee for poverty-stricken population in rural area. Since 2007, government spendingon the rural minimum living security system has been increasing. As a result, the number of beneficiaries is gradually increasing, as is the number of rural poverty-stricken children that have obtained a minimum living standard as a result of the policy. According to statistics issued by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, financial investment into the minimum social security system has increased from 22.87 billion RMB in 2008 to 71.36 billion RMB in 2013. Likewise, the number of children benefiting from this policy has risen from 263,000 in 2007 to 614,000 in 2013. In the meantime, the averagechildren’s allowance has been raised tripled from the year of 2008 to 2013. Despite the comparatively low allowance, it makes a great difference to the impoverished population in ensuring a minimum living standard. The allowance is directly distributed to the households and constitutes an important cash income.

The inclusion of orphans under the minimum living security policy provides them with a minimum living standard. In 2010, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued "Notice on Providing Orphans with a Basic Subsistence Allowance" and started distributing the allowance. By the end of 2012, the allowance for orphans had been raised to over 600 RMB/month in all provinces. Though the policy has only been enforced for 4 years, the direct distribution of the allowance to the orphans has relieved them from heavy economic pressure.

HIV/AIDS affected children receive the children’s allowance. In the international “A World Fit for Children” action plan, the prevention of HIV/AIDS is enlisted into 4 major areas to guarantee child rights and improve their living conditions. In 2004, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the “Ministry of Civil Affairs’ notice on strengthening the support for AIDS patients, patients' families and AIDS orphans”. In 2012, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the “Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Finance’s Notice on Providing a Basic Living Allowance for Children Living with HIV/AIDS”. These two policies aim at providing aid to HIV/AIDS affected groups, especially children as well as guarantee them a basic living standard.

The nutrition improvement plan enforced in poverty-stricken areas in recent years not only improves local children’s diet, but also changes to children’s unhealthy eating habits in mountainous areas to a certain extend. The General Office of the State Council issued “Opinions of the State Council on the Implementation of Nutrition Programs for Students in Compulsory Education in Rural Areas”, which addresses severe child malnutrition and poor living conditions through the provision of free school lunch. Following the publication of the Opinions, the government supports pilot projectssuch as “Nutrition Programsfor Students inCompulsory Education in Rural Areas” in 14 contiguous destitute areas from the 2011 fall semester onwards.  The policy has benefited more than 26 million students, that is 30% of the total number of students in Midwest China. In 2012, the government raisedits allowance for boarding studentswhich means they live off 7-8 RMB/day, which is enough to ensure a nutritious diet at school. The enforcement of the plan has especially helped children in mountainous areas to change unhealthy eatinghabits like skipping breakfast, eating irregularly and inadequate nutrition. Starting from October 2012, the Chinese government further prioritized 100 counties in ten provinces in the eight contiguous destitute areas part of “Nutrition Programs for Students in Compulsory Education in Rural Areas”. The central government allocated 100 million RMB to give children aged 6 months to 2 years adaily nutrition pack containing proteins, vitamins and minerals. At the same time, the government alsopromoted advocacy campaigns as well as health education for children to improvenutrition levels and the overall health of children in destitute areas. By the end of December 2013, 400,000 children were benefiting from the policy.

 

3.2.2Child Education: Educational assistance and the “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy” policy guarantee the child’s right to education in poverty-stricken areas, compulsory education secure gender balance in education and left-behind children have received care from government and society. In 2001, “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy” policy was fully enforced in all rural areas in China, making exemption on tuition fees, text books and providing living allowance for boarding students. In 2004, the Chinese government made an official institutional arrangement on educational assistance to minors suffering from serious illnesses in rural areas to guarantee their right to education. In 2006, the Chinese government started the exemption for students’ tuition plan for students in compulsory education in western rural areas. In 2007, the plan’s coverage was expanded to central and eastern regions. In 2008, free compulsory education was fully enforced throughout the whole country. The policy greatly relieved impoverished families from the financial burden of child education. Through efforts of government and all sectors of society, the enrollment rate of children in impoverished areas has improved drastically.

Through policy support for rural female children,compulsory education has helped realize a gender balance and equal development in education. For instance, the Chinese government has created an environment that is encouraging female education by supporting the setting up of girls’ schools, classes and educational funds. As a result, the overall enrollment rate of school age girls in primary schools across the country has risen to 99.58%,0.08% higher than that of male students. The gross enrollment rate of middle school female students has reached 95%, showing no obvious difference to the enrolment of male students.The “Spring Buds Program” jointly organized by All-China Women's Federation and China Children and Teenagers Foundation has made a significant contribution in helping female students in destitute areas to get back to school. Between the launching of the program for fifteen years, the “Spring Buds Program” created a fund for establishing more than 1200 spring bud schools, provided more than 2.4 million female students with tuition and a living allowance, while alsooffering practical technical trainings to 0.4 million girls.

Increasing attention has been paid to left-behind children. With the fast socio-economic development, continuing urbanization andthe resulting change of rural family structures, left-behind children in China’s rural areas have gained increasing attention. Today, there are more than 60 million left-behind children in China. Their needsfor care, safety, psychological health and education are getting more and more pertinent. Since 2002, facilitated through the mass media and various academic circles, rural left-behind children have gradually attracted attention from both the government and people from all walks of life. In 2006, All-China Women’s Federation proposed “Proposed Action on rural left-behind children”, which received positive responses from government, schools, media, social organizations and volunteer groups. Activities focussing on family, school and safety education, psychological counseling and community care have been designed and conducted from diverse perspectives to provide home education, school knowledge education, psychological consulting, safety education, community care as well as summer and winter camps with involved joint forces of government, schools and society.

 

3.2.3 Medical services for children: the enforcement of the new rural cooperative medical system guarantees basic medical services for children in poverty-stricken areas. Amongst others, children with serious illnesses and HIV/AIDS receive necessary support to bothimprove their health and relief their families from the heavy burden to provide for medical services for their children.

Recently, China has included impoverished children (children from poverty-stricken families, orphans, children with serious illness and HIV/AIDS-affected children) into the scope of protection of its rural medical assistance scheme, the s New Rural Cooperative Medical Care System (NCMS).  Meanwhile, the government has also launched a special aid scheme to help children with serious illness. In 2012, the scope of the illness covered by the scheme was enlarged to 20 diseases. Consequently, the policy has significantly reduced the cost of medical services for the children’s families.

The Chinese government provides AIDS infected children with free antiretroviral therapy and Anti-opportunistic infection treatment. Its medical welfare system offers additional support to AIDS orphans and children living in poverty. Whereas AIDS orphans are entitled to basic medical insurance, children in poverty that are affected by AIDS receive financial support through the NCMSfor basic medical insurance and the medical assistance scheme.

For children with disabilities, the government provides a policy platform to push and seek for social support to help the impoverished children with disabilities receive adequate medical treatment and assistance. For example, “Plan for Tomorrow” by Civil Affairs departments, “Rebirth Action” jointly conducted by Ministry of Civil Affairs and Li KaShing Foundation, “Rescuing Rehabilitation of Impoverished Deaf Children” by China Disabled Persons Federation and other actions aim to ensure that children with birth defects receive medical attention and opportunities of rehabilitation.

The survival and development of special vulnerable children groups receive comprehensive guarantee with improving standard. Orphans, ‘Five-Guarantee’ childrenand children affected by AIDS are among the most vulnerable. The Chinese government provides a comprehensive welfare system to provide for them. The system covers education, medical services, housing and employment through related relief and assistance guaranteeing policies, thereby guaranteeing a basic living standard.

