Poverty Alleviation and Development in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

　　【Poverty reduction program】 The planning for the poverty alleviation and development of Guangxi in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period is composed of the overall planning and four special planning respectively for poverty alleviation and development in border areas, poverty alleviation and development in stone mountain areas, poverty alleviation and development by entire village advancement and poverty alleviation and development by industrialization. Based on the actual situation of Guangxi, the objective of the planning for poverty alleviation and development of Guangxi in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period is to conduct “535” poverty alleviation, that is, by 2015, to carry out poverty alleviation and development through “entire village advancement” in 3,000 poor villages in five years to achieve per capita net income of 5,000 Yuan in impoverished villages. Key areas of the poverty alleviation and development in the “12th Five-Year Plan” period: First, stone mountain and alpine mountain areas, border regions, especially ethnic minority areas and old revolutionary base areas; Second, key counties and poor villages for poverty alleviation and development. Key work of the poverty alleviation and development in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period: Implement comprehensive governance and contiguous development in special regions to accelerate the pace of poverty reduction; promote the "entire village advancement"; innovate poverty alleviation and immigration models; increase efforts on the renovation of dilapidated houses of rural households in impoverished areas; strengthen the implementation of “Rain Plan” and promote full employment instead of simple skills training; determine the layout and coverage of the featured competitive industries of poor farmers and further explore for integrated urban and rural poverty alleviation and development. Supporting measures for poverty alleviation and development in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period: Adhere to the "four to the county" management method, that is, funds to the county, power to the county, task to the county and responsibility to the county, and establish appropriate incentive mechanisms; improve the mechanisms for investment, management, use and allocation of anti-poverty funds; achieve the effective convergence of two systems; make clear the task of industrial poverty alleviation and assign the task to various industries; vigorously mobilize government organs, enterprises and social forces to support poor villages and households; strengthen trainings on poverty alleviation to improve the comprehensive capability of the poor in poverty-stricken areas; vigorously promote participatory poverty reduction and strengthen leadership and institutional construction for poverty alleviation.

　　【Use of anti-poverty funds】  In 2010, a total of 981 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds was invested, of which nearly 780 million Yuan (excluding work-relief funds and minority development funds) was from the central government and 200 million Yuan was matching funds of Guangxi (not including the 200 million Yuan for infrastructure construction in large and medium-sized reservoir villages). Relevant units directly under Guangxi government and relevant units directly under the central government in Guangxi invested 59.539 million Yuan (including investment in kind), raised various funds of 220 million Yuan, and integrated department funds, work-relief funds and poverty relief loans of 306 million Yuan for poor villages; the organs directly under the central government with sending cadres in Guangxi directly put in 20.17 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds (including investment in kind), invited various funds of 296 million Yuan; and Guangdong government, various departments and social forces donated funds and materials worth 38.8469 million Yuan in total.

　　Use of financial anti-poverty funds: 598 million Yuan for infrastructure improvement and ecological construction projects in poverty-stricken villages, accounting for 60.99%; 124 million Yuan (including 5 million Yuan for poverty alleviation by science and technology and 4.26 million Yuan for post-disaster production recovery) for poverty relief industry development, accounting for 12.69%; 32 million Yuan for off-site resettlement and the off-site relocation in poverty reduction in the new era, accounting for 3.26%; 45 million Yuan for the implementation of “Rain Plan”, accounting for .59%; 4.4 million Yuan for pilot work of leading and pro-poor mechanism innovation in communities, accounting for 0.45%; and 35.9 million Yuan for project management (including poverty relief fee in Guangxi), accounting for 3.66%.

　　In 2010, the central government and Guangxi government allocated a total of 87.674 million Yuan of poverty relief loan interest subsidy funds, issued anti-poverty loans of 1.15227 billion Yuan to support 123 enterprises’ 123 projects, and the loans for the development of competitive industries in poor villages and household poverty reduction were issued to 88 counties (cities, districts), covering 3,752 poverty-stricken villages, which supported the production of more than 127,000 poor rural households. Meanwhile, Guangxi introduced concessional loans of 50.341 million Yuan and donation of 30.1137 million Yuan from international organizations to support the construction of poor villages.

