Poverty Alleviation and Development in Tibet

　　【Overview】 Tibet Autonomous Region (hereinafter referred to as "Tibet") is located in the southwest of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and covers an area of ​​more than 1.2 million square kilometers. It has seven cities, 73 counties (cities, districts) and a total population of 2.8 million, of which nearly 2.21 million are agricultural and animal husbandry population, and Tibetan population accounts for 96.3% of the total. It has a total of 41 minorities. In 2009, Tibet had a poor population of 286,000, accounting for 0.8% of the key aided people (40.07 million ). In 2009, Tibet launched 541 poverty alleviation and development projects, 49.8% up over 2008, which benefited 163,000 people, 0.67% up over 2008, and the per capita income growth was 450 Yuan; the number of the poor with per capita net income below 1,700 Yuan was reduced from 683,000 in 2008 to 596,000, and the number of the key poor with per capita net income below 1,300 Yuan was reduced to 203,000. 78% of the residents had access to safe drinking water, 60% of the administrative villages had access to electricity, 95% of the regions had access to town-level highroads and 76% of the areas had access to village-level highroads, 75% of the areas had access to postal communications, 87% had access to telephone lines and 89% had access to radio and TV program.

　　【Review of poverty alleviation】  The poverty alleviation and development of Tibet has gone through two stages - "Seven-year Priority Poverty Alleviation Program" period and the poverty alleviation at the new stage. At the first stage, it lifted 400,000 absolutely poor people out of poverty. At the new stage, it made one million poor people no longer live below the poverty line. The Fifth Seminar on Tibet Work held by the Central Government pointed out that: "We must continue to take Tibet as a contiguous poverty-stricken area to support, increase central governments’ anti-poverty funds for it, give priority to the agricultural and pastoral areas, endemic disease areas and border areas, and guide social resources into poverty alleviation development".

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】 In 2009, Tibet invested a total of 385 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds from central government and provincial government, 96 million Yuan more than that in 2008, up 33%, and issued 108 million Yuan of social anti-poverty funds. 150 million Yuan was allocated for the action of "Prospering Frontier and Enriching People" launched by Tibet Ethnic and Religious Committee to support the development of minority areas. In 2009, 80 million Yuan was invested for the “Work-relief” Projects launched by Tibet Development and Reform Commission to implement infrastructure projects in impoverished areas. Poor people achieved income growth through participating in the project.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】  60 “two guarantee” projects were launched in 50 border villages and ten minority villages with investment of 18.37 million Yuan. The government coordinated the ethnic and religious departments to implement “two guarantee” projects in 20 villages and comprehensively completed the “two guarantee” project construction task.

　　Entire village/town advancement projects were launched in 41 towns and 4 villages with investment of more than 120 million Yuan. As a result, a breakthrough was made in the industrial development in poor villages.

　　【Housing projects for poor households】  Housing project for poor households is the starting point of new rural construction. In 2009, the government invested 210 million Yuan for the construction of housing projects for 12,500 poor households (including 3,059 living in absolute poverty and 9,484 other poor households), up 50.8% over 2008; and relocation projects for 974 rural households suffering from endemic disease, making a contribution to the safe housing of a millions farmers in the whole region.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】 Based on the situation of farmers’ shortage of skills for getting rich, the government increased support for trainings and adhered to the principle of trainings for projects, which promoted the transfer of employment of poor labors in agricultural and pastoral areas. In 2009, it organized 68 poverty relief trainings, invested 4.35 million Yuan and organized labor transfer trainings for 11,000 people.

　　【Poverty alleviation through development of featured industries】 In 2009, 50 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds were allocated for poverty alleviation through development of featured industries. Tibet launched 74 labor transfer projects based on building material development, established 74 economic and cooperative organizations, absorbed 1,000 rural labors and achieved output value of more than 40 million Yuan, which benefited more than 30,000 people, and the per capita income growth of the participants of industrial development was more than 1,300 Yuan.

　　【Poverty alleviation through infrastructure construction】  In 2009, Tibet newly built 22 village-level roads of 333 kilometers, 47 bridges of 1,710 meters and 55 canals of 154 kilometers; improved farmland and meadow irrigation area of 44,000 mu and middle and low-yielding farmland of 14,000 mu; implemented “four matching” projects in the pastoral areas, purchased 5000 livestock and built 945 livestock pens of 52,000 square meters.

