Poverty Alleviation and Development in Chongqing

　　【Overview】  Located in southwest China, at the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Chongqing covers a land area of 82,400 square kilometers and has a population of 32 million. It has 14 national key counties, 4 provincial key counties and 2000 poverty-stricken villages for poverty alleviation and development. At the end of 2009, it had a rural poor population of 1.422 million and the incidence of poverty was 5.9%。

　　In 2009, it is estimated, there was a reduction of 150,000 in the rural poor, 25% higher than the target; 30,000 people were relocated for biological migration, 20% higher than the target; 605 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds was allocated, 120 million more than that in 2008, with a growth of 22%; 100,000 poor farmers received trainings, 25% higher than the targets; and there might be an increase of 400 Yuan in the rural per capita net income in the key counties.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】  In 2009, after making the strategic deployment of "lifting 1,000 impoverished villages out of poverty by 2012" at the fourth plenary session of the third NPC Chongqing Committee, Chongqing Municipal Party Committee paid special attention to six things: First, it developed the planning for the development of poverty-stricken villages and the standards for lifting them out of poverty. According to the principle of breaking through in many ways based on function division, it urged relevant districts and counties to develop the plans for lifting 1000 poor villages out of poverty. Meanwhile, based on the new rural construction standards, it introduced the standard of "seven possessions, four accesses and three solutions" for lifting villages out of poverty. Secondly, it launched the project for the first batch of villages to shake off poverty. In 2009, through guiding districts and counties to compete, it started the work to lift the first batch of 266 poor villages out of poverty. In March, based on the standard of 500,000 Yuan for each village, the additional 133 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for the project was issued. Thirdly, it issued relevant policy measures. Jointly with the general office of the municipality party committee and the general office of the municipality government, it issued the “Opinions concerning Accelerating the Contiguous Development after Lifting Impoverished Villages out of Poverty” (Yu Wei Ban No. [28]) and clarified that we must accelerate the pace of lifting poor villages out of poverty. The municipal leading group for poverty alleviation issued the “Notice for Municipal Poverty Alleviation Group to Participate in the Implementation of the Plan of ‘Lifting A Thousand Villages Out of Poverty’” and demanded all the member units to be linked with the poverty-stricken villages until lifting them out of poverty. Fourthly, it held the on-the-spot meeting on how to lift the whole villages out of poverty. In late June, the municipal government convened an on-the-spot meeting on how to lift the whole villages out of poverty in Yunyang County. The municipal leading group for poverty alleviation and development and relevant district (county, autonomous county) governments signed the “Responsibility Contract on Lifting Poor Villages out of Poverty”, which promoted the further implementation of poverty alleviation in poor villages. Fifthly, it attended the seminar on poverty alleviation held by the municipal party committee and government. The seminar issued a series of policy measures to speed up the pace of lifting poor villages out of poverty. After the meeting, according to the uniform deployment of the municipal party committee and government, based on overall surveys, the poverty alleviation office developed the plan for lifting 2,000 poor villages out of poverty and drafted the “Decision on Speeding up the Poverty Reduction in Poor Villages” on behalf of the municipal party committee and government. Sixthly, it coordinated relevant departments to increase efforts on making assessments on the poverty reduction work done in poor villages by district (county) party and government leaders and cadres. The score for the poverty reduction work of the party and government leaders in key counties was increased from 2 to 4, with an increase of weight; at the same time, poverty reduction performance was added in the content of assessment on the district (county) party and government leaders of non-priority counties and the "one circle" and "two wings" areas, making the poverty reduction performance assessment cover 40 districts and counties.

