Liaoning-Qinghai Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 According to the uniform deployments of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, Liaoning Province started its counterpart support for 15 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development in Qinghai Province in 1997, responsible for the issuance of anti-poverty funds, project and other helping work organization, coordination and management. The decade after it started the counterpart support is a special period of Liaoning as it experienced the economic transition as an old industrial base, so it had special difficulties in economic and social development. Supported by the provincial party committee and government, however, through the specific organization and coordination of the provincial economic cooperation office, Liaoning Province provided a total of 197 million Yuan of grants and constructed more than 300 projects to promote the economic and social development of the 15 impoverished counties of Qinghai Province, and completed the periodical task assigned to the province by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, for which it was praised many times by the State Council and the relevant departments under the State Council.

　　As of 2009, Liaoning issued grants of 273 million Yuan to Qinghai Province, of which 197 million Yuan was from provincial government for the construction of more than 300 anti-poverty projects; and 76 million Yuan was provided by prefecture-level cities and enterprises. In 2009, Liaoning planned to issue 26 million Yuan of aiding funds for Qinghai. In fact, a total of 27.08 million Yuan was issued. According to the deployment of the provincial party committee and government, the provincial economic cooperation office kept pace with the times and constantly made innovations to the ideology for development-oriented poverty alleviation. According to the “Guidance on 2009-2010 East-West Pairing-off Poverty Reduction” issued by LGOP, under the premise of annual increase in anti-poverty funds, Liaoning Province continued to expand the areas for development-oriented poverty alleviation and enrich the forms for helping the poor, concentrated in entire village advancement, labor transfer training and poverty alleviation by industrialization and achieved significant results, realizing institutionalized, scientific and standardized counterpart support. They sincerely did practical things and sought practical results in the pairing-off poverty alleviation and basically satisfied the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the recipient regions’ party committees and governments and the masses in the recipient regions as well.

　　【Construction of entire village advancement projects】In 2009, based on the entire village advancement of ten villages, Liaoning Province continued to put in 13 million Yuan of aiding funds, selected another ten poverty-stricken villages for entire village advancement and supported a total of 8,876 people form 2,020 families in ten villages. The support work in the ten villages was mainly done in three aspects. First, based on the actual situation and the characteristics of the resources and staffs in local areas, it invested the funds in one industry and organized the villagers to concentrate on the development of the selected anti-poverty projects. Secondly, it conducted road, drinking water, school, health and cultural projects for the construction of socialist new countryside. Thirdly, it organized political and technical trainings for the village-level leadership and the leaders for becoming rich to ensure the implementation and long-term development of industrial projects.

　　In the implementation of entire village advancement, first of all, it organized experts and scholars to carry out prophase investigation and demonstration to ensure the selection of industrial projects is correct and will have a long-term pro-poor effect. Secondly, based on the actual situation of each farmer and herdsman in the project villages, it provided the fund and select one project with high tech content that can help them become rich for each household, such as breeding of cattle, sheep, pig and chicken, greenhouse vegetable growing, gardening, transportation and canteen business. Thirdly, to promote the durability of village projects and promote them develop towards the direction of special characteristics, industrialization and large-scale operation, in principle, it only selected relatively concentrated projects in each village. On this basis, it practiced the industrialization operation organization mechanism of “association + base + rural households or cultivation and production cooperatives + rural households”, and helped each rural family master the production technology through science and technology training to shift blood-transfusion poverty alleviation to development-oriented poverty reduction. Fourthly, through construction of biogas digesters, clinics, drinking water projects, radio and television centers, cultural event rooms and other cultural construction projects, it improved the living conditions of the villagers. Fifthly, through building hardened-village roads and village greenbelt, repairing primary schools and walls and constructing other infrastructure projects, it has greatly improved the appearance of the villages. Sixthly, Qinghai organized more than 130 people from ten villages involved in the entire village advancement, including the village party secretary, villager heads, accounts, leaders for becoming rich and young farmers and herdsmen who successfully transferred employment, to visit Liaoning, invited experts and professors to give lectures on technical trainings on modern agriculture, planting and breeding, and organized people to visit the new rural construction projects of Liaoning. As a result, the cadres and leaders for becoming rich got their ideas into shape, had their horizons broadened and learned new technologies, and thus became more confident in leading the villagers to conduct the new rural construction and shake off poverty.

　　Through project implementation for nearly one year, the agricultural production conditions and infrastructure facilities in the project villages have been significantly improved, the agricultural production structure has been optimized, the development of featured agriculture has been accelerated and poor people have got a stable income growth. There is an annual net income growth per capita of more than 1,000 Yuan in the ten project villages and the people have steadily shaken off poverty. It has promoted the economic development and social progress in the project villages and laid a good foundation for achieving the goal of building a socialist new countryside featured “developed production, affluent life, civilized social atmosphere, clean and tidy village appearance and democratic management".

　　【Poverty alleviation by training】To promote the employment transfer of the poor young farmers and herdsmen in Qinghai Province, approve by the provincial department of human resources and social security and provincial department of civil affairs, in 2009, Liaoning Employment Transfer Training School was established, covering a land area of 20,000 square meters, with teaching and living facilities area of 3,000 square meters. It is equipped with a garage, milling machines, welding machines and has recruited 20 young people from Qinghai for a six-month trial training (40 trainees from other places). After six months of hands-on training, the trainees were issued e junior vocational skill certificate after passing the examination and all achieved employment transfer.

　　Meanwhile, in the newly built training schools, it organized 13 training courses for 278 people from Qinghai, including the grassroots cadres, town and village cadres, leaders for becoming rich, etc. The training contents are divided into three parts:

1. Partner assistance seminars. To make the trainees from the recipient area better understand the significance of the strategy for "developed areas to support less developed regions" and "eastern coastal developed areas to support the less developed western regions" of the government, it arranged the director and vice director of the provincial economic cooperation office and the division heads to introduce the significance of the twinning assistance and the basic principles, methods and practical work requirements of Liaoning Province in the recipient areas.