 

3.2.4 In China, civil society has made a remarkable contribution to enhancing child education, nutrition and health as well as care for vulnerable children, which effectively pushes forward policy-based protection for child welfare. In the field of children welfare, the involvement of international and domestic NGOs is even more outstanding. There is different types of non-governmental children welfare organizations, which can broadly fall under one of six categories: (1) Organizations addressing vulnerable children in general, such as Save the Children UK that covers more than 20 provinces and cities in China with a focus on street children, children with disabilities and trafficked children; (2) Organizationssupporting orphans, street children and other children without fosterers, such as China Orphan Relief Association; (3) Organizationsfor children of prisoners, such as Sun Village, which mainly provide care for children whose parent are in prison and cannot look after them; (4) Organizationsfor children with mental disabilities. Organizations like Guangzhou Huiling Mentally-retarded Children Serving Center and Beijing Stars and Rain provide counseling services, training for families as well as special training for educators and nursing staff; (5) Organizationsfor HIV/AIDS affected children such as Dongzhen AIDS Orphan School, Children's Mental Institute are emerging rapidly with the increasing number of AIDS-infected people in China; (6) Organizationsfor children whose rights have been violated, such as Legal aid Center for Teenagers, which provides legal support.

3.3 Achievements and Causes for Rural Elderly People

3.3.1 The Basic Living Standard. The Rural minimum living guarantee system plays a significant role in securing poor elderly people’s basic living standard as a fundamental institutional arrangement. It guarantees poverty-stricken elderly without family, left-alone, disabled ageing people and elderly with serious diseases a minimum living standard. Additionally, the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly specifically encourages local governments to provide an old-age allowance to elderly people over 80.

The number of people covered by the minimum living allowance is increasing every year and the standards are improved year by year. Ever since the state enforcement of the minimum living standard guarantee system, the number of elderly people eligible for the allowance has gradually risen. According to statistics by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of elderly benefitting from the minimum living standard allowance has increased from 19.55 million in 2012 to 20.753 million in 2013. The allowance has become an important source of income to maintain a basic living standard for poverty-stricken elderly. It has played a primary role in relieving low-income families from the financial strains of supporting senior people and pushed forward the work on the development of social security for the elderly.

The Old-age allowance benefits people in advanced ages and improves their living standard. In 2010, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the Notice on the Establishment of Old-age Allowance Pilot Regions, which encouraged participating local governments to develop their old-age allowance policies to improve the situation of the elderly. By March 2013, 18 provinces across China provided the allowance to people over 80. The pilot scheme has so far benefitted more than 8 million aged people.  

Further improvements of the Rural Five-Guarantee system secure elderly people’s subsistence. In 2006, the State Council newly revised Regulations for Rural Five-Guarantees, which was enforced as an additional measure to guarantee rural aged people’s subsistence. By the end of 2013, 1.64 million elderly had benefitted from the centralised Five-Guarantees nursing institutions, while 3.01 million received support from the local Five-Guarantees services. The standard has been raised consistently.

 

3.3.2 Old-age Security. The New Rural Social Old-age Insurance (NRSOI) has established a national basis for rural senior people’s old-age security. It covers all eligible rural elderly people, effectively guaranteeing their subsistence and providing important assistance. Rural elderly people compliant with the family planning policy commonly face difficulties in old age, in response to which, in 2004, the Reward and Assistance System for Families that Comply with Family Planning Regulations was launched. The government has paid increasing attention to pension services and has taken a series of actions to further the progress of the industry.

The basic rural old-age insurance system is gradually rolled out with more and more people benefitting. In 2009, the State Council issued The State Council Opinion on Opening Pilots for New Rural Social Old-age Insurance. In 2010, the scope of the pilot was widened to cover most areas in 838 counties of 27 provinces (including autonomous regions) and four direct-controlled municipalities. By the end of 2011, 326.435 million people had enrolled in the insurance. The central government has set the basic standard of the pension to 55 RMB per month and the local government can increase it in response to the local situation.

The establishment of the system to guarantee the subsistence of the elderly people who have complied with family planning regulations improves the state-level old-age security system. In 2004, the National Family Planning Council issued Pilot Scheme for Reward and Assistance System for Families that Comply with Family Planning Regulations (Trial). It aims to provide a subsidy to rural elderly people over 60 that only have one or two children in compliance with the family planning regulations. The standard of the subsidy is no less than 600 RMB per year. In 2007, the system was implemented across the country to provide relief to eligible rural seniors living in financial difficulties. In 2007, the National Pilot Program on Single-child Family Supporting System for Families with a Disabled and Families with a Dead Child was launched. Assistance schemes for single-child families with a disabled and families whose child passed away were gradually established.

Elderly care services are gradually developing and becoming more diversified. In 2013, the State Council issued Opinions on Accelerating Elderly Care Service Industry from the State Council, which recommends strengthening the rural elderly care services and more attention to be paid to the elderly under the Five-guarantee policy to further the development of elderly care services in rural areas and establish institutionalised pension service systems that allow elderly to stay in their homes, while also relying on local community participation. Meanwhile, elderly care institutions are gradually being reformed. With the government policy support on land usage, tax exemption and financial subsidies, the Chinese elderly care industry is appearing to diversify.

 

3.3.3 Medical Security. The enforcement of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System (NCMS) has improved rural poor aged people’s access to medical services, while lowering costs. With the system being gradually implemented, medical security for rural aged people is basically established. The financial cost of medical services for elderly people and their families is significantly mitigated. In addition, Rural Medical Financial Assistance constitutes a necessary supplement to the NCMS, providing essential social assistance to rural residents with special difficulties. Moreover, households receiving benefits under the Five-guarantee policy and households benefitting from the minimum living standard allowance can also receive additional subsidies to help them pay for the NCMS. That way rural poverty-stricken elderly can all gain access to medical assistance through the NCMS.

The NCMS is making steady progress in increasing its coverage to the state-level. In 2003, the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued the Opinion on Establishing a New Rural Cooperative Medical Service System and started a pilot. Families residing in rural areas can opt-in NCMS as a family-unit. In 2008, the system was then expanded to the state-level and nation-wide coverage was achieved in 2012. By the end of 2012, 805 million people had joined NCMS, which was covering 98.3% of the rural population. In the same year, 1.745 billion people already benefited from the system.

The medical assistance system guarantees senior people living in special economic difficulty access to medical services. In 2003, the Opinion on Establishing Rural Medical Assistance was issued. Through government financial subsidies and donations from all sectors, a system was established to provide assistance to households falling under the coverage of the Five-Guarantee policy and poverty-stricken households, where a family member suffered from serious diseases. In 2012, the system provided assistance at least once to59.742 million people, of which 44.904 million also received a subsidy from the Civil Affairs department to enable them to join the NCMS.

 

3.3.4The Special Care System guarantees elderly veterans subsistence and the Preferential Policy improves their life quality. The subsistence standard of veterans is improving and the special care policy for senior people is gradually being implemented. The “Regulations on the Settlements for Demobilized Conscripts” and “Regulations on Military Pension Privileges” set out clear regulations on pensions, preferential treatment, retirement and provision for elderly and ex-service men’s housing. A pension and preferential system for veterans that combines the strength of the state government, society and general public has been established. In 2011, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Finance jointly issued “Notice for Providing Subsistence Allowance to Rural Veterans”. The rural social special care system for veterans is gradually being implemented. Some of the rural seniors who spent time in the military and their families receive benefits through the system.