　　【Poverty relief relocation】 Jointly with Chongqing Municipal Development and Reform Commission and Forestry Bureau, the government invested 70 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds and work-relief funds of 75 million Yuan and completed the poverty relief relocation of 30,000 people. The whole relocation of Miaotang Town of Wushan County was completed one year ahead of schedule, which is the first town to be relocated wholly in China.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】 56.81 million Yuan was invested the whole year. More than 30,000 children from poor families were organized to receive vocational education. The government organized labor transfer trainings for 8300 people, practical technical trainings for more than 50,000 people, entrepreneurship trainings for 2,800 people and policy and operational trainings for 6,100 people, and completed the trainings for all the secretaries, directors and university graduate village-cadres for 266 villages involved in poverty reduction.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 A total of 43.50 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds was allocated for poverty alleviation by industrialization and more than 400 million Yuan of credit loans was put in for industrial development of poor households. Combining the promotion of a thousand villages and the contiguous development, the government identified 50 professional cooperative organizations and 33 leading enterprises as the first batch of poverty alleviation cooperative organizations and leading enterprises; mainly supported the poor districts and counties to adopt the model of “company + professional cooperative organization + poor household” in poverty reduction, gave priority to the poverty alleviation cooperative organizations with powerful driving force and good benefits, and explored and established new models for farming communities and breeding communities to absorb poor families in industrial development.

　　【Poverty alleviation by infrastructure construction】  With joint efforts of the member units of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development, in 2009, the province newly built and rebuilt village-level highroads of 5,140 kilometers, solved the drinking water problem of 206,000 poor people and newly built 200 village-level medical rooms.

　　【Open type poverty alleviation】  In 2009, more than 490 million Yuan of social poverty relief funds was issued, 80 million Yuan more than that in 2008. Chongqing Municipal poverty alleviation system invited more than 2.6 billion Yuan from enterprises, 600 million Yuan more than that in 2008, and introduced 97 enterprises, including 32 foreign-funded businesses.

　　【Pilot projects for poverty alleviation】 First, launch pilot projects in Wulong, Fengdu and Tongliang County for the effective convergence between the rural minimum living security system and poverty alleviation and development policy. In August, the municipal government approved the pilot projects in these three counties to include 10% of the rural residents into the relative poverty alleviation system, explored the long-term linkage between the two systems, developed pro-poor policies for households and issued 2,000 Yuan to each identified poor household for production development, forming a new situation of “two wheel drive” integrating poverty alleviation and development and domestic affairs salvage. Secondly, expand the pilot areas for village-level mutual funds in impoverished villages. The pilot projects were launched in 305 poor villages, of which 187 were newly increased in 2009. Financial anti-poverty funds of 28 million Yuan were invested and the repayment rate reached 99.8%. Thirdly, newly add five districts (counties) as pilot areas, including four national key counties, one municipal key county. A total of 14 pilot counties were covered by the projects in the city. 69 million Yuan of contiguous development funds was arranged for the whole year and more than 500 million Yuan was raised from various department and social forces. Fourthly, launch pilot projects for construction of information roads in the impoverished villages of Wulong County. In the county, 62 satellite receiving stations and 30 WIFI wireless network transponder antennas were installed in 60 poor villages of 19 towns. At the end of October, the national forum on poverty alleviation by informationization was held in Wulong to introduce the experience of Wulong County.

　　【Drafting and submitting for review the "Regulations on Rural Poverty Alleviation in Chongqing"】 In early 2009, headed by the major leaders of Chongqing Municipal Poverty Alleviation Office, a research group composed of the leaders of Chongqing Municipal People's Congress and Legislative Affairs Office of Chongqing Municipal People's Government as well as the principals of relevant divisions visited the impoverished regions in Heilongjiang, Hubei and the Chongqing. In April, they completed the draft of the "Regulations on Rural Poverty Alleviation in Chongqing" and then held various forums to listen to the opinions of relevant municipal departments, district and county departments and relevant experts and scholars. In August, the "Regulations on Rural Poverty Alleviation in Chongqing" was submitted to the Legislative Affairs Office of Chongqing Municipal People's Government for a legislative process. At the end of 2009, with joint efforts of many parties, the "Regulations on Rural Poverty Alleviation in Chongqing" was submitted to the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Congress for approval after being approved by the Standing Committee of the Government.