　　【Infrastructure construction】 As of the end of 2010, with the financial anti-poverty funds, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region built 2,801 village roads of 5,549 kilometers in poor areas to directly benefit 306,000 households and 1.544 million people; implemented 7,073 drinking water projects for people and livestock, of which 614 were drinking water pools, covering 32,600 cubic meters; paved pipeline of 835 kilometers, built 6,211 home water tanks, 862 small water supply stations to solve the safe drinking water problem of 289,000 people; built (repaired) 78 village roads of 303 kilometers for immigrants’ resettlement, hardened roads of 17.2 kilometers in residential areas, constructed 44 drinking water projects for people and five power supply projects, and built two bridges of 18 linear meters. The completion of a large number of infrastructure construction projects further improved the production and living conditions of impoverished people.

　　【Entire village advancement】 The “entire village advancement” of the third batch of 1164 poverty-stricken villages was officially launched in 2009 and the construction period was two years. By the end of 2010, the project construction was completed. According to statistics, as of the end of 2010, 1.35 billion Yuan (not including funds raised by the masses) was invested in the entire village advancement of the third batch of poor villages, averagely 1.16 million Yuan per village; village roads of 5654 kilometers were newly built in the poor villages and the proportion of natural villages with 20 or more households with highroads rose from 60.5% in 2008 to 91.3%, with an increase of 30.8 percentage points; and 10,000 new biogas digesters were dug and the proportion of the households with biogas digesters grew from 29.7% in 2008 to 34.6%, with an increase of 4.9 percentage points. Meanwhile, the projects solved the drinking water of 245,400 people, supported the poor to develop featured farming area of 536,000 mu, built offices of 15,624 square meters for village committees, cultural training rooms of 3115.5 square meters and clinics of 3103.02 square meters, renovated dilapidated buildings of 24,027 square meters for village-level primary schools and trained 2.3063 million people from impoverished villages.

　　【Cadre training in poor areas】 In 2010, Guangxi arranged poverty relief cadre training funds of 4 million Yuan and planned to train 2800 cadres. In fact, it organized trainings for 6,760 people (including 3,960 cadres of “village party committees and villagers’ committees” organized by Guangxi Party Committee Organization Department with investment of 1.421 million Yuan) and overfulfiled the training task.

　　【Labor and technical training】 The autonomous region allocated 10 million Yuan for practical skills training of farmers and planned to train 200,000 person-times. In fact, it organized trainings fro 236,000 person-times, 118% of the scheduled task. 15 pilot counties (cities, districts) held trainings for 16,699 people and trainings for 6,928 village cadres. Through attending the trainings, most of the masses further mastered practical agricultural technology and the trainings have really benefited the poor. The government arranged 29 million Yuan of labor transfer training funds for impoverished villages and trained 29,700 labors, 100% of the scheduled task, including 7,400 children from needy families in mountain areas receiving vocational training and 14,100 children from poor families of other areas. Short-term job skills training for labor transfer of poor villages were organized for 8,200 people, 98% of the trainees proved to be qualified and more than 95% of the participants found jobs. According to investigation, the students who received financial aid got stable thinking and worked very hard, and the transferred migrant workers got stable jobs with average monthly income of more than 1,000 Yuan. The trainings brought good economic and social benefits and had obvious poverty reduction effect.

　　【Industrialization and leading enterprise of poverty alleviation in poor areas】 In 2010, Guangxi used the financial anti-poverty funds to vigorously support poor rural households to develop featured competitive industries such as fruit, mulberry, sugar cane, tea, tobacco and cattle and pig breeding. The autonomous region expanded planting area of 255,900 mu for featured competitive industries, completed low-yield area renovation of 71,100 mu for featured competitive industries, bred 428,200 poultries and 57,200 head of livestock, and the projects covered 2,016 poor villages and 187,871 rural households. In addition, with the interest subsidy, the autonomous region guided financial institutions to issue more than 1.15 billion Yuan of household loans and more than 1.14 billion Yuan of pro-poor project loans, which directly benefited 127,000 impoverished households and supported 123 leading enterprises to develop production. According to statistics, the industrial poverty reduction significantly increased the income of poor farmers. In 2010, the growth rate of rural per capita net income of 4,060 poor villages in Guangxi was 2.84% higher than the average level of the autonomous region.