2. Modern agricultural production technical training. In order to promote the adjustment of agricultural structure in Qinghai Province, it organized modern facility agricultural technology trainings, including development trends and direction of modern agriculture, modern facility agricultural construction technology and management, flower (such as lilies, roses, gerbera and phalaenopsis) cultivation techniques and management in facility agriculture, greenhouse vegetable (such as eggplant, pepper, tomato and mushroom) cultivation techniques and management, and strawberry, herbs and other cultivation techniques and management courses. As for training methods, it combined lectures and practical operation of the trainees. The participants all said that such trainings were practical and effective and they would practice what they learned after they go back.

3. Organize the trainees to conduct field visits to emancipate the mind and change the ideas.  As the participants are grassroots cadres, it organized them to carry out field researches in the greenhouses for floriculture and vegetable growing of Liaoning Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Meanwhile, it organized the trainees to Tiexi News District, Hunnan New District and Shenbei New District for field research on the development of modern industry and modern agriculture, which made the participants see the development of modern agriculture and industry, enhanced their modern sense and the sense of urgency for poverty alleviation and promoted the emancipation of the mind and the concept update.

　　【Measures for East-West pairing-off poverty alleviation】 1．Two principles for counterpart support. With the high attention and support of the provincial party committee and government, Liaoning Province always adheres to two basic principles in the counterpart support work. In helping to raise funds, it adheres to the basic principle of "positive efforts, doing the best, stable base, increase year by year". This basic principle was approved by the provincial government and ensured that the relief fund raising in Liaoning Province can be institutionalized to promote the annual increase in relief fund. The aiding funds for Qinghai increased from 3 million Yuan to 26 million Yuan in 2009 with a growth rate of 767%. This principle was practiced successfully mainly because the provincial party committee and government attached great importance to it and the division heads supported its implementation. The Party Secretary Li Keqiang attached great importance to the counterpart support work. Soon after he was transferred to Liaoning Province, he gave instruction on the counterpart support report of the economic cooperation office that "we must do a good job in the counterpart support for Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang with a high degree of political responsibility". When Qinghai government leaders visited Liaoning that year, Secretary Li Keqiang proposed additional investment of 10 million Yuan for the counterpart support work. As for the objectives of the twinning support, the basic principle is to improve the capacity of “blood making” of local areas. Over the years, focusing on project construction, Liaoning paid attention to the improvement of self-development and poverty alleviation capacity of local residents. In the process of promoting entire village advancement, labor transfer training and industrialization poverty reduction, it paid attention to directly benefiting the poor. Practice has proved that it is the fundamental principle for counterpart support work to improve the capacity of “blood making” of local areas.

2. Provide organizational and institutional guarantee. First, provide organizational guarantee through the establishment of leadership agency. In 1996 Liaoning Province set up the Leading Group for pairing-off poverty alleviation. The vice governor was the team leader and the members included relevant people from the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Provincial Department of Finance and the Provincial Economic Cooperation Office, etc. Its main task is to raise relief fund, guide and coordinate the cities’ work of helping their counterparts. Meanwhile, it established the organization responsibility system. 13 cities and one enterprise of Liaoning Province were twinned with 15 state designated poverty-stricken counties for poverty reduction. Various divisions of the provincial economic cooperation office are responsible for the entire village advancement project construction. They send more than ten people to the project areas of entire village advancement to give instruction. Secondly, provide institutional guarantee. It holds the provincial counterpart support work conference regularly in name of the provincial government. Liaoning Provincial government holds a counterpart support work conference every year for the mayors to participate, which mainly introduces the working spirit of the central government and LGOP and the counterpart support task assigned by the provincial party committee and government and awards the advanced to promote the smooth implementation of the provincial counterpart support work. It adheres to the high-level exchange visit system for the two provinces’ leader exchange visits. Liaoning and Qinghai and the twinned cities always adhere to the exchange visit system. The high-level exchange visits have promoted the development of counterpart support and economic cooperation.

3．Highlight the priorities in counterpart support. In recent years, the two provinces keep exploring new ideas and approaches for the counterpart support work. Based on the key points and requirements of poverty alleviation and development work, the provincial governments insist on the implementation of poverty alleviation by project construction and pay attention to solve problems fundamentally. In 2009, Liaoning mainly implemented the entire village advancement projects to improve the production and living conditions of poor villages, and organized trainings to improve the poor labors’ skills and promote the labor transfer. In order to improve the basic production and living conditions of the masses in impoverished areas and solve the problem of food and clothing of rural poor, based on the local situations, it organized targeted talent training and exchanges and strengthened the infrastructure construction for farming and husbandry, which promoted the development of education, culture, health and other social undertakings.

4．Innovate mechanisms to improve aid work. In 2009, based on the key work in poverty alleviation of Qinghai, Liaoning Province focused on the construction of typical demonstration projects, specialty agriculture and featured processing projects and kept updating the mechanisms in the implementation of aid projects. In dairy farming and pig breeding, for example, it adopted the model of "borrowing cows (sows) and returning calves (piglets), rolling development and entire village advancement"; in the implementation of entire village advancement, it adopted the business model of "association + base + farmers, aquaculture production cooperatives + farmers", which had a good demonstration effect and increased the per capita income of the project villages. Now, the project villages have steadily shaken off poverty. This poverty alleviation mechanism featured "leading investment, incentive poverty alleviation and rolling development" are widely praised by the cadres and masses in the project villages.

　　(Zhang Dongping, Rong Xuefei, Liaoning Provincial Economic Cooperation Office)