3.4 Achievements and causes for Rural Disabled People

The Chinese government has adapted multiple policies and measures to help reducepoverty among the rural disabled people. Ever since 1986, the government has included poverty alleviation for the rural disabled in the National Poverty Alleviation Program as a primary focus. Since 1992, poverty alleviation for disabled people has been included in the 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 11^th national five-year development outlines as well as the special implementation plans for poverty reduction for the disabled people. In 2001, the poverty alleviation and development for rural impoverished disabled people was included into the Development-oriented Poverty Reduction Program for Rural China (2001-2010) to unify the organization and implementation as well as the national, regional and local plans for poverty alleviation. In the 21^st century, China’s poverty reduction strategy for the rural disabled is starting to transform into an approach combining poverty alleviation and social welfare. As a result of the establishment and improvement of the rural social security system, disabled people with severe disabilities have been included into the social protection scheme, as to address poverty among the rural disabled people’s families.

As regards poverty alleviation and development, the Chinese government successfully solved the food and clothing problem for 10 million people in 1990s. In the decade in which the Poverty Alleviation and Development Program on Rural Disabled People (2001-2010) was implemented, 13.18 million disabled people no longer had to worry about food and cloth. From 2011 to 2014, 5 million impoverished disabled people overcame poverty. Concerning social security, since 2008, more and more rural poor disabled and their families have been included under the coverage of the social insurance. In 2013, 8.282 million disabled people were brought under the coverage of the minimum living standard allowance. Among all disabled with social insurance, 3.14 million had a severe disability and of those 3.029 million received government assistance. The government subsidized social insurance for 96.5% disabled people with severe disability. Another 1.752 million non-severely disabled people also received a full or partial payment from the government in accordance with policy provisions and 652,000 rural disabled were covered by the rural five-guarantee system. In 2013, 122,000 rural impoverished disabled households participated in the dilapidated housing renovation program throughout the country. The total investment amounted to 1.15 billion RMB from all levels of government and 144,000 disabled people benefited. By the end of March 2015, 19 provinces and cities implemented a living allowance for impoverished disabled. With regards to social services, some provinces have abolished tuition fees for disabled students and set up a transportation allowance for them. Other provinces also provide them with free assistive devices.

The great achievements of rural disabled people are highly connected with multi-actions by government and society.

 

3.4.1 Well-planned and organized poverty reduction and development programs are conducted on a large scale. From the year of 1992, the central government created a rehabilitation poverty reduction loan to be especially used to help the disabled people. During this process, measures like technical training, microcredits, poverty reduction bases and dilapidated house renovation projects contributed to enhance the employability of disabled people, thereby steadily increasing rural disabled people’s household income and improving their living conditions. During the decade in which the government implemented the Poverty Alleviation and Development Program for the Rural Disabled (2001-2010), 20.157 million rural disabled people received support through all measures listed above; 13.18 million managed to overcome poverty; 546,000 rural disabled people’s families’ housing conditions improved through the implementation of the Central Lottery Public Welfare Fund in Support of the Rural Dilapidated House Renovation Program; and 8.68 million disabled people received rural technical skill training.

 

3.4.2 The social security system for the rural disabled people has been established. China’s rural social security system has gradually been improved since 1990s. Rural medical assistance, a new rural cooperative medical care system, the rural minimal living security as well as urban and rural resident old-age insurance system have been successively established and the rural five-guarantee system has been reformed. As part of the enforcement of rural social welfare systems, all provinces launch local preferential policies to include the disabled people into the coverage of social assistance. In some areas, all disabled people with severe disability were fully covered by the welfare system, including minimum living security and urban and rural medical assistance to improve the welfare standards as well as increasing the maximum that disabled people can receive. When enforcing the new rural old-age insurance and new rural cooperative medical care system, most provinces decided to sponsor disabled people on the cost and increase the coverage rate for them. All these efforts have improved the situation of impoverished disabled people and reduced the risks that they will be trapped in poverty. In response to their special needs, more and more provinces have established living allowance systems for rural impoverished disabled in addition to care subsidies for rural disabled people with severe disabilities, thereby greatly easing the pressure on disabled people’s families. Besides, the Opinion from the CPC Central Committee about Promoting the Development of Work on the Disabled People issued in 2008 also played a very crucial role in enhancing the establishment of a social security system for the rural disabled.

 

3.4.3 Gradually enhance the social service system for rural disabled people. As a result of the continuing fast development of China’s economy, the rural education system, grass-root medical and health service system as well as the information service system have all been improved greatly. Rural disabled people service systems targeting disabled people’s special needs have been gradually established and enhanced. The central government increased its investment into infrastructures for special education in rural areas; provided financial support to disabled children to fund an inclusive pre-school education and free education for disabled high school students. Subsidies were created to help disabled students get special study equipment, education training and assist with transportation. Some provinces and cities also provide basic rehabilitation services for rural impoverished disabled people and have created a special subsidy for disabled people with severe disability to help them gain access to supporting equipment. Some provinces even provide free aids. Disability prevention measures have been strengthened and free screening services were established for all newborn babies. In rural areas, the nursing services for disabled people are also developing very fast. In some regions, disabled people with severe disabilities can receive a government subsidy to enter a care home.

 

3.4.4 A number of social organizations are actively working to provide services for the disabled people. With the fast development of the China’s work for the disabled people, social organizations targeting this group of vulnerable people are developing rapidly. According to a survey conducted by CDPF, by the end of 2012, there were more than 8,000 organizations for disabled people in the whole country. Among them, more than 70% belong to the DPF system, which are generally not providing direct services to the disabled people. The remaining 30% are mainly small organizations founded by disabled persons or their relatives. Constrained by place, personnel and fund, these organizations are limited in scale and often lack professional skills. With regards to the scope of these organizations, more than 60% supported less than 150 person/times, mainly in areas like rehabilitation, education and vocational training for intellectually handicapped, physically and mentally disabled people. Few organizations are working on poverty reduction. In this respect, a lot can be learned about fund-raising, techniques and coverage from international organizations willing to share. For example, Handicap International cooperates with the local DPF in Guangxi Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region on the “Employment and Social Security Program” for a pilot on mobilizing social resources to make “tailored policy for each household”. Through the introduction of the concept of economic-empowerment, the provision of skill training, business guidance and the improvement of communication skills, the local DPF successfully helped 70% of the program beneficiaries to realize an increase in their household income.

 

4. Challenges for Vulnerable Groups in Contiguous Areas

4.1 Challenges for poor rural women

After 30 years of large scale poverty alleviation, the poverty of Chinese rural women has been believed. However, it is not eradicated yet. From 2011, the Chinese government has greatly improved the standard of poverty line. Objectively speaking, it included more women into the states’ poverty reduction scheme.

Poor rural women are still the vulnerable groups, who still need special attentions and supports. In the impoverished rural areas, because the increasing speed of poor women’s income is slow, the income gap between men and women is increasingly widened. By the end of 2012, according to the state’s new poverty-reduction standard, the total population of the impoverished people in China was 98.99 million, among which, more than 50% were women. According to Poverty Monitoring report of Rural China 2011, in 2010, among the rural absolute poverty population, the female’s poverty incidence rate was 9.8%, 0.4% higher than that of men. In 2010, male migrants working in urban areas have an average income as 1708 CNY while female ones can only have 1386 CNY. The income gap in unit time between men and women are even larger.

