Poverty Alleviation and Development in Shaanxi Province

　　【Overview】 Shaanxi Province has 95 counties (cities, districts) involved in poverty alleviation and development, including 50 national key counties and 27 provincial key counties, and 10,700 key villages were involved in the poverty alleviation as well. By the end of 2009, the rural per capita net income of the 50 national key counties was 3020 Yuan.

　　In 2009, based on entire village advancement and contiguous development, focusing on the construction of key villages, Shaanxi improved the basic production and living conditions, promoted the industrial development through poverty alleviation by providing credit loans, strengthened capacity building based on “Rain Plan”, actively explored the establishment of the working mechanism promoted by party committee and government, jointly participated by relevant departments, social forces and the public, forming the pattern of large-scale poverty alleviation.

　　In February 2009, Shaanxi held the meeting for the provincial leading group for poverty alleviation and development and the provincial conference on poverty alleviation and development work to make deployments on poverty alleviation and development work. In August, the provincial government held the provincial on-the-spot meeting on pilot projects of poverty relief mutual funds and contiguous development, summarized the poverty reduction work in the first half year, introduced the experience of Baoji and arranged the poverty alleviation and development work for the second half year. In October, the provincial leading group for poverty alleviation and development issued the “Notice on the Adjustment of Key Counties for Poverty Alleviation and Development”. In accordance with the key county dynamic management methods, Jingbian, Fugu, Anzhai and Huangling – four counties titled “double super counties” and “top ten counties” were no longer in the key county list and were praised by the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government. At the same time, the government organized three provincial poverty alleviation inspections to ensure the smooth construction of poverty alleviation and development projects.

　　【Investment to poverty alleviation fund projects】 In 2009, a total of 819 million Yuan of central government’s anti-poverty funds was invested in Shaanxi, 126 million Yuan more than that in 2008. Besides, local governments also continuously increased anti-poverty funds and the provincial government put in 182 million Yuan of matching funds, 50 million Yuan more than that in 2008, the county government put in 110 million Yuan, especially city governments continued to increase investment. In 2009, the anti-poverty funds from city governments reached 275 million Yuan, of which 80 million Yuan was put in by Yan’an City for the poverty alleviation and development along the Yellow River and 75 million Yuan was invested by Yulin City. Xi’an City government put in financial funds of 100 million Yuan in 2009 and 2010 for the construction of the remaining key villages; and Baoji City invested 30 million Yuan for the poverty alleviation and development, mutual funds and WB’s fifth projects in Xishan. In 2009, 2.12 billion Yuan of poverty relief credit loans was invested in the province, of which 1.15 billion Yuan was micro-credit loans for rural households and 970 million Yuan was project loans for leading enterprises. Xianyang City also put forward the relocation objective of moving 54,000 households and 213,000 poor people living in soil caves to new houses in six years through the public forces of the whole city. Poverty alleviation departments actively coordinated with the traffic and irrigation departments, increased efforts on entire village advancement fund integration and invested more than 1 million Yuan for each key village averagely, which effectively alleviated the shortage of investment in poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Poverty alleviation by providing credit loans】 In 2009, the province issued micro-credit loans of 1.15 billion Yuan to support 158,000 poor families to develop projects that increase their income, and issued 970 million Yuan of project loans for leading enterprises to support the construction of 89 projects.

　　【Anti-poverty fund management】 In 2009, Shaanxi Province established the “Financial Anti-poverty Fund Monitoring and Management Information System”, practiced dynamic monitoring on financial anti-poverty funds and carried out performance assessment on the use of poverty relief funds. It comprehensive implemented the anti-poverty project fund management publicity, announcement and reimbursement system, strictly implemented the project construction standards, strengthened supervision of poverty alleviation projects and organized inspections on the management and use of anti-poverty funds since 2008 to ensure the smooth implementation of poverty alleviation projects.

　　【Entire Village Advancement】 In 2009, entire village advancement projects were launched in 1,675 key villages, of which 1,069 were “three guarantee” key villages. By then, 7,069 key villages had completed the entire village advancement projects and 1,864 key villages had not started the project construction yet, including 712 “three guarantee” key villages. Good results had been made in the contiguous development in four pilot counties arranged before 2009, namely Xunyi, Zichang, Shanyang and Baishui. The contiguous development projects launched in 2009 in five counties are now being constructed smoothly. The pilot projects for lottery welfare funds to support old revolutionary base areas Yanchuan and Wubao have been basically completed, and the post-disaster reconstruction of impoverished villages in Ningqiang, Lveyang, Mianxian and Chencang County is under orderly construction.

