Poverty Alleviation and Development in Henan Province

　　【Poverty reduction program】 In 2010, we initially completed the evaluation of the poverty alleviation and development work in the past decade and the development of outline for the poverty alleviation and development in the next decade (draft for discussion), basically established the evaluation index system covering the province’s municipalities and key counties and conducted comprehensive evaluation on the implementation of the outlook for poverty alleviation and development for the past decade, which was affirmed by the provincial government leaders. Based on the evaluation results, the province rewarded 6 excellent counties, 10 advanced counties, 4 excellent provincial municipalities and 6 advanced provincial municipalities. Meanwhile, it organized relevant department to develop the “Planning for the Poverty Alleviation and Development of Henan Province in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period” and the “Outline for the Poverty Alleviation and Development of Henan Province (2011-2020)” (draft for discussion).

　　【Issuance of anti-poverty funds】 In 2010, Henan Province arranged anti-poverty funds of 1.152 billion Yuan, of which 830 million Yuan was from the central government, 151 million Yuan was provincial matching funds and 171 million Yuan was city and county matching funds. By the end of 2010, based on the new poverty line, Henan Province had successfully achieved the goal of lifting 1 million rural poor out of poverty.

　　【Entire village advancement】 In 2010, entire village advancement was implemented in 1677 poor villages of Henan Province, of which 818 were old revolutionary base areas. Fan County, Lushan, Minquan, Sui County and Taiqian, where there are a large number of old revolutionary base areas, had successfully completed the “three guarantee” task;  Zhengzhou City and Anyang City put much efforts on entire village advancement and achieved good results; Xinxiang City innovated rural community construction model and achieved good results in entire village advancement; Shangqiu City attached importance to overall arrangement and achieved good results in lottery welfare fund projects, entire village advancement and contiguous development. In September 2010, LGOP held an on-site meeting in the city on the planning for entire village advancement and lottery welfare fund projects. 44 poor villages from Song County, Hua County, Lushi and Sui County were selected as national pilot areas for contiguous development and Phase 1 project construction was completed. Gushi and a few other counties, as the provincial pilot area for contiguous development, are organizing the project construction according to the plan.

　　【County-based pilot projects of contiguous development】 In 2010, four counties of Henan Province were identified as national pilot counties for "county-based entire village advancement and contiguous development by integrating resources", covering 44 poverty-stricken villages. In three years, according to the plan, 597 projects will be implemented with a total of 244 million Yuan of investment (48 million Yuan from central government, 4.5 million Yuan from city financial department, 10.7 million Yuan from county government, 107 million Yuan from various departments and 73.77 million Yuan raised by the farmers themselves). Through project construction, it will build village roads of 136.5 kilometers, dig 20 drinking water wells, build 91 reservoirs, pave water pipelines of 55689 meters, install 1974 street lamps, build and renovate drainage ditches of 68.2 kilometers, build 287 waste storage tank, purchase 68 fitness equipment, plant 68620 afforestration tree seedlings and dig 17 irrigation wells. Through project construction, it will address the highroad problem of 57,251 people and drinking water problem of 6,936 head of livestock and increase irrigation area of 575 mu to benefit 3,949 rural households.

　　【Labor transfer training - Rain Plan】 In 2010, based on field survey and strict assessment, Henan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office re-identified the Rain Plan training bases, reduced the number of training bases from more than 360 to 243 and further strengthened the management on training bases. It started the “Rain Plan” training management system, actively promoted the pilot work of direct subsidy for trainings and free trainings. In 2010, the province organized trainings for 216,000 poor farmers and transferred employments for 195,000 people, resulting in an increase of  1.65 billion Yuan in the income of poor farmers. Luoyang, Xinyang and Puyang City made steady progress in holding trainings and the featured brand of labor services had an obvious effect.

　　In 2010, the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office developed the Rain Plan information management system jointly with a network company. The system has been put into use.

