Poverty Alleviation and Development in Hebei Province

　　【Overview】 Hebei Province, whose territory surrounds Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, covers a total area of ​​187,700 square kilometers and has a population of 70.34 million. It has 11 districts and cities, 172 counties (districts), including 40 key countries (districts) for national poverty alleviation and development, and 12 poor counties designated by the provincial government. Based on the national poverty line, in 2001, Hebei Province had a poor population of 3.27 million without adequate food and clothing and a low-income population of 2.43 million who had almost adequate food and clothing but would easily fall back into poverty, 5.7 million in total. Zhangjiakou, Chengde and Baoding City have 25 key counties for poverty alleviation and development, 2804 poverty-stricken villages and 1.54 million poor people, respectively accounting for 48.1%, 39.5% and 41.6% of the total in the province. Since 2002, the central government and Hebei provincial government have invested a total of 3.11 billion Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to support 7,102 poverty-stricken villages in batches. By the end of 2009, more than 5000 poor villages in the province had completed the poverty alleviation by entire village advancement and the number of poor people had been reduced to 3.7 million or so.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】  In 2009, a total of financial anti-poverty funds of 743 million Yuan were invested in the whole province, including 490 million Yuan from the central government, 353 million Yuan from central and provincial supportive enterprises and 1.27 billion Yuan of bank loans. It has provided assistance for 60,000 poor households, solved the drinking water problem of 410,000 people and 300,000 livestock, newly build basic farmland of 40,000 ha and built highroads of 2419 kilometers. It has lifted 200,000 people out of poverty and promoted the further economic and social development in poverty-stricken areas.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】  In 2009, the government improved the work standards of “12 possessions” for Entire Village Advancement, established poverty alleviation files in each village and increased investment to the "three guarantees" villages. In the 30 poor villages of the two old revolutionary base areas - Dongguang and Chicheng, central lottery public welfare funds of 42.5 million Yuan were arranged for the Entire Village Advancement in poor old revolutionary base areas, averagely more than 1.4 million Yuan for each village. Through increasing investment for poverty alleviation and integrating the agricultural funds of various agriculture-related departments, one third of the "three guarantees" villages met the funding requirements. More than 80% of the water, electricity, road, telecommunication and other infrastructure projects and public welfare projects promised by relevant departments have been completed.

　　【Poverty alleviation by relocation】 The government increased efforts for poverty alleviation by relocation. In 2008, the 11 counties assigned the task of poverty alleviation by relocation had completed 92% of the task, and 12 immigrant communities were set up. In July 2009, the counties assigned the task of poverty alleviation by relocation had completed the relocation of 1547 households, involving 5359 people, and five immigrant communities were being constructed.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】  It has conducted the activities of “promoting employment by skills training”. In 2009, the government invested 30.54 million Yuan of special funds for training, organized trainings for 16,184 poor people and achieved transfer of employment for 16091 people, with employment rate of 99%. To lift people out of poverty and increase their income, the government organized practical skills trainings for farmers, and a total of 164,000 poor farmers received trainings that year.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】  The government conducted the activities of “developing ten-possession families by the implementation of poverty alleviation and development cell projects” in poverty-stricken areas of the whole province, invested more than 200 million Yuan to support more than 60,000 poor households and helped them construct a number of projects to increase the family income. The industrial poverty alleviation targets at the featured industries in different areas, giving priority to the contiguous projects that increase the income of farmers. Relying on more than 180 national and provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises and more than 400 professional poverty alleviation cooperatives (associations), through developing contiguous poverty alleviation projects by industrialization, it has basically formed the industrial poverty alleviation pattern of “leading enterprise + professional cooperatives + poor households” and improved the product quality and the ability to resist market risks. Hutuohe 100-li greenhouse vegetable gallery, the Taihang Mountains’ high-quality walnut industry zone, the hiraizumi and paddock-based edible mushroom industry clusters and 15 vegetable, walnut, chicken, mushroom and other poverty alleviation project zones began to take shape, which promoted the sustainable income growth of the poor.

　　【Village-level pilot mutual funds】  The scale of village-level pilot mutual funds keeps expanding. In 2009, 375 poor villages joined the pilot areas of mutual funds and 15,500 rural households joined the funds, including 13,400 poor households, and the mutual funds amounted to 60 million Yuan. At present, the pilot projects of mutual funds have been launched in 727 poor villages, a total of 40,000 households have participated in the mutual funds, including 33,800 poor households, and the mutual funds amounts to 132 million Yuan.

　　【Pilot program of poverty alleviation loan guarantee】  Based on the pilot program of poverty alleviation loan guarantee in Daming and Wuyi County, the government explored the establishment of two organizations – “Volunteer Organization for Credit Guarantees for Poverty Alleviation” and “Association of the People of Integrity and Self-discipline in Poor Villages” in Julu County. Through the “dual insurance” – farmers’ mutual guarantee and cadres’ guarantee, they help rural households to apply for loans from financial sector and achieved good results, exploring a practical approach to stable income growth of the masses and lifting people out of poverty. In Julu County, more than 800 public officers have joined the Volunteer Organization and more than 5,000 people have participated in the “Association of the People of Integrity and Self-discipline in Poor Villages”. It has basically solved the difficulty of the poor in applying for loans. In 2009, the practice of Julu County was widely promoted in the impoverished areas across the province.

