Poverty Alleviation and Development in Inner Mongolia

　　【Overview】  Covering a total land area of 1,183,000 square kilometers, Inner Mongolia has a total population of 24.0506 million, including 13.2 million rural residents, accounting for 54.9%, and has 12 union cities, 2 cities separately listed in planning and 101 counties, cities and districts, including 31 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, 29 key counties of Inner Mongolia, 60 in total. By the end of 2009, Inner Mongolia had a poor population of 917,000, accounting for 7.2% of the population of rural pasturing area, mainly scattered in sand hill areas in the east of Inner Mongolia (51%), along the border (7.6%), in Yinshan wind erosion and desertification areas (25%), Loess Plateau areas (7.8%) and other areas (2.7%).

　　In 2009, Inner Mongolia Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development was renamed as Inner Mongolia Poverty Alleviation and Development Office, and was also called “Inner Mongolia Old Revolutionary Base Construction Office”, listed among the organs and government departments directly under the administration of Inner Mongolia government. The “Inner Mongolian Promotion Council for Construction of Old Revolutionary Base Areas” established before changed from a self-supporting institution to a full funding institution.

　　Inner Mongolia Party Committee and Government, for four consecutive years, listed poverty alleviation and development among the ten livelihood projects. The executive meeting of the Inner Mongolia government mainly listens to poverty alleviation and development work report every year and the major leaders of the CPC Committee and the government as well as the department leaders often go to the poverty-stricken areas to give instructions in field research and help solve major problems. In 2009, adhering to the guideline of development-oriented poverty alleviation, Inner Mongolia achieved the effective convergence of the minimum living security system and pro-poor policies in the rural pasturing areas. Based on the country's new poverty line, the government made reasonable estimates and determined the poverty line in Inner Mongolia, strengthened organizational leadership, strengthened responsibility, increased investment and continued to improve the self-development capacity of  poor areas and poor people.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】   In 2009, a total of 110 million anti-poverty funds were issued for this program and 11 national and local key counties for poverty alleviation and development in 8 union cities carried out pilot projects for the integration of resources, concentration breakthrough and contiguous development, which promoted the development of competitive featured industries in impoverished areas.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】   In 2009, a total of 350 million Yuan was issued for this program. The entire village advancement projects were completed in 350 key poor Gacha villages located in competitive development zones and 230 university graduates were selected to carry out poverty alleviation work in the key Gacha villages.

　　【Poverty alleviation by relocation】   58 million Yuan was provided for the construction of four pilot relocation-based poverty alleviation projects of the sixth 40 pilot areas. The construction of the major part of the project was basically completed in 2009.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】  31 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were put in; organized trainings for 31,000 people, of which 27,000 achieved employment transfer; identified 100 “Rain Plan” training bases; in 2009, we organized 16 trainings for poverty alleviation cadres and the party and political cadres in poor counties, towns and Gacha villages, involving 2400 people.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 In 2009, 78 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were provided to support the base construction of cattle and sheep breeding, vegetable and potato planting, featured breeding, forest and sand and other poverty alleviation projects by industrialization; the project loan and household loan respectively amounted to 333 million Yuan and 200 million Yuan; 6 million Yuan of village-level mutual funds were invested for 3000 poor households, 40 Gacha villages and five counties to support the households’ planting and breeding; and the government identified the second batch of poverty alleviation leading enterprises, 31 in total.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】  First, new progress has been made in national fixed-point poverty alleviation. Through active efforts, LGOP designated three powerful units - Sinosteel Corporation, Tsinghua University and Three Gorges Corporation to help the poor counties of Inner Mongolia by building partnership in 2009. Second, LGOP held the national fixed-point poverty alleviation experience exchange meeting and the work conference on business participation in poverty alleviation and development in Xing’an, Baotou and Erdos City. Third, the organs directly under the administration of Inner Mongolia government achieved significant results in the fixed-point poverty alleviation in Xing’an and Hulunbeier City. By the end of October 2009, a total of 137 department-level bureaus sent 345 people to the poor areas (including 93 department and bureau-level cadres) and a total of 310 million anti-poverty funds were invested in the whole year (from 2006 to 2009, capital and materials valued 800 million were invested to Xing’an, and financial and materials valued more than 300 million Yuan were provided for two minority areas in Hulunbeier City).

　　【Poverty alleviation in special poverty-stricken areas】  According to the principle of highlighting focus, classified guidance and discriminative treatment, Inner Mongolian government increased support for key areas and special poor people.

　　1．Make great efforts on the poverty alleviation and development in old revolutionary base areas. Increase efforts on institution building for the survey and construction of old revolutionary base areas. In 2009, based on the former 25 old revolutionary base counties, Inner Mongolia added eight old revolutionary base counties and gave priority to special poverty-stricken areas in pilot contiguous development projects.

　　2．Increase support for 33 animal husbandry banners. In 2009, a total of 169.81 million Yuan was invested to 33 animal husbandry banners. The average anti-poverty fund for animal husbandry banners is obviously higher than the average level of Inner Mongolia. 16.5 million Yuan anti-poverty funds were put in for the second batch of industrial poverty alleviation projects, all for the industrial poverty alleviation projects in 33 animal husbandry banners and 3 minority banners.