Rural women’s vulnerability and poverty is the traditional labor division’s restrictions that restrict them to from generating more income. Seeking non-agricultural employments in urban area is a very important way for farmers to increase income and reduce poverty. Nevertheless, the households in poverty usually fall into a situation that men go out as migrant workers and women stay behind for farming and housework. Thus, these women have become a special type of poverty population. By the end of 2011, there were about 50 million women left behind in rural area, taking up more than 60% of the rural labor force. The situation not only restricts them from getting good income, but also increases their workload. Most of the women have to engage in farm work, which produces comparatively low benefit and in a limited scale that can hardly contribute big improvement for women’s income. On the other hand, the rear-support women have to shoulder the heavy burden of domestic work. Overloading labor requirements, lacking of entertainment and the low level of public service in rural areas can all lead to health problems for the women or even causes further poverty due to illness.

Low educational level is still a main reason for women’s poverty. Although the Chinese government keeps supporting female students on education and provides illiterate education and technical trainings for women, the educational level of women is still generally lower than men. In 2010, the school rate of female students aged from 7 to 15 in state level impoverished counties was 97.6%, 0.2% lower than that of male students. The average illiterate rate of young adults was 7%, on which the men’s rate was 3.8% and the one for women was 10.5%. The female illiterate rate was obviously much higher. The poorer a community is, the educational inequality would be more serious. The situation is totally different for remote poor areas, especially in places inhabited by ethnic minorities. Secondly,the women’s education level among adults is still lower than men. Many illiterate education and vocational trainings for women in poor areas haven’t made much progress, since a lot of women are far beyond the age for learning new knowledge and they have limited capacity in accepting education.

For poverty-stricken households, women’s health condition is a serious problem that cannot be ignored. In rural area, more than 60% of women are suffered from gynecological diseases. They usually cannot have timely treatment. The situation is especially serious in poverty-stricken areas. The living situation of the impoverished areas are usually difficult with harsh conditions, like drought or lack of clean water, lack of enough fuel in alpine mountainous areas, together with heavy workload and malnutrition, women’s health is constantly threatened. Moreover, remote areas have comparatively insufficient medical services. Together with the economic constrains, they are not able to get proper treatment for their disease in a timely manner. Small diseases might gradually develop to chronic ones. The research shows, disease are closely connected to poverty. 30% of poverty population in China is caused by disease, which not only adds more burden and life pressure to the women, but also deprives them from opportunities for income generation.

Women’s social involvement is still very limited. In traditional Chinese rural society, men are dominating in public affairs. Now, though many men have migrated to urban areas for jobs and leave women the majority in rural areas, the women’s opportunities and platforms are still quite limited. For example, throughout China, among village leaders elected through democratic elections, only 15% are female. Lacking of female voices in public affairs, women are marginalized in many places. The situation is the same in poverty-reduction decision making process. The women don’t have enough rights to make choices and decisions.

The rapid economic development and population migration bring new challenges to women’s poverty reduction. The dramatic social changes lead to increasing divorce rate. The divorced women in rural areas cannot have their rights on land guaranteed. It makes them even more vulnerable and easy to fall into poverty. The global climate change leads to frequent natural disasters. Thus, the rural women who depend on agriculture so much are more fragile in facing with disaster impacts. The women from ethnic minorities have even lower education level and more constrains from traditional culture and custom. It is extremely hard for them to enter modern economic sectors. The rapid economic development doesn’t bring them income increase, but more livelihood vulnerability and risks.

 

4.2 Challenges for Poor Rural Children

Though China has created a basic welfare system for children and made great progress in furthering children’s development, the number of the vulnerable children in China’s rural areas is still very high. Vulnerable children like orphans, Five-Guarantee Children, disabled children, impoverished children, left-behind children and children affected by AIDS have to face multiple challenges in areas such as education, medical services, safety and social participation in poverty-stricken rural areas that need to be addressed by government policies as well as practical, concrete action from both government and society.

Rural children, especially children from poverty-stricken families still seriously lack basic care. Poverty, rapid modernization, urbanization and the resulting change of family structures have lead to a change in traditional care for rural children. As a result, the phenomenon of single-parenting, grandparenting and even children having to look after themselves and in some cases even their parents or guardians are increasing, thereby posinggreat risks to children’s health and safety.

Children’s nutrition and health are of particular concern.Nutrition and growth of children aged 0-3 are in urgent need of intervention. Because of economic difficulties, special local living habits, the harsh natural environment and parents’ neglect on diet and nutrition collocation for children, children in poverty-stricken areas generally suffer from untimely dinning, unbalanced diet among others. According to a research in 108 towns of 62 poverty-stricken counties, as many as 43.9% of parents/guardians of children aged 0-3 know nothing or very little about child diet and nutrition and more than 53.0% of parents of children aged above 4 never think about a healthy diet for their children. Another research by All-China Women’s Federation also finds thechildren’s nutrition levels show the gap between the rural and urban areas as well as regional differences. Problems with children’s nutrition are more prominent in rural areas.

Poor daily health habit of rural children needs attention from their families and children in rural areas have to face increasing pressure to contribute to their family’s livelihood, which has an adverse impact on their health development. Good hygiene and healthy habits can help children avoid intestines problems, parasitic diseases and oral diseases. However, the unhealthy style of living of parents/guardians is often passed down to the children. The natural condition in northern China that lacks water also contributes to negative influence to children’s habits. In a questionnaire survey conducted in 2013, the result shows that only 59.4% children over 4 wash hands before dinner, while 32.6% children often drink unboiled water. In rural households, children from poor families expected to contribute to the family’s livelihood. They usually help with chores at home; while they also support the family earn their livelihood. In some areas, besides helping with housework and work in the field, they might be forced to enter the labour force early as child laborers and carry the burden to earn their livelihood.

While compulsory education is making remarkable progress, families’ neglect of children’s education, limited access to pre-school education and high cost for education over compulsory period all need further attention from policy makers. In our research conducted in 123 poverty-stricken villages, the result indicates that rural parents pay little attention to early education. Rural children, therefore, tend to be more interested in the TV program than in communication with their parents. When children make mistakes, the parents’ reactionhas a significant impact on the children. However, many rural parents generally adopt violence like beating and scolding to “teach their children a lesson”.About half of the parents (44.5%) who participated in the survey admitted tocontinue to uphold the traditional “beat and educate”.

Low coverage and of pre-school education and its high cost is unaffordable for rural families, high cost of non-compulsory education hinders the further educational improvement for youth. The remote rural areas make kindergarten unaffordable, leading toan enrollment rate of only 66%. The main reason for this is that there is no kindergarten at all or poor condition of some of the private kindergarten. For example, there is no guarantee that children will receive an adequate early education and a healthy diet, while road safety is not given. Although China has fully enforced free compulsory education, pre-school education is not included and parents have to pay. Once the child reaches high school or higher, the sudden increase in costsmay lead to drop-outs. Besides for obvious economic reasons, school-weariness and social factors in addition to family matters all can be reasons for students to drop out.

Limited access and timely medical services for children need to be improved, in impoverished rural areas,some children fallen illdo notreceive timely treatment.Parents in impoverished areas generally have limited awareness and knowledge on children’s health and the prevention of diseases. They commonly believe that “as long as children show good appetite, sleep well and don’t have any serious illness, they are definitely healthy”. Except for free vaccination are provided by schools and medical practices, parents in impoverished rural areas hardly know exactly which vaccines should be given to their children. In impoverished rural areas, somechildren fallen illdo notreceive timely treatment. Although the proportion looked small, its impact on child’s mental and physical health is serious. Among the main reasons are: Firstly, parents do not discover on time that their children are ill; secondly, they live in remote mountainous areas with lacking transport infrastructure; thirdly, the family’s economic situation makes it hard for parents to finance treatment for their children. Though children have access to the New Rural Co-operative Medical System (NRCMS), the research found that 13% of children living in poverty-stricken areas havenot registered for it. Even though 8.2% of the children interviewed have benefited from the NRCMS, the NCRMS do not cover all illness, and patients often have to travel long distance to the hospital they are referred to. In addition, thelong processing time for refund requests, the heavily bureaucratised procedure as well as the limits of the disbursement, discourages parents fromtrying to get a cost disbursement.

