Poverty Alleviation and Development in Henan Province

　　【Overview】  In 2009, Henan Province had 31 national key counties, 13 provincial key counties, 565 key towns and 10,430 key villages for poverty alleviation and development. The poor mainly lived in the old revolutionary base areas, Huanghuai flood plain and flood detention area, remote rocky mountain areas in the western areas of Henan, traditional agricultural areas in plains and the high prevalence areas of AIDS. Since 2001, more than 7.2 million rural poor have shaken off poverty, of which 1.1 million were lifted out of poverty in 2009. At the end of 2009, there were about 5 million rural poor in Henan Province.

　　【Review of poverty alleviation】  Henan Province started the planned poverty alleviation and development in rural areas in 1986. The main task for the poverty in late 1980s and 1990s was to basically solve the problem of food and clothing in rural areas.

　　From 2003 to 2006, more than 80% of the anti-poverty funds were invested in entire village advancement. Henan Province completed the renovation of grade-D dilapidated buildings in rural areas across the province, explored new pro-poor measures such as relocation-based poverty reduction, labor transfer training, poverty alleviation by technology, poverty alleviation by industrialization, micro-credit loan for rural households and village-level mutual funds to create new channels for income growth of farmers in poor areas.

　　Since 2007, while conducting entire village advancement, Henan has launched pilot contiguous development projects to explore effective solutions to regional poverty and increased efforts on relocation-based poverty reduction, labor transfer training, poverty alleviation by technology, poverty alleviation by industrialization, micro-credit loan for rural households and village-level mutual funds to comprehensively improve the self-development ability and income level of impoverished areas and poor people. From 2001 to 2009, entire village advancement projects were launched in 6626 poor villages in the province and lifted more than 7.2 million rural poor out of poverty. In 2009, based on the new rural per capita net income standard, 1.1 million rural poor shook off poverty and the rural per capita net income in 44 key counties rose from 3970 Yuan to 4320 Yuan, up 8.8%.

　　【Investment to poverty alleviation fund projects】  In 2009, Henan Province issued a total of 3.597 billion Yuan of anti-poverty funds, of which 741 million Yuan was from central government, 152 million Yuan was from provincial government, 148 million Yuan came from city government, 222 million Yuan came from county-level government, 1.041 billion Yuan was anti-poverty credit loan (including project loan of 533 million Yuan and household loan of 508 million Yuan), 932 million Yuan came from various departments and 361 million Yuan was from social forces.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】  In 2009, Henan Province completed entire village advancement in 1464 impoverished villages, up 46.4% over 2008, including 828 “three guarantee” key villages in old revolutionary base areas, up 78.1% over 2008. By the end of 2009, entire village advancement projects had been launched in 6626 poor villages, and 3804 poverty-stricken villages had not started entire village advancement yet. 806 poor villages that did not launch entire village advancement in the 24 old revolutionary base areas were all covered by 2010 entire village advancement program.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】  In 2009, the financial departments at all levels in Henan Province invested a total of nearly 100 million Yuan of anti-poverty training funds. Trainings were organized for 202,600 farmers in poor regions and 187,600 people got jobs, respectively accounting for 101.3% of the training task (200,000 people) and 104.2% of the employment transfer targets (180,000 people), which could lead to an increase of more than 750 million Yuan in the income of farmers.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 In 2009, Henan Province put in 32.5 million Yuan of financial discount capital for the implementation of poverty alleviation by industrialization, of which 16 million Yuan was provided to encourage financial sectors to issue 533 million Yuan of loans for 76 poverty alleviation leading projects, covering 15 national poverty alleviation leading enterprises and 52 provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises. The projects increased the income of 1.2873 million poor people form 1330 impoverished villages and directly provided jobs for 22,900 poor farmers, whose per capita annual income reached 11000 Yuan. The government invested 16.5 million Yuan of financial discount capital to encourage financial agencies to issue micro-credit loans of 508 million Yuan for more than 28600 rural families to develop planting, breeding and agricultural processing. As a result, the income growth per household exceeded 2000 Yuan, which effectively promoted the income increase of farmers.

　　【Poverty alleviation by relocation】  In 2009, Henan Province invested anti-poverty funds of 666 million Yuan for relocation-based poverty reduction, of which 72 million Yuan was from central and provincial government, 106 million Yuan was from city and county government, 65.06 million Yuan came from various departments and 422 million Yuan was raised by the masses. A total of 124 new immigrant villages (communities, spots) were set up and 25,800 people and 6232 poor families moved to the new houses, respectively accounting for 129.8% and 128.8% of the planned figure. The average anti-poverty subsidy for normal immigrant households was 3000 Yuan, but the government enhanced the subsidy standards for low-income poor households and special poor families.