　　【Beijing-Inner Mongolia cooperation in poverty alleviation】  In April, 2009, Beijing Municipal government and Inner Mongolia government jointly held the “Conference on Beijing-Inner Mongolia Cooperation in Poverty Alleviation”, and adjusted 11 of the 18 twinning counties, giving priority to minority concentrated areas, old revolutionary base areas, border pasturing areas and minority banners in poverty alleviation. Beijing invested 26 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds and carried out multi-layer, multi-field large-scale economic and technological cooperation. At the end of the year, a working system composed of government assistance, business cooperation, social aid and human resource development was formed and a stable mechanism for cooperation in poverty alleviation was established.

　　【Anti-poverty work conference】  In April 2009, the Inner Mongolia government held the anti-poverty work conference. In the same month, Ren Yaping, Vice Secretary of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC and Leader of the Inner Mongolia Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development, personally chaired the new plenary session of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development, agreed on several major issues. First, regarding the adjustment of regional poverty line, the participants agreed to make annual adjustment to the regional poverty line based on the national poverty line and the Composite Consumer Price Index of the region's farming and pastoral areas. Secondly, regarding investment in poverty reduction and the investment growth mechanism, the participants agreed to gradually increase in future annual investment in poverty alleviation. Within the term of this government, the financial support must reach the pro-poor budget level and strive to rank in the forefront of the western provinces. Union cities, banners and counties should also include anti-poverty funds into fiscal budget, gradually increase investment in poverty alleviation and establish and improve the evaluation mechanism for the effect of poverty alleviation funds.

　　【Supervision of poverty alleviation fund projects】 In 2009, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region implemented new approaches for poverty alleviation fund project management, delegated approval rights and strengthened the power of supervision. Through overall balancing and amount control, it directly gives the project targets to union cities and the specific project implementation banners, counties and contents are determined by the union cities, but should be registered in government department. In such a way, the union city-level poverty alleviation office has got the autonomy and has higher working enthusiasm. At the same time, the project management focus has changed from approval of projects to the inspection, supervision and acceptance of projects, which strengthened the supervision. In accordance with standardized and institutionalized management principles, starting with strengthening the system construction, it has further improved the poverty alleviation fund project management methods. On the basis of the implementation of the "Trial Implementation Procedures of Financial Anti-poverty Fund Performance Assessment" and the "Trial Implementation Procedures of Poverty Alleviation Office of Inner Mongolia concerning the Supervision", we formulated and issued the "Trial Implementation Procedures of Integrated Multi-factor Quantitative Evaluation Management of Poverty Alleviation and Development of Inner Mongolia" for the evaluation of the poverty alleviation and development work of the union cities and surveyed banners (counties and districts) as well as the banners (counties and districts) under the administration of the union cities. The evaluation indicators include poverty alleviation system and institution building, poverty alleviation fund project management, poverty alleviation operations and poverty reduction effectiveness, totally four categories and 36 items. Evaluation results become a major basis for next year's allocation of poverty relief funds. The government encourages, under the strict reward and punishment system, the regions with work well done through “award for investment” and reduces the anti-poverty funds for those regions without good performance.

　　In 2009, the poverty alleviation office successively organized four large-scale research and supervision activities together with relevant departments under the leadership of the Commission for Discipline Inspection. The party committee members and the cadres of relevant departments participated in the activities. In association with the Department of Finance, the poverty alleviation office organized performance evaluation on the use of anti-poverty funds in 2009 and planned to invest 26 million Yuan of poverty relief funds to encourage the advanced units through “award for investment”. The amount of the “award for investment” this time was the largest since the launch of poverty alleviation and development in the region. In addition, the auditing and supervision departments at all levels carry out audit and examination on the use of anti-poverty funds from time to time.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】  1．Explore the establishment of poverty line adjustment mechanism. The poverty line of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is: annual per capita net income of 1560 Yuan for agricultural areas and per capita net income of 1,800 Yuan for the pastoral areas.

　　2．Explore the establishment of long-term mechanism for steady increase in anti-poverty funds. In 2009, the state and the regional government put in poverty relief funds of 1.44 billion and the regional financial department provided 102 million Yuan. In May 2009, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government clearly stated that we must gradually increase the fiscal budget for anti-poverty funds annually and the inputs should be in the forefront of the western provinces, the union cities, banners and counties must include the anti-poverty funds into the annual budget from 2010 according to the requirements of the state and gradually increase the funds according to local financial resources. In 2008, the Autonomous Region linked the financial anti-poverty funds of local governments with the allocation of poverty relief funds of the whole region. It courage the banners, cities and counties with work well done through “award for investment” and increase the proportion of their anti-poverty funds for next year.

　　3．Carry out survey on pro-poor strategy and policy system. From June 29 to July 5, the Joint Research Group of LGOP headed by LGOP Director-General Fan Xiaojian visited Alashan, Erdos and ten banners (districts, counties, economic development zones) of Baotou City for survey on the poverty alleviation by relocation, entire village advancement, poverty alleviation by industrialization, social poverty alleviation, military poverty alleviation, renovation of dilapidated buildings and rural subsistence allowances. To support the national joint research, the Poverty Alleviation Office of Inner Mongolia organized four research groups headed by the directors to carry out field researches in eight union cities and some banners and counties. The union cities in the whole region also organized relevant experts and departments to carry out relevant policy researches and put forward the evaluation report and policy recommendations to the Inner Mongolia government.