　　【Transformation of overhead cable】 Tibet applied for 23.20 million Yuan of special funds to construct 18 projects of transforming overhead cables into suspension bridges in Changdu, Naqu and Shigatse, accounting for 21.4% of the total overhead cable transformation tasks (84).

　　【Pilot contiguous development projects】 In 2009, Tibet completed the construction of pilot projects of “county-based contiguous development by integrating resources” in Nanmulin County of Shigatse. It invested 30 million Yuan to implement contiguous development for the breeding of sodom sheep, Tibet sheep and goats in Anduo County of Naqu, Zhalang County of Shannan and Ritu County of Ali.

　　【Pilot mutual funds】 On the basis of the implementation of pilot mutual funds in ten villages in Mozhugongka County of Lhasa and Gongbujiangda County of Nyingchi in 2008, Tibet launched the pilot projects in 30 villages of 26 counties in the regions with investment of 4.5 million in 2009.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In 2009, the Party and government organs’ poverty alleviation presented another upsurge. The departments directly under the central government and regional government paid high attention to the fixed-point poverty alleviation. While sending cadres to support the poverty reduction in relevant towns, they mobilized cadres and the masses to donate money and materials to speed up the development of the towns involved in fixed-point poverty reduction. Meanwhile, the organs directly under the central government and the relevant regional departments, bureaus, commissions and offices sent 230 helping-cadres to the towns that built partnership with them in poverty reduction, implemented 400 projects with investment of 100 million Yuan, and donated materials valued 8 million Yuan.

　　【Cooperation and exchange in poverty reduction】 1. Research on the development of disaster prevention and mitigation industry. Under the support of LGOP, Tibet Poverty Alleviation Office, jointly with the regional Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Animal Science Office and the Department of Finance, conducted research on disaster prevention and mitigation and put forward pro-poor policy measures for the development of facility agriculture, construction and building materials industry, tourism services and family farming.

2. Improve the data filing management system. Jointly with the region’s Bureau of Civil Affairs, the poverty alleviation office conducted survey on cooperation for building a data filing system, helped the effective linkage between the rural minimum living security system and poverty alleviation and development and explored the new structure of “two-wheel drive”: solving the food problem by the rural minimum living security system and promoting development by poverty alleviation. As a result, the rural poor and the targets of the rural minimum living security system overlapped and Tibet’s poverty alleviation and development entered into a new stage of “two-wheel drive”.

　　【Poverty alleviation and development measures】 1. Poverty alleviation and development is still under the leadership of the Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. Seven cities in Tibet have set up the leading group offices of poverty alleviation and development 50 of the 73 counties (cities and districts) set up independent leading group agencies for poverty alleviation and development to fully implement poverty relief fund supervision mechanism. In the three important links – project approval, implementation and acceptance, Tibet established a joint fund supervision and inspection mechanism involved supervision, auditing and financial departments to ensure the security of anti-poverty funds, and deepened the fixed-point poverty alleviation mechanism. The planning division was in charge of strengthening the communication and contacts with the helping units and cadres, forming a series of work report systems.

2. Update mechanisms and improve self-management. With the support and participation of party committees and governments at all levels, the poverty alleviation departments in Tibet strived to consolidate the results of the activity of "studying and practicing the scientific outlook on development" and strengthened the building of an honest and clean government and a strong poverty alleviation cadre team.

　　In accordance with the requirements of “going deeper into grassroots and closer to project areas” put forward by Tibet Party Committee, the poverty alleviation departments at all levels actively changed the work styles, practiced the tenet of serving the people and, through updating the targeting mechanism for poverty alleviation and development, implemented the household-reaching pro-poor measures. Meanwhile, through increasing efforts on institutional construction and standardized management, poverty alleviation cadres are increasingly aware of their responsibility and their ability to manage projects has been given full play.

3. Strengthen research and do a good job in publicity. To support the research on the major pro-poor policy for the development of Tibet and the survey on pro-poor strategy and policy system, the poverty alleviation office has written a number of valuable high-quality research reports, carried out researches on poverty alleviation and development and the disaster relief and mitigation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the prophase research for the “12th Five-Year Plan” jointly with LGOP. In 2009, the poverty alleviation publicity was based on the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China and the first liberation day of a million serfs in Tibet, focusing on publicity of pro-poor policies and poverty alleviation and development results to arouse the sense of self-reliance and hard struggle of the masses and enhance their enthusiasm for building a beautiful home.