　　【Poverty alleviation by technology】  In 2008, Henan Province invested more than 33 million Yuan for poverty alleviation by technology and arranged 131 technology projects (including one national technology poverty reduction project) to directly benefit 232 poor villages and more than 30,000 poor families. It organized more than 1,000 experts from the provincial and city-level agricultural research, teaching and promotion units to promote agricultural practical technologies in impoverished towns and villages and organize agricultural technical trainings for more than 165,000 poor people, which effectively enhanced the self-development ability of poor farmers and encouraged more than 200,000 farmers to develop the industries that may increase their income.

　　【Implementation of World Bank Poverty Reduction Project Loan】 The fifth World Bank Loan Poverty Reduction Projects covers five cities and ten counties of Henan Province. A total of $ 55.44 million of WB loans has been issued and the preparatory work has been basically done. The central government has provided 3.6 million Yuan of funds for pilot projects, provincial government issued 6.3 million Yuan and city financial department issued 3.81 million Yuan of matching funds, which has been delivered to the county government and the project construction is being organized.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】  1．Fixed-point poverty reduction: In 2009, 15 units directly under the central government carried out fixed-point poverty alleviation in Henan Province and totally invested and introduced funds of more than 60 million Yuan. The provincial, city and county governments have organized more than 4900 organs to participate in the fixed-point poverty alleviation to help 3,700 impoverished villages. About 250 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds was issued and more than 400 million Yuan of capital was introduced.

　　2．Poverty alleviation participated by enterprises. A total of 448 private enterprises have participated in the poverty reduction of 476 poor villages and constructed 429 projects with investment of 87.873 million Yuan.

　　3．Poverty alleviation and development participated by armed forces. Henan Military Region has deployed in the region “five-first” projects with helping the poor and supporting the building of new socialist countryside as the main content. A total of 171 helping-the-poor liaison offices were set up and the project has provided support for 1,178 poor students and 2261 families of martyrs, and helped to build 197 rural medical rooms.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】  1．Explore new mechanisms for contiguous development. Based on the continuous implementation of 2008 pilot contiguous development projects, in 2009, the government launched two national pilot contiguous development projects in Shenqiu County and Xichuan County. So far, stable progress has been made in the project construction and the model of “contiguous development” has been gradually formed.

　　2．Explore mechanisms for differentiated support for relocation-based poverty alleviation. In 2009, the government issued the “Several Opinions on the Implementation of Differentiated Support for Poor People in Relocation-based Poverty Reduction”. Based on the degrees of poverty, different subsidy standards were made for the immigrant households, which effectively solved the problem of “relocation” of the poor.

　　3．Explore the effective convergence between the rural minimum living security system and poverty alleviation and development policies. In 2009, the government began to implement the effective convergence between the rural minimum living security system and poverty alleviation and development policies in Yiyang, Hua County, Shangcheng and Biyang, completed the poor identification and registration work, laying a foundation for the effective convergence between the “two systems”.

　　4．Explore new models for participatory poverty alleviation. It completed the construction of pilot entire village advancement projects in old revolutionary base areas with the central special lottery welfare funds in Lankao County and Ningling County, accumulating experience for exploring new models for participatory poverty alleviation.

　　5．Make innovations to the cooperation mechanism. Make use of the occasion of Honoring the Advanced on the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC, Henan Province awarded a number of influential businesses and entrepreneurs with outstanding achievements in the field of poverty alleviation and development to promote the effective implementation of the “construction jointly by villages and businesses” together with Henan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and further created a good atmosphere for enterprises to participate in poverty alleviation and development.

　　6．Make innovations to the assistance mechanism. In 2009, Henan Province arranged 1,000 people to form the “three supports and one assistance” working teams, including 126 people for special poverty reduction. Henan Province Poverty Alleviation Office actively communicated with and contacted the organization department and achieved the goal of one university student village cadre for each of the 10,430 poor villages in the whole province.

　　7．Make innovations to the incentive system. The government awarded project fund of 1 million Yuan for each of the ten counties with outstanding achievements in poverty alleviation and development in 2009, mainly for the entire village advancement in 2010, which mobilized the enthusiasm of the cities and counties.