Under the emptiness and aging situation of rural villages, issues about children’s safety cannot be ignored, and current school education is not satisfying. Currently, a huge part of the rural population is migrating out of the rural areas. As a result, villages are getting emptier with the aging population staying behind.Yet, their guardianship for children is often insufficient. More than half (59.3%) of the guardians let children stay alone at home or let them play without keeping an eye on them. Because children are unable to identify risks, this neglectin care for children can turn into hazard. Although most of schools have included safety education into their curriculum, about half of the schools have not properlyimplemented it. In recent years, traffic accidents and sexual harassment on female children are constantly reported, which should arouse high attention from all sectors of society. Now, accident injury has become the biggest cause for death of children aged 0-14.

The spread of modernization and urbanization accelerates the vanishing of the traditional rural way of life, which results in spiritual and cultural life for children are very simple. Due to financial constraints and educational emphasis on urbanization and high scores, it is hard for rural parents to lay stress on overall development of their children. Compared with children in urban areas, those in impoverished rural areas are showing deficits in communication with other children and lack participation in activities organized by schools, while they also go on fewer outings with their parents.

The setting and enforcement of children welfare policies still needs to be more systematic and comprehensive. China’s aid policies are gradually improved after 1990. Yet the ones targeting rural children in impoverished areas still lack a unified institutional body. There is no particular department within the government administrative apparatus that focuses on children in poverty with executive power. Instead, work on this aspect has been distributed to different government departments and sectors. There is no viable mechanism to integrate and coordinate the task in the existing system. The high cost for pre-school education in rural areas is unaffordable for poverty-stricken families, yet there is no concrete policy action so far. With regards to medical services, the low standard of aid as well as complicated application procedures lead to fewpolicy beneficiaries. In the design of such systems, the forces of civil society are only granted very limited space to provide aid for children in poverty. This means that their strength cannot be fully motivated.Concerning policy enforcement, parents/guardians have generally little knowledge about laws and regulations on children’s rights and child aid policies. Therefore, both the government and society should pay more attention to further improve and innovate on an effectivewelfare system for poor children in rural areas. At the same time, the promotion of related policies among rural parents is one important aspect for enhancing work of child aid in the next stage.

4.3 Challenges for Rural Elderly People

Although the Chinese government and all social sectors have worked on improving provisions for the elderly and made great achievements, there are still challenges that need to be overcome. In rural areas, there are many left-behind, left-alone, disabled and seriously ill elderly. The proportion of elderly in poverty is big with huge regional and urban-rural differences. Rural elderly people face challenges in multiple areas ranging from old-age security, health and medical care and safety to entertainment and social participation.

China’s rapidly ageing society poses a great challenge to its socio-economic development. According to research statistics, in 2013 alone, Chinese labour force decreased by 2.44 million. That means on average, one in seven is now elderly. How to support themselves in late years has become a common concern of the elderly in urban and rural areas. Generally speaking, China has not prepared for this aging society either from macro-policies or micro-family, as well as to improve the awareness to the seriousness of aging society.

Due to elements such as weak labor ability and less incomes, elderly people get easier to drop in poor situation.Many research reports have shown that the situation of the impoverished ageing population remains very serious. Focusing on those in rural areas, statistics from a report by the National Committee on Ageing and Ageing Society show that no matter which measuring standard is used, the Engel coefficient, subjective sensation or multiple measuring, all calculations of total population of the rural elderly in poverty exceed 30 million.Many particularly vulnerable groups like left-behind, left-alone and disabled elderly people live in rural areas. They have to face multiple challenges in their subsistence. The giant rural-urban population migration has brought the issue of the left-behind elderly people to the forefront. In spite of the increase of household cash income, the left-behind elderly people not only have no people to take care of them, but also need to shoulder the heavy burden of agricultural production and housework, which affects their physical health and leaves their psychological needs unmet. The subjective welfare situation of the elderly in rural area is worrying. Looking at the existing rural social security system, we find that it is far from complete. Few community and care services are provided for the left-behind elderly, which leaves many elderly to deal with livelihood difficulties on their own. The family planning policy that has been enforced for years has successfully slowed down the population growth, yet, it has also brought particular problems for One-child families and rural elderly people who lost their child.Among the rural aged, there are many without families. They are incapable of work, have no income source and no legal guardians to provide for them. These groups of elderly people usually live in very poor condition with no one taking care of and caring about them. Some of them do not even have a guaranteed basic living standard.It is estimated that from 2010 to 2050, the number of female elderly in China will increase from 7.9 million to more than 40 million.

The income of the rural elderly lacks structural diversity. Rural poor elderly cannot afford basic living expenses, whose economic situation is not optimist.  Economic development in contiguous areas is generally lagging behind. Currently most elderly have to depend on their children and self-dependent. However, most elderly in poverty-stricken areas can only get a very low level of material support from their children, which is sometimes not enough to cover their basic living expenses. Looking at the daily expenses of the elderly, we find that medical care, food and daily necessities form the three main parts. Altogether, medical care is the largest expense. According to the research, medical expenses are the biggest household expense for 32.4% interviewees. Given that the elderly in rural area have worked physically for a long time with limited medical services provisions, their health is generally in a poor state, which naturally increases medical expenses. Although the rural social security system contributes to the costs for medical services for the elderly to a certain degree, the existing rural medical care system and rural assistance policies are still hardly able to meet the general needs of the rural elderly people, not even mentioning the difficulties involved in making medical services accessible.

The “NEET”(NEET stands for ‘Not in Education, Employment or Training) young generation undoubtedly add to the economic burden of their rural aged parents. Lots of elderly have to provide financial support to their children or grandchildren, which is obviously burdens them. The most common expenses for aged parents are the wedding and house building for their grown-up children, which have put the elderly into financial difficulties. In the worst case, the economically constrained elderly become indebted. The elderly are already in a difficult situation due to their limited income. They are supposed to enjoy a comfortable life provided for by their children. Yet, instead, they still have to provide material and financial aid to their children, which, inevitably aggravates their economic burden and exerts mental pressure on them.

A high proportion of the elderly in poverty-stricken areas is affected by illnesses. Chronic diseases pose major problems to the elderly. According to the research, over half of the interviewees suffer from different kinds of illnesses, such as hypertension, arthritis and rachitic. Many of their chronic diseases or multiple diseases are closely related to past intense labor over many years, their limited living conditions, unhealthy diet and bad habits. Though most of the elderly in destitute areas suffered from different diseases, few of them have received timely medical treatment. The research shows that a lot of people did not go to hospital when they had a minor illness. However, if going untreated for an extensive period, these minor illnesses can develop into serious chronic diseases or worse. Ultimately, the untimely treatment of diseases seriously affects elderly people’s health and thereby directly influences their quality of life. Many of their chronic diseases or multiple diseases are closely related to past intense labor over many years, their limited living conditions, unhealthy diet and bad habits.