　　【Pilot projects of effective convergence between poverty alleviation and development policies and rural minimum living security system】  Wuqiang County conducted effective convergence between “two systems”, established the poor recognition mechanism and dynamic monitoring mechanism, identified the poor in accordance with identification method, improved the card filing and implemented effective follow-up measures and dynamic monitoring for targeted support.

　　【Pilot projects of integration of funds for contiguous development】  The central government invested 20 million Yuan in Mengcui and Qingquan County and the provincial government invested 18 million Yuan to carry out pilot poverty alleviation projects “taking county as the unit and integrating capital, combing entire village advancement and contiguous development” in Daming, Guangzong, Zanhuang, Fuping, Laiyuan and Chengde County, which has promoted the economic development and income growth of poor people in the key counties.

　　【Microfinance Project of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation】 The provincial poverty alleviation office, key counties for poverty alleviation and development and China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) jointly set up farmers’ self-service agency to promote the micro-credit projects in the key counties. As of the end of December 2009, a total of 69.83 million Yuan had been issued in five pilot counties to support 13,700 poor rural households, and 100% of the loans were repaid. It has achieved the sustainable development of operating agencies and effectively alleviated the difficulties of poor households in applying for loans.

　　【Poverty alleviation project management】  1．Combine household projects with the appropriate scale and contiguous development. Organize and guide the masses to build, relying on poverty alleviation leading enterprises, professional poverty alleviation cooperatives, develop planting and breeding communities, improve the promotion rate of poverty alleviation leading enterprises, expand the coverage of cooperatives, enhance the outputs of professional communities and explore the development mode integrating household projects and standardized large-scale production.

　　2．Reform the register system for poverty alleviation projects. Relevant person of the provincial poverty alleviation office is responsible for contacting the subcontracting cities and counties, giving instructions in formulating project plans, submitting the registered projects reported by various cities to the project registration evaluation team for review timely and reporting the feedback after the review comments are made. It has greatly improved the effectiveness of registration of poverty alleviation projects.

　　3．Provide open convenience for poverty alleviation projects. As for the village-level financial anti-poverty fund project implementation plan registered in the provincial government, the city poverty alleviation offices notify the key villages for poverty alleviation and development in various forms the project content, amount of funds and beneficiaries, and the village-level poverty alleviation project supervision teams will conduct supervisions on this basis. It has expanded people's right to information and supervision and helped deliver anti-poverty funds to villages and households.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】  1．Poverty alleviation by “four helping one”: The provincial government arranged four forces - the affiliated department, colleges, large enterprises and economically strong counties to support the 52 key counties for poverty alleviation and development. The provincial government makes arrangements for the poverty alleviation of 500 poor villages and the city and county governments arrange the poverty alleviation work for other poor villages to ensure at least one supportive unit is provided for each poverty-stricken village. The helping units send 12,000 cadres to support the poor villages. In 2009, the supportive working teams involved in the “four helping one” raised a total of 237 million Yuan of poverty alleviation funds, including 59 million Yuan raised by themselves, 162 million Yuan from other sources and 16.19 million Yuan of goods and materials, to support the construction of 901 projects, involving 47,000 poor households.

　　2．Fixed-point poverty alleviation by organs directly under the CPC Central Committee: The central government’s units invested a total of 116 million Yuan directly or indirectly to help poverty-stricken areas build a number of county-level projects. They were responsible for the coordination of services and guiding the units to give priority to entire village advancement in fixed-point poverty alleviation. In the whole year, more than 30 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds was used in entire village advancement and provided assistance to 48 poor villages.

　　3．Social poverty alleviation: The government contacts and communicates with the Provincial Association of Industry and Commerce and puts forward the opinions of organizing private enterprises to voluntarily claim the poor villages. In such a way, it has facilitated the launching of 238 joint venture and cooperation projects with investment of more than 10 billion Yuan. Through its coordination, relevant universities and research institutes have sent 4590 technical persons to carry out work in the areas involved in poverty alleviation by science and technology, promoted 217 new varieties and 332 practical techniques, transformed 250 scientific research results and held 575 various technology training courses for 66,000 people.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】  1．The party committee and government attach importance to it and the leadership is strong. Provincial government leaders and department leaders went to the poor areas for survey many times to solve the difficult problems. They have successively held the provincial work conference on poverty alleviation and development, work conference of the leading group for poverty alleviation and development and provincial poverty alleviation and development forum to make arrangements for the poverty alleviation and development, which has further strengthened the organization and leadership of poverty alleviation work.

　　2．Improve the system to enhance the construction ability. The provincial poverty alleviation office formulated the “Opinions on further Standardizing Meetings, Grassroots Survey and Research, Inspection and Training”, improved organ finance, official vehicles, veteran work system and reception system to further standardize the government offices administration; carried out the activity of cadres’ work style construction year, further improved the long-term work mechanism and further strengthened team building.

　　3．Strengthen the research and put more efforts on pro-poor advocacy. Begin to plan for surveys and researches on the poverty alleviation and development in the next decade, laying a foundation for the development of 2011-2020 poverty alleviation and development program and the “12th Five-Year Plan”. Strengthen the poverty alleviation and development advocacy. Based on the practice of the scientific concept of development and work style construction year activity, the poverty alleviation achievement publicity at the 60th anniversary, “poverty alleviation and development cell project” and the construction of industrial zones, “four helping one” and poverty alleviation by organs directly under the CPC Central Committee, Hebei has had a series of influential reports printed in national and provincial media, which has aroused the concern from the whole society and expanded the influence of Hebei’s poverty alleviation and development work.