　　【Construction of demonstration area for poverty alleviation and development】 In 2009, based on the information road construction results in poor villages, the government organized the labor forces and agricultural products in impoverished areas to transfer towards the city and guided urban industrial and commercial capital to invest in rural areas to achieve the exchanges of resources between urban and rural areas and achieve the win-win situation. Meanwhile, it increased efforts on the construction of demonstration zones for coordinated urban-rural poverty alleviation and development in Fuling District, Kai County and Wulong County, summed up and introduced the practice of investing with land use right of Yingpan Village of Jiangdong District Office in Fuling and the experience of the Pioneer Park for Returned Poor Farmers in Longtan Town to guide rural households of poor villages to set up joint-stock companies in cash or with land use right jointly with leading enterprises.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】  In 2009, through study and practice, Chongqing created "four mechanisms":

　　1．Targeting mechanism. Three major measures were adopted: First, the government launched the whole village poverty reduction projects in 266 impoverished villages, arranged 1 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds and integrated other funds of 3 million Yuan for each poor village. After the villages shook off poverty, 500,000 Yuan reward-for-subsidy was issued for each village. Secondly, it issued 2,000 Yuan to each poor family in Wulong, Fengdu and Tongliang County, where pilot projects for effective linkage between the “two systems” were launched. Thirdly, it clarified that 50% of the financial anti-poverty funds should be used for the industrial development of impoverished villages, and poverty relief migration, “Rain Plan” trainings and social poverty reduction should all give priority to poor villages.

　　2．Participation mechanism. First, respect the wishes of farmers in the use of anti-poverty funds in poor villages. After being discussed by the village committee and village party branch, the relevant plan should be submitted to villager representative meeting and cannot be put into use until being agreed by two-thirds of the people. Secondly, the township must fully respect the views of the villages and also needs to protect the farmers to exert their rights to be informed, participate, select and supervise, and help farmers in poor villages to achieve self-organization, self-management, self-monitoring and self-development in the use of anti-poverty funds and the project construction. Thirdly, all the villages' anti-poverty funds and poverty alleviation projects should be publicized and announced.

　　3．Coordination mechanisms. First, put efforts on coordination with higher authorities. In recent years, the national financial anti-poverty funds and the national poverty reduction projects applied by Chongqing have been increasing year after year and the annual growth rate of the financial anti-poverty funds is above 20%. As of the end of October 2009, the figure exceeded 600 million Yuan, up 22%, and the number of contiguous development projects and village-level mutual funds ranked among the top in China. Secondly, coordinate with the relevant municipal departments. In 2009, we assisted the general office of the municipal party committee and the general office of the municipal government to issue No. 28 Document, which clarifies the poverty reduction tasks and responsibilities of 26 member units of Chongqing Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development. Meanwhile, through coordinating with Chongqing People's Insurance Bureau, we promoted the municipal government to reward the advanced units and individuals in social poverty alleviation. Thirdly, actively coordinate with relevant districts and counties. Significant results have been made in both contiguous development and entire village poverty reduction. Meanwhile, in the county-level department reform, the coordination between poverty alleviation departments has been strengthened.

　　4．Regulatory mechanism. First, conduct cross-auditing on the anti-poverty funds for key poor counties in 2006 and 2007 jointly with auditing bureau and make timely rectification of the problems identified. Secondly, issue the “Opinions on the Supervision and Management of Poverty Alleviation Funds” and check the implementation situation in relevant districts and counties. Thirdly, to support the implementation of “three systems” in rural areas, issue the "Pro-poor Policies (consolidated)"to villages and begin to develop the regulations on the implementation of poverty alleviation projects and the use of anti-poverty funds. Fourthly, hold a poverty alleviation fund supervision and management training in Fengdu County to introduce and promote the practice of Fengdu County in inviting village-level volunteer supervisors for the management of anti-poverty funds.