There is still poor quality for elderly’s lifestyle and life situation. Due to low income, the elderly in poverty-stricken areas usually have an unbalanced diet. Rice and flour are the majority of the ageing’s primary food. Except for vegetables, the elderly have very rarely fish, meat, milk and eggs. Instead, they have a lot of salted and preserved vegetables. Because the rural infrastructure in many contiguous destitute areas is very poor, the majority of interviewed elderly take drinking water from wells and rivers. Moreover, elderly smoke and drink alcohol, and these unhealthy habits do not just exert a negative influence upon to their health condition but also add an additional economic burden. The condition of elderly’s houses and furniture is generally poor and usually poorer than their children’s. The poor elderly often lack the ability to change their conditions and to improve their houses, while their children are unable to provide sufficient help. Additionally, the limited government housing subsidy available for houses at the verge of collapsing is insufficient in addressing the situation effectively. As a result, the poor elderly generally live in poor housing conditions.

For most of the elderly, life is simple and boring with limited social interactions, leading to few being satisfied with their life. Rural elderly people commonly have a narrow range of social interaction and little access to informal support. In their daily life, only their relatives, neighbors and friends help them. Other social agents seem to be rather passive in this aspect. Against the background of the mass migration from the rural areas to the cities and taking also into consideration that some elderly have lost their spouses and children, getting help beyond the kinship group has become extremely important. Overall, the aggravated access to support poses a great hazard to the life of the elderly. Although most senior people are comparatively satisfied with their current life and believe that they basically have all they need, they are still dissatisfied with their life now and can also contribute to their disappointment in life. Bereft of spouses, facing difficult economic conditions, with children or grand children suffering from serious diseases and frequent family conflicts, the elderly are confronted with many negative factors that in the end result in their low life satisfaction.

The overall development of elderly care is slow, as traditional ideas hinder the progress. It is hard for families to provide for the elderly, yet the current development of elderly care services are seriously lagging behind. Currently, China’s social care industry offers few choices and narrow coverage. The big shortage in personnel makes it impossible to meet the actual demand. In our research in destitute areas, we found that over 90.0% of the communities the aged lived in had no elderly care services to support them in their daily life, provide mental health and medical care. In rural areas, the traditional “bring up children to provide for one’s old age” results in most elderly preferring to be taken care by their families. Hence, they usually show a certain degree of resistance to community or public elderly care institutions. The elderly’s preference for family care prevents community and institutional elderly care from being fully used, thereby constraining the development of the elderly care industry.

The social security policy implementation mechanisms for rural aged need to be improved and innovated.The current procedures for the minimum living standard subsidy and the new rural cooperative medical system are very complicated. The standard levels are low and there are loopholes in the policy enforcement process. Meanwhile, the serious disease subsidy and the assistance for compliance with the family planning regulations have only limited funding available, whilst the new rural social old-age insurance standard varies from place to place. In addition to the limited financial capacity of the government in poverty-stricken regions, it is hard for poor elderly people to gain access to the benefits they are eligible for. Most senior people do not know much about these policies. Many eligible elderly do not receive benefits because they are unaware of the policies and their eligibility. The accessibility of the policies needs to be further improved. Overall, the policy enforcement process suffers from many shortcomings that lead to low levels of satisfaction with the current policies among the elderly.

4.4 Challenges for Rural Disabled People

Due to the vulnerability of the disabled people and gaps in existing social policies, the rural disabled still constitute a destitute group that suffers from extreme poverty. Supporting disabled people poses the biggest challenge to poverty alleviation, as the likelihood of them relapsing into poverty is the highest and they account for a large proportion of the impoverished population. Between 2007 and 2013, the impoverished population was greatly reduced; the Engel coefficient of China’s rural disabled people’s household increased by 0.8%. The overall living standard of rural residents of the country improved, while the gap between non-disabled rural residents and rural disabled people is growing. Comparing the Engel coefficient of the average rural resident household to a rural disabled people’s household, we found that the discrepancy between the two was 4.6% in 2007. However, the figure had risen to 11% in 2013. According to an incomplete 2015 special investigation on disabled people, the income of more than 45% rural resident with a disability certificate was below the national poverty line. If those without a certificate were added, the number of rural disabled people who live below the poverty line would be more than 15 million, more than one-sixth of the rural impoverished population.

This investigation in 2014 is the first time that a thorough investigation into the poverty status of the rural disabled people in contiguous destitute regions has been conducted in China. The team witnessed the improvement of living standard of the rural disabled, yet they also saw serious challenges. Generally speaking, the situation of rural disabled people in the five counties in contiguous destitute regions can be summarized in following terms:

 

4.4.1 Surviving: Still the Greatest Challenge for the Rural Disabled People

The investigation found that disabled people’s main needs are still concentrated in the areas of basic living and medical care. In order of decreasing importance, the greatest difficulties that disabled people’s families face are: difficulties to receive medical care, lack of labor, housing shortage and insufficient food and clothing. For the disabled people themselves, the challenges were “no source of income”, “difficult to receive medical care”, “no people to take care of them”, “transport difficulties” and “hard to get a job”. The investigation also found that rural disabled household’s top three expenses were health care, food and production. Because medical care and rehabilitation take comparatively much more of the household income, there is less left for their cost of living and production, which not only seriously affects their living standard, but also indirectly limits the space for further development. As a result, these families are stuck deep in the poverty cycle and are hardly able to break the cycle on their own.The investigation in the five destitute counties shows that more than half of the interviewees are depending on their family members as main source of income. Although some of them have received the rural minimum living allowance, their needs can hardly be met due to the low standard. While even the new rural old-age insurance has become an important institutional arrangement to guarantee the life of the elderly, nearly a quarter of the disabled population has not joined the insurance scheme. Over 96% of the interviewees’ insurance standard for the new old-age insurance was 100 Yuan, ultimately resulting in a low pension, which will not be sufficient to cover their basic needs.   

 

4.4.2 Housing: Increasingly Prominent for the Rural Disabled People’s Families

As China’s rural social security system is improving and the economy is growing, more and more disabled people’s families have gradually been able to overcome the existential threat to survival. However, at the same time, the pressure to find adequate housing has become more and more prominent. Some of the disabled people’s houses can barely keep them warm and safe and are at any time at the verge of collapse. According to the survey, the majority of interviewees’ houses are half-timber brick tile structures with tile on the roof, some of which have become dangerous due to disrepair. More than half of the interviewees live in wooden, bamboo and thatched cottages, cave-houses or mud houses. Only fewer than 8% of the interviewees are able to live in houses with a reinforced concrete structure. As a result of the fast increase in farmers’ incomes, more and more rural households can afford to build new houses. It makes the houses of the disabled people stand out among the rows of new houses. Although the central and local governments have tried hard to solve the housing problem for the disabled people, the help the current policy can provide is rather limited and the disabled people’s family in severe poverty find it difficult to get the degree of support needed from the government.

4.4.3 Broken Wings: Low Levels of Education Severely Hamper Poverty Reduction and Development of the Rural Disabled People  

Constrained by conditions, disabled people’s education level is much lower than the average, which is extremely disadvantageous to their efforts to increase their income, shake off poverty and create better development opportunities. Among more than 2000 interviewees in the investigation, the average education level is only 4.19 years. In these five counties, the illiteracy rate of disabled people who never receive any education is as high as 28.4%, and the disabled people with high school (including technical secondary school) and higher education only amount to 3% and 0.5% respectively. If we compare the data with non-disabled people, there is a huge difference. Based on the results of the 6^th national census, 14.03% people have high school level (including technical secondary school) and 8.93% higher education and the national illiteracy rate is 4.08%. The “low quality barrier effect”refers to a large labor force with low education levels. The “low quality barrier effect” obstructs the migration of the impoverished population in destitute areas, it constrains their ability to develop and export their labor services. Hence, the regionalization of poverty is strengthened. Compared to other impoverished groups, disabled people have a much lower education level, which gives them fewer ways to change their lives. They tend to reconcile themselves instead to a life of hardship and poverty that way they are falling into the poverty-low level education trap that only aggravates their situation.

