Poverty Alleviation and Development in Guangdong

　　【Overview】  Since reform and opening up, Guangdong has witnessed rapid economic development, but the problems of unbalanced regional development, urban-rural gap and the disparity of wealth have become increasingly prominent. Guangdong Province plans to, in three years, carry out pairing-off poverty reduction for 3.16 million rural poor people with per capita net income below 1,500 Yuan in 3,409 poverty-stricken villages in the northwestern undeveloped regions of the province since 2009 to make the per capita net income of more than 80% of the involved poor people reach 2500 Yuan and basically change the backwardness of the involved impoverished villages. Guangdong Province is gradually establishing the rural minimum living security system and striving to cover all the rural poor with per capital net income below 1200 Yuan. A total of 1.6 million rural poor have received the basic living allowances.

　　【Poverty alleviation and development teleconference】 On June 25, 2009, the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government held the provincial poverty alleviation and development teleconference themed “planning for households and responsibility to specific person”. More than 8000 people attended the conference and it is the largest and the highest-level important poverty alleviation and development conference in history. It has unified thinking, increased awareness, defined the tasks and divided the responsibility, which marked the anti-poverty work of Guangdong Province entered into a new stage.

　　【Poverty alleviation by relocation】  In 2009, Guangdong Provincial Financial Department arranged 18 million Yuan to support the relocation of 75 villages, 1,800 families and 8,300 people.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】Under the leadership of the provincial poverty alleviation office, the province organized intellectual poverty reduction (three-year education with record of formal schooling) transfer trainings; held six-month short-term trainings for 3,300 people in the national and provincial poverty reduction transfer training bases and organized growing practical skills trainings for poor rural households. 140,000 people receive the trainings every year.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 By 2009, Guangdong Province had a total of 94 national and provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises, which increased the income of 165,000 poor rural households. In 2008, the per capital income growth was more than 2246 Yuan, and 57,000 families and 228,000 people were lifted out of poverty.

　　【Pilot mutual fund projects】  From 2007 to 2009, Guangdong Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Office launched pilot mutual funds in eight counties (cities). A total of 3768 rural households participated in the mutual funds and the mutual funds amounted to 18.56485 million Yuan. A total of 16.82 million Yuan was issued for farmers and repaid.

　　【Poverty alleviation by infrastructure improvement】 In 2008, almost all the roads in administrative villages had been hardened and the road problem in rural areas was basically solved. Most of the roads to natural villages had been hardened. Guangdong Province has established the new rural cooperative medical system and the “rural cooperative medical insurance relief fund” were set up in the northern mountain areas and in the eastern and western areas. 48.34 million rural residents participated in the rural cooperative medical system and the total expenditure on the new rural cooperative medical insurance funds was more than 5 billion Yuan. The province comprehensively implemented the policy to exempt the rural children in compulsory education period from the miscellaneous fees. Progress has been made in the construction of the "Safe Drinking Water Project in Rural Areas" and the renovation of dilapidated buildings in rural areas is continuously being accelerated.

　　【Renovation of dilapidated buildings in rural areas and “Dayu Cup” project construction】 Based on the present rural housing situation in Guangdong, the government mainly focus on the following work: First, develop the standard for “rural low-income households with difficulties in housing”. It plans to list extremely poor households and the families living in dilapidated buildings among the low-income households with difficulties in housing, covering five-guarantee households, low-income households living in dilapidated buildings and poor families living in thatched house. Secondly, develop the “Implementation Plan of Guangdong Province on the Demonstration Projects for Renovation of Dilapidated Buildings in Rural Areas”. It strives to mobilize all social forces, highlight the renovation of dilapidated buildings and, taking poor villages (natural villages) as the implementation platform, plans to build a number of demonstration housing projects through entire village advancement every year to gradually promote the construction of a new round of rural housing projects. Thirdly, continue to implement “Dayu Cup” projects. The province carried out mountain, water, field and forestry road governance and gave priority to 3409 poor villages in the construction of “Dayu Cup” projects.

　　【Fixed-point poverty reduction】 At the end of 2009, 3,386 of the 3,409 poor villages in the province were covered by the fixed-point poverty reduction, accounting for 99.3%; 3,259 aiding units had sent working groups to the villages for poverty relief, accounting for 95.6%. Among the 2,002 impoverished villages under the responsibility of 14 undeveloped cities in the east and northwestern areas of Guangdong, 1,201 villages had been arranged helping units, accounting for 99.3%; and 1868 villages had received poverty reduction working groups, , accounting for 93.3%; 100% of the 1160 impoverished villages under the responsibility of 7 developed cities in Pearl River Delta had launched the pairing-off poverty alleviation projects; Shenzhen and Dongguan required the financial departments to allocate 500,000 Yuan for each poor villages and the fixed-point projects were launched in 744 villages, accounting for 64.1%; Shenzhen, Foshan and Dongguan successively sent poverty relief cadres to work in the poor villages; Among the 247 provincial directly administrated organs, enterprises and institutions as well as the units in Guangdong directly under the central government, 231 had sent relevant people to the impoverished villages, accounting for 93.5%.

　　【East-West Pairing-off Poverty Reduction】  Guangdong Province, Guangzhou City and Dongguan City issued more than 50 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to support Guangxi, Baise and Hechi City, of which 20 million Yuan was anti-poverty funds for entire village advancement, mainly for the construction 23 impoverished villages in Baise and Hechi, and 10 million Yuan was education funds. The province continued to hold three training courses for the poverty alleviation cadres of Guangxi and more than 170 people attended the trainings, including cadres from city, county and town governments. Guangzhou City donated 5 million Yuan to support the project construction for the 80th anniversary of the Baise Rebellion and Dongguan City donated 5 million Yuan to support the construction of Hechi revolutionary traditional education base.