　　【Industrialization and leading enterprise of poverty alleviation in poor areas】 In 2010, Henan Province launched 98 science and technology projects, organized more than 300 experts from provincial agricultural research institutes to promote 300 practical techniques and trained 40,000 poor people, which guided 120,000 poor people to develop industries for income growth. In order to give full play to the role of enterprises in helping impoverished villages and poor households, in 2010, after careful selection and review, the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, Department of Finance and People's Bank jointly determined 74 provincial key enterprises in poverty alleviation. After the construction of the C4 Poverty Alleviation Project, provincial key enterprise Puyang Hengrun Petrochemical Industry Co., Ltd will record annual output of 1.3 billion Yuan and make profits of 130 million Yuan. It will directly provide jobs for 1700 poor farmers and achieve per capita income growth of more than 4500 Yuan per year, giving full play to the role of poverty reduction by industrialization. In 2010, the government issued interest subsidy of 25 million Yuan to absorb discount loans of 830 million Yuan from financial institutions to support 91 poverty alleviation leading enterprises. With rapid development, poverty alleviation leading enterprises played a more positive role in helping people get rich. They provided jobs for 18,000 people and helped 270,000 poor people to shake off poverty.

　　【Relocation-based poverty alleviation】 In accordance with the principle of voluntary participation, scientific site selection and differential mode of financial subsidy, in 2010, the province newly built 108 new villages for resettlement of immigrants, relocated 5,738 poor households and 25,190 people, respectively accounting for 108.6% and 114.7% of the scheduled task. Luoyang City successfully completed the pilot work of relocation-based poverty reduction for the  “11th Five-Year Plan” period.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 First, the units directly under the central government increased efforts on fixed-point poverty alleviation. In 2010, 15 central state organs, institutions and enterprises carried out fixed-point poverty alleviation in Henan Province, invested 192 million Yuan in kind and cash and introduced 570 million Yuan in total. The Ministry of Science and Technology invested project funds of 6.95 million Yuan in Guangshan County; the  State Quality Inspection Administration issued nearly 3 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for Minquan County; China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) supported Fan County and Taiqian County to build schools and hospitals and implement resource poverty alleviation and intellectual poverty reduction to attract poor farmers to find jobs locally and good results were achieved. Secondly, administrative units and institutions at all levels achieved new breakthroughs in fixed-point poverty alleviation. In 2010, the units directly under Henan Provincial Government sent 19 section chiefs to act as the first secretary of party committee in poor villages to support local fixed-point poverty alleviation. The provincial, city and county party and government organs and social organizations dispatched 599 working teams to poor villages for fixed-point poverty alleviation and invested a total of 788 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds (including goods converted into money). Thirdly, good results were achieved in "poverty reduction jointly by villages and enterprises". In 2010, Henan Provincial Poverty Alleviation and the Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce implemented in Henan the "Activity of Poverty Alleviation for One Thousand Enterprises to Support One Thousand Villages", creating a stronger atmosphere for private enterprises to support poor villages. According to statistics, a total of 1,962 private enterprises participated in the Activity to provide counterpart support for 1,942 impoverished villages. They directly invested 580 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds (including goods converted into money) for the poor households in the poverty-stricken villages, provided jobs for 56,000 poor farmers and increased labor service revenue by 700 million Yuan. LGOP and All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce jointly issued a document to promote the practice of "poverty reduction jointly by villages and enterprises" of Henan Province.

　　【Micro-credit and mutual funds】 In 2010, the province issued a total of 22 million Yuan of poverty relief loan interest subsidy and issued petty loans of 424 million Yuan for rural households to help 20,100 poor farmers develop production. As a result, there was an increase of 2,700 Yuan in per household income. Wuyang County almost achieved the goal of one product for one village in the entire village advancement and the industries that help people get rich began to take shape. Gushi and Huangchuan County encouraged companies and bases to help rural households in developing “Gushi Chicken” and “Huaying Duck” as well as other featured industries, which increased the income of farmers. Henan issued a total of 11.25 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds and launched pilot mutual funds in 75 poor villages of three counties through competition. Ye County used mutual funds to help poor farmers develop industries and increase income and achieved good results, which was titled as “Ye County Mode” by LGOP. In September 2010, LGOP held a meeting on on-site training for pilot mutual funds in poor rural areas nationwide in Ye County to promote the experience of the county.

　　【Convergence of two systems】 According to the requirements of the provincial leaders and LGOP, with great support from financial department, statistics department, civil affairs department, investigation teams and disabled federation, in April 2010, we launched pilot work for the effective convergence of two systems in 31 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development and one provincial key county in Henan. In November 2010, based on the experience of pilot work in 32 key counties, Henan expanded the pilot area to all counties (cities) in the province. As of December 2010, the 32 pilot counties for effective convergence of two systems identified and made records for a total of 806,000 poor households and 2.52 million poor people.