4.4.4 Labor shortage: the main obstacle for rural disabled people to escape poverty

In many rural areas in China, the number of workers in a household to some degree determines the family’s wealth. Especially in traditional agricultural production, the number of workers contributes more to poverty alleviation than the quality of their work. According to the data compiled as part of the survey, the average number of workers in a household is very low, which is closely linked to disabled people’s loss of their labor capacity. The survey found that the proportions of disabled people who partially/fully lost their labor capacity in 5 counties respectively are 57.5%, 60.0%,66.9%, 68.2% and 73.3%. Besides the shortage in household labor, most of the disabled people need to be taken care of by their families, which in turn make the labor shortage situation even more acute. Severely disabled family members often rely on the main worker in the household to take care of him/her. However, if the main worker is disabled or killed in an accident, families easily fall into poverty and it is hard to overcome. This is very common in rural areas where there is much land and people rely on agricultural production for a living.

5 Policy Recommendations for Poverty Alleviation of Vulnerable Groups

5.1 Policy Recommendations for Rural women

5.1.1 To integrate gender equality into the long-term state poverty-reduction objectives. Gender equality should be included into detailed poverty alleviation measures and social security system. In society transformation, major social and economic events and respond to natural disasters, gender equality should be always a concern with proper attention and gender poverty monitoring indicators and poverty-reduction effect evaluation systems should be further completed.

 

5.1.2 To increasingly improve women’s involvement in public affairs through policy perfection process. When the government improves policies and programs for poverty-stricken women in rural areas, the women’s principal status should be reflected. The policies and programs should be designed to help them in building up their capacity, strengthening their developing motivation so that they would actively participate into poverty alleviation actions and further enhance the impact and effect.

5.1.3 Under the background of enlarging rural-urban disparity and agricultural production feminized, the rural rear-support women engaged in agricultural production is still a group that needs particular support. Based on the difference of women and men’s poverty features, special physical, psychological and social need of women should be considered. Among the left-behind women, there are most vulnerable one, such as the elderly women, ethnic minority women, single mothers and women in diseases. The government and social organizations should provide them with corresponding responses and supports.  

5.1.4 To motivate the social vitality and encourage more NGOs to engage into community services for rural poverty-stricken women. Rural poverty-stricken women are still large in number. They have to face multiple challenges traditionally and newly-emerged. In order to build up their strength and tolerance in development, the government should fully motivate social forces and vitality, encourage more and more NGOs and organizations to provide services for poverty-stricken women education, training, health care, medical treatment, employment, finance and other aspects.   

5.1.5 Under the background of urbanization, attention should be paid to the employment and social integration problems of rural women in urban areas. In this way, we can avoid the impoverished rural women to become urban poverty-stricken women in urbanization. Starting from 2013, China has launched a new urbanization aiming at pushing rural migrants’ transformation into urban citizens in an organized way. During this process, special attention should be paid to possible poverty issues raised in rural women’s urbanization.    

5.1.6 To strengthen experience sharing with international society to enhance common development for poverty-stricken women worldwide. The introduction of international poverty alleviation experiences has greatly accelerated China’s domestic poverty-reduction. When the poverty issue of rural women is further relieved, experiences gained and mechanism adopted by other courtiers can be very useful. Meanwhile, China has accumulated over 30 years of experience on poverty alleviation and women’s poverty reduction, and we should be able to provide valuable knowledge and experiences to the international society, especially for countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, to contribute our efforts in combating and eliminating poverty of rural women globally.

5.2 Policy Recommendations for Rural Children

5.2.1 The breaking of the dualistic urban-rural structure, the realization of balanced regional economic development and the enhancement of social mobility would not only create an equal environment for children’s growth.Though this equal environment would have adverse implications for poverty-reduction and development of children at this stage, but is also a necessary step in the realization of China’s long-term goals in child development and poverty alleviation.

5.2.2 In China’s rural areas, there are still a huge number of vulnerable children who are still waiting for social security systems to be systematical and comprehensive. Based on the international experiences and China’s context, in the seven poverty dimensions of income, health, nutrition, water and hygiene, education, housing and social protection, the Chinese policies focus more on income, education, health and water and hygiene. Issues about early childhood education and especially vulnerable children, including left-behind children, children without people to take care of them and street children,are not adequately addressed by existing child poverty-reduction and development policies.

5.2.3 The government and the other sectors of society need to keep working hard to improve the systematicness and comprehensiveness of the policies. We need to introduce multi-dimensional interventions that can not only guarantee a basic standard for rural children, butsecure their equal development opportunities. Hence, the government and the other sectors of society need to keep working hard to improve the systematicness and comprehensiveness of the policiesas well as providing more pertinent assistance to children in particularly vulnerable groups to safeguard their chances to develop like the other children.

5.2.4 Be careful to new unfair when setting up policy. Most of child welfare policies like “child nutrition improvement plan”, “two exemptions and one subsidy” are mainly targeting poor children in rural areas. These policy arrangements might neglect the rights of other children within the region and create new inequality. The policies should cover all regionsand should include all children so these child-oriented inclusive policies might benefit more children and enhance their equal development. New policies should strengthen capacity building and development to support people close to poor children like their family members and mothers so the intergenerational transmission of poverty can truly be broken.

5.3 Policy Recommendations for Rural Elderly

To break the existing social security system of urban and rural areas, to promote the balanced development of regional economy, establish a fair and unified social security system, to provide the necessary conditions for the development of the aging industry. Those structural factors such as existing dual structure between urban and rural areas, regional economic development imbalances and the income gap between residents are the causes of the elderly poor and difficult to eradicate the root cause of the problem.

To unify a integrated policy system and an implement mechanism to address the rural aged fall under different government departments’ responsibility. The existing policies are mostly single policies issued by different departments. There is no larger unifying policy framework. Thus, policy integrity, coordination and standardization have yet to be developed. They are currently only on a level of addressing elderly people’s specific needs. It is hard to maximise the existing policy provisions on a macro-level. The enforcement depends on the cooperation of different government departments. Yet, despite their efforts, policies do not realize their full potential due to the lack of coordination and cooperation between different departments.

To further develop the scope of the social security system and the basic standard it provides to the elderly. Civil society actors need to be strengthened.Current social security policies are mostly focussing on senior people’s basic needs. There are no specific policies for disabled older people and elderly people living alone. There is very basic aid for those in very difficult economic circumstances; yet, the standard the social security policy provides, is very low and makes it impossible for the elderly to have a decent life. Further work needs to be done to create incentives and make room for civil engagement in the development of a comprehensive social security system for the elderly.

To improve the elderly social security system, improve the overall level of rural pension services, and involved actively social forces to participate in the social security services, to form a elderly service system with home and community-based.With a large number of people moving into the urban areas, the number of elderly looked after by their children is decreasing. Besides, rural-urban migrants in search of employment opportunities aggravate the problems of left-behind and left-alone elderly. As a result, the traditional rural family structure is collapsing, which is posing a big challenge to the rural elderly who mostly wish to depend on their children for care. The elderly social service provisions in rural areas need to catch up with the urban areas, while the social care industry needs to be stimulated, as rural aged people who cannot be looked after by their children can currently hardly get access to elderly care. Hence, old-age social security is becoming an urgent issue for the rural elderly.