　　【Relocation project of the poor of a thousand villages】In 2009, Shaanxi formulated the “Planning for the Relocation Project of The Poor of A Thousand Villages” and planned to relocate 290,000 poor people of 1,000 villages in four years. Through entire village/team relocation and relatively concentrated resettlement, it increased efforts on poverty relief migration and launched the project in 206 villages that year, involving 10,449 households and 45,375 people. In addition, it completed the relocation of 3,967 households and 17,293 people scattered everywhere.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】  In 2009, “Rain Plan” undertook the training tasks of 75 training schools through public competition. The province had sent 50,000 children from poor families to receive the trainings and transferred them to non-local areas, and carried out practical technical trainings for more than 1 million person-times for the industrial development projects in impoverished areas and the projects that increase the income of farmers.

　　【Implementation of the “Income Growth Projects of A Million Poor Families”】 To promote the sustained, rapid income growth of the poor, Shaanxi Province launched the “Income Growth Projects of A Million Poor Families” in 2008. Targeting at poor households, focusing on developing featured industries, it launched “Seven Action Plan”, including micro-credit loans, skills trainings and income growth driven by leading enterprises to help the poor gain more income and speed up the pace of shaking off poverty and getting rich.

　　【Mutual funds for a thousand villages】 In 2009, mutual fund projects were launched in 1,000 low-income villages in the province. Shaanxi established 982 mutual fund associations and 13,600 mutual aid teams, which absorbed 83,100 members, including 35,200 poor households. The amount of the mutual funds reached 200 million Yuan. 394 associations started the loan issuance business and issued mutual funds of 29.77 million Yuan, basically achieving a healthy operation. The mutual fund pilot projects in 160 village arranged by LGOP had absorbed 12,392 members; the mutual funds amounted to 30.47 million Yuan; loans were issued to 8682 people and a total of 25.73 million Yuan of loans were issued; 8.01 million Yuan of the loans were repaid on time, and the repayment rate reached 100%.

　　【International cooperation in poverty alleviation】  In 2009, Shaanxi completed the preparation work for the WB’s fifth poverty alleviation project according to the plan and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) approved it to launch the project in 2010. Besides, after completing the WB’s community-driven development pilot project in Baishui County, Shaanxi again strived to obtain international project grants of 3 million Yuan and continued to consolidate the results of community-driven development projects. The third poverty alleviation project of the First Sino Bank has been basically completed, and the fourth poverty relief project of Korea International Cooperation Agency was under construction in Yaozhou and Changwu County.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In 2009, the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation went to Zhashui County of Shangluo City to carry out fixed-point poverty alleviation work, and 20 ministries and units conducted poverty reduction in 33 national key counties for poverty alleviation and implemented 127 poverty alleviation projects with investment of 21 million Yuan. The provincial poverty alleviation of "two linkage and one contracting" was further implemented. The 680 provincial units involved in the program contacted 77 key counties and more than 680 impoverished villages, invested more than 100 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds and constructed more than 1,000 poverty alleviation and development projects. Meanwhile, the province launched the "sun-sun"  photovoltaic power generation donor activities and raised 4.31 million Yuan of funds to solve the lighting problem of more than 400 poor families. The government mobilized private enterprises to participate in poverty alleviation and development, and implemented the first batch of projects for 32 private enterprises to support 32 poor villages. Hong Kong Kerry Group Chunhua poverty alleviation project was launched officially and the anti-poverty fund (10 million Yuan) project of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation has been completed.

　　【Poverty alleviation measures】 In 2009, to improve the quality and level of the poverty alleviation and development projects in Shaanxi Province, the government made strict project application, approval, implementation and acceptance procedures and implemented the project construction responsibilities to ensure the orderly construction of poverty alleviation projects. In the implementation of the project, it also continued to improve work measures, create working style and well organize the construction of development projects. In Ankang City, the poverty alleviation department was responsible for the new rural construction and achieved the effective linkage between poverty alleviation and development, comprehensive agricultural development and new rural construction. It effectively integrated the agriculture-related funds from all parties and achieved good results in project construction. In Yan’an City, the key villages were divided into three groups: low-class villages, middle-class villages and high-class villages, and gave instructions in relocation, key village building and industrial development based on the actual situations. In Weinan City, through combining poverty relief migration and the long-term goal of moving farmers into cities, the government relocated the poor people of Wangjiazui Village in Heyang County to Nanzhuang Village of Chengguan Town, relocated the masses of Xiqingtun Village of Linwei District to the areas nearby Weinan City Economic Development Zone, and moved the immigrant new villages to the city suburbs, achieving leapfrog development in migration-based poverty reduction. In the implementation of relocation of a thousand villagers, Heyang County government combined unity and separation and made unified planning for the immigrants to organize the project construction by themselves and make supervision independently. It not only reduced the construction costs, but also ensured the construction results. Shangluo City organized local entrepreneurship trainings for tourism development and held cooking training courses in Jinsixia of Shangnan, Zhashui Cave and Niubeiliang for 620 poor families that operated the business of farmers’ happiness. Baoji City also accumulated rich experience in contiguous development featured “making a breakthrough in the Western Hills by concentrating all forces of the city.