　　【Foreign-funded poverty alleviation】 In 2001, the project negotiation and preparation work for Phase V Poverty Alleviation Project of the World Bank in Henan Province was completed according to the procedures and the project was officially launched. 16.12 million Yuan of funds were issued for the pilot project and smooth progress was made in the project construction. 192 projects were arranged for 65 CDD project villages and 112 have been completed, and 61 community mutual aid societies have been set up in the villages that completed CDF project construction.

　　【Lottery public welfare funds】 In 2010, 106.26 million Yuan was issued for Phase I pilot project of lottery public welfare funds in Ningling and Lankao County, of which 42.5 million Yuan was central lottery public welfare funds and 63.76 million Yuan was integrated funds. Infrastructure construction and environment improvement projects have all been completed and smooth progress was made in the construction of village-level mutual funds. In September 2010, based on the practice of Ningling, LGOP held in Shangqiu the on-site meeting on poverty reduction with lottery public welfare funds and rewarded 17 million Yuan for the pilot projects of lottery public welfare funds in Henan.

　　【Poverty reduction publicity】In 2010, the design of Website of LGOP was revised and more than 300 pieces of information was uploaded. The province compiled and published 43 "Poverty Alleviation and Development News" and 41 "Online Public Opinion". "Henan Daily" reported the experience of Henan Province in poverty alleviation and development in the first decade of the new century through printing an article titled "Remarkable Achievements after One Decade of Joint Efforts on Poverty Alleviation".

　　【Organization construction】First, new progress was made in ideological and political construction and working style construction. By building learning type party organizations, the province carried out a series of activities including "excelling in performance" and "two transitions and two improvements" and arranged main leaders to give lectures for party members and cadres, creating a stronger atmosphere for theoretical study, political awareness and excelling in performance, which further strengthened the working style construction. Secondly, civilization construction was further accelerated. The province organized people to learn the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th Party Committee and participate in education activities such as "Adding Brilliance for the Party Flag and Contributing to Poverty Reduction", vigorously carried out the activities of "joint construction by party branches" and "poverty reduction by party members" and achieved good results in civilization construction. Thirdly, service capacity was further improved. In 2010, the province held the training meeting on national pilot work of mutual funds, on-site conference on pilot projects of national entire village advancement and poverty alleviation with lottery public welfare funds and training meeting on finance and procurement of Phase V Project of the World Bank and other national conferences, and successfully completed the task of meeting relevant leaders of LGOP during their supervision period in Henan Province and meeting foreign delegations. The service capacity was further improved, which guaranteed the orderly and effective operation of relevant organs. Fourthly, promote the construction of an honest and clean government. The province strictly implemented the responsibility system for construction of an honest and clean government and "two responsibilities for one position", did a good job of government affairs openness and "working style appraisal" and consciously accepted social supervision. Meanwhile, the government made active rectification based on public opinions and there was a significant improvement in masses satisfaction.

　　【Review of decade of poverty alleviation and development】 Henan Province started the planned poverty alleviation and development in rural areas in 1986. The main task for the poverty in late 1980s and 1990s was to basically solve the problem of food and clothing in rural areas. In the new century, according to the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)", it developed the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of Rural Areas in Henan Province (2003-2010) " and identified national key counties, towns and poor villages for poverty alleviation and development. From 2000 to 2010, Henan Province constantly improved the policy mechanism, innovated development models, mobilized social forces, attached importance to overall arrangements and operation, focused on improving people’s livelihood and made much progress in poverty alleviation and development. Based on the former poverty line, during the decade, Henan Province lifted 8.2 million rural poor out of poverty, achieved the goal set by the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of Rural Areas in Henan Province (2003-2010)" and made remarkable achievements. The poor in Henan Province mainly live in old revolutionary base areas, beach area and detention basin of the Yellow River and Huan River, stone mountainous areas in the western part of Henan, traditional farming areas in plains and high prevalence areas of AIDS. Based on the new poverty line of the province (per capita annual income of 1,500 Yuan), at the end of 2010, Henan Province still had a rural poor population of 5 million or so. No matter from the perspective of the number the poor people or the perspective of the proportion of the poor, Henan Province still has a long way to go in poverty alleviation and development.