To continue to develop the rural economy, improve the overall economic level of rural areas, which is for the elderly and their families to improve their income, and secure the level of local elderly’s social service.

5.4 Policy Recommendations for Rural Disabled People

5.4.1 Improving disabled people’s education level is the key to help them break and shake off the vicious cycle of poverty. To achieve this, the government would need to increase its support and mobilize all sectors of the society to work together to protect the disabled person’s right to education, provide vocational and technical training as well as enhancing the conditions for disabled children in education.  

5.4.2 To improve the rehabilitation conditions of the rural disabled people, improve their recovery and reduce their level of disability so as to boost their production capacity.To strengthen medical screening in rural areas, improve the recovery of the disabled people and reduce their degree of disability. To support the recovery of the rural disabled. Grass-root level medical care units’ provisions should be improved so that they are able to provide adequate rehabilitation services targeting the disabled people.  Based on the existing rural cooperative medical care system and serious illness assistance, better social medical treatment and rehabilitation service should be provided to the disabled people, to improve the medical care for the disabled people.

5.4.3 To pay equal attention to poverty alleviation and social security to improve the accuracy of poverty reduction for the rural disabled. For rural disabled people, poverty alleviation measures need to be more targetedtowards disabled people and their families. Our recommendations are: To develop a poverty reduction strategy that supports disabled people throughout their lives from childhood to old age. This includes the provision of comprehensive social security systemsfor rural disabled elderly and children as part of poverty alleviation policies as well as the creation of a development-focused poverty alleviation policy for working-age disabled people. To improve the social security system for rural disabled people to protect disabled and severely disabled people’s right to survival. The systems should include the creation of a nursing subsidy for severely disabled people; the establishment of a living allowance for impoverished disabled people; wider coverage and a higher rehabilitation subsidy for severely disabled people; and free medicine for mental patients. To provide assistance to family members and guardians of severely disabled people to enable them with to benefit from preferential policies on equal poverty reduction preferential policies so as to help give the households of with severely disabled people a for a better chance to escape poverty. To provide more support to those facing the gravest difficulties and the most marginalized ones.The national poverty reduction policies should address the needs of these groups and develop special targeted schemes to arrange professional help for them. These policies need to be regularly reviewed and adjusted as well as monitored. The policies should improve information collection on poverty reduction, funding and human resources. For a disabled person with a certain development capacity at the edge of poverty, information, training, vocational planning and employment guidance should be provided.

5.4.4To further improve poverty reduction mechanisms and enhance the efficiency of poverty alleviation investments. To apply appropriate policy to different disabled people and their families based on their circumstances it might be conducive to adopt more targeted poverty alleviation measures. A better option might be to implement a “one policy-one household” strategy that takes into account disabled people’s individual special needs, their particular disability and the local socio-economic environment. The information system on the poverty status of the disabled people needs to be completed to implement better targeting and more effective poverty reduction. In addition to the record information system that is part of the impoverished household database currently under construction, information on the rural disabled and their families’ basic state, household income, consumption and needs should also be collected and regularly updated. Thus, a concrete information database can be established for developing and implementing much more pertinent poverty reduction schemes.

5.4.5 To strengthen research on theory and practice on poverty alleviation of the disabled people to improve poverty reduction practitioners’ professional level. Based on a literature review of related research, studies on poverty reduction for the rural disabled people is lagging behind the policy practice. There is insufficient research, few researchers are specializing in this field and only limited research funding is available for policy-making and policy adjustment. This situation desires to be improved.Currently, there is an urgent need to evaluate existing poverty reduction policies and their effects on the rural disabled in order to be able to adjust and improve these policies. Moreover, the professionals need to enhance their skills to contribute to better-targeted policy proposals. Hence, we need to improve the skills of staff working on disabled people and gradually recruit professional social workers to adopt methods like case studies to provide more personalized services to the rural disabled people. We recommend that a “Training Program for DPF staff on poverty alleviation” should be gradually rolled out in contiguous destitute regions. The training would be provided to government officials and staff working in related areas such as poverty reduction and disabled people in counties within the contiguous destitute regions, to staff on county or township-level DPF poverty reduction units and county and township-level DPF staff.

5.4.6 To fully mobilize social forces to help the rural disabled people overcome poverty. The government should provide more support to social organizations and help them turn into an importance force in helping the disabled people reduce poverty. Furthermore, the government should encourage International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs) to get involved in poverty alleviation for the disabled people. We suggest that the poverty alleviation units, DPF and other related government actors strengthen cooperation with international organizations and provide the necessary support to encourage them to run projects in contiguous destitute regions. Thus, the government needs to adjust its policies with regards to work permissions for INGOs in China as well as improve its policy transparency to allow INGOs to follow Chinese laws and regulations in supporting the poverty reduction for the disabled people. The poverty alleviation and DPF departments can make a list of the most urgent challenges in the fourteen contiguous destitute regions based on the social poverty reduction policies to attract INGOs to get involved through open bidding. This way not only could necessary additional funding be brought in, also the best, effective international experience on poverty reduction for the rural disabled people could be introduced to enrich our local practices.

5.4.7 The government should give domestic NGOs more support to encourage them to get involved in poverty alleviation for the disabled people. Through government purchasing, NGOs could be introduced to poverty reduction for the rural disabled people. Besides, by strengthening financial management and monitoring, NGOs can support the work on grass-root-level villages and ensure that subsidies and allowance are properly distributed to households and individuals. The government and DPFs should encourage and support the disabled people to create their own organizations for their own development to establish different types of professional disabled people’s organizations. With opportunities and platforms provided by the government, domestic NGOs’ capacity to support the rural disabled people would be greatly improved.

5.4.8 To focus on solving the housing problem for the rural disabled people to guarantee them a safe and decent living space. With most of the disabled people no longer facing an existential threat to their survival, the housing problem is becoming more prominent day by day. Thus, the assistance policies should focus more on the improvement of their living conditions, especially on house renovation for the disabled people. First of all, it should strengthen the efforts to renovate the houses of the rural disabled people. Some impoverished rural disabled people cannot benefit from this subsidy because they are incapable of renovating. Hence, the subsidy for rural disabled households needs to be urgently increased and so-called “turn-key projects” should be implemented for the destitute disabled households that are incapable of renovating. The scientificity of the housing subsidy registration system for the rural impoverished disabled people should be further improved to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of poverty reduction. The housing subsidy system should be based on poverty level, housing conditions, family structures and other compulsory factors. For example, the determination of the poverty level of disabled people’s households and their housing conditions as well as their family structures (adults and juveniles) should be fully considered in the calculation of the actual subsidy for each household to be able to address challenges on different levels of poverty, disability more accurately taking further into account the varying states of housing and risk distribution.




 

 

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This report is produced by Poverty Reduction and Development Center of Wuhan University. It is based on the achievements of research series sponsored by OXFAM Hong Kong including “Appraisal of Supporting Policies for Women in Contiguous Destitute Areas” conducted by project team from College of Sociology, Central China Normal University; “Assessment for Supporting Policies and Livelihood of the Poor Old Aged People in Contiguous Destitute Areas” and “Assessment for Supporting Polices and Livelihood of the Poor Children in Contiguous Destitute Areas” conducted by project team from College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University; “Policy Evaluation and Advice for the Disabled People in Contiguous Destitute Areas” conducted by project team from China Disability Research Society. Hereby thanks for their contributions!

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