　　【Relocation-based poverty alleviation】 In 2010, the autonomous region issued financial anti-poverty funds of 17 million Yuan and the plan for the first batch of consolidation projects was issued on August 3, 2010. It invested a total of 11.176 million Yuan for 115 projects in 38 counties (districts) of ten cities, which benefited 6,383 rural households. The plan for the second batch of consolidation projects was issued on November 17, 2010. Total investment of 8.1098 million Yuan was allocated for the construction of 98 projects in 41 counties (districts) of ten cities, which benefited 6,633 rural households.

　　【County-based pilot projects of contiguous development】 In 2010, the autonomous region selected Huanjiang, Fengshan, Pingguo, Tianlin, Yicheng and Tiandeng County as the pilot areas for the county-based entire village advancement and contiguous development with integrated funds (hereinafter contiguous development). The project program included infrastructure construction, social development, industrial development, ecological construction and technology training and the total investment was 273 million Yuan, of which 30 million Yuan was financial anti-poverty funds from the central government, 4.29 million Yuan was matching funds of the autonomous region, 130 million Yuan was department investment and 39.8832 million Yuan was raised by the masses. It supported the development of farming area of 60,200 mu, breeding of 113,000 head of livestock, basic farmland construction of 250 mu, road building of 393.2 kilometers, 567 small water conservancy (including drinking water for people and livestock) projects, construction of 415 biogas digesters, 26 village-level cultural rooms and 16 village clinics, as well as the training of 16,025 farmers. As of November 30, 2010, the six pilot counties put in a total of 159 million Yuan in the project construction, accounting for 595 of the scheduled task. After project construction for nearly half a year, smooth progress was made in the construction of roads, irrigation projects, biogas digesters and cultural and health centers, as well as the organization of trainings in pilot counties, and the backwardness of the pilot area was gradually improved. According to statistics, in the project area of the six pilot counties, 12,000 households directly benefited from the project construction and 10,000 poor households were supported. The highroad, drinking water, electricity, schooling, medical service and housing problems of the project areas were almost addressed and the rural per capita net income of the project areas increased by more than 300 Yuan in 2010.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In 2010, while promoting the fixed-point poverty reduction and counterpart poverty alleviation with Guangdong Province, the autonomous region further strengthened and promoted the international exchange and cooperation in the field of poverty reduction, which played a positive role in promoting the construction of a great pattern for poverty alleviation, mainly reflected by: First, the nine units directly under the central government involved in the fixed-point poverty alleviation in the autonomous region, 138 units directly under the regional government and central government agencies in Guangxi, the city and counties’ helping units involved in the fixed-point poverty alleviation introduced more than 60 million Yuan and directly invested more than 20 million Yuan to improve the production and living conditions in impoverished villages. Second, smooth progress was made in the construction of demonstrative villages for entire village advancement supported by Guangdong. The construction of demonstrative villages launched in 2009 was basically completed in 2010; 70% of the construction task of 23 demonstrative village projects launched in 2010 was completed. Third, it was actively involved in the care package donation activity organized by China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation and donated 15,619 care packs worth 1.8878 million Yuan, including 15,368 student care parcels and 351 school care parcels. Fourth, with support from China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, 40 million Yuan of Cao Dewang and Cao Hui’s poverty relief donations were all transferred to the special deposit books of 19,400 recipient households of three project counties namely Napo, Longlin and Donglan, and most of the recipient farmers have used the money to develop production, pay tuition fees for their children and improve the living conditions. The donation brought significant economic and social benefits. Fifth, new progress was made in foreign-funded poverty alleviation. In 2010, the autonomous region used the concessional loans and grants of international organizations to support the construction of poverty-stricken villages and used the concessional loans of 50.341 million Yuan issued by the World Bank to implement community development projects of poor rural areas in six poverty-stricken counties in the northwest of Guangxi. The World Vision, Oxfam Hong Kong, Action Aid International and other non-governmental organizations provided grants of 30.1137 million Yuan to the autonomous region. In addition, the autonomous region also successfully hosted the "Seminar on Pro-poor Policies and Practices of South Pacific Island Countries and Asian Countries", the "Fourth China - ASEAN Forum on Social Development and Poverty Reduction" and other major international poverty alleviation activities to further strengthen the international exchanges and cooperation in the field of ​​poverty reduction.

　　【Promote the development of old revolutionary base areas】 There are a total of 109 counties (cities, districts) in Guangxi, including 95 old revolutionary base counties (cities, districts), accounting for 87.16% of the total. Among the 1235 towns (including 38 sub-district offices and one farm), 772 are old revolutionary base towns (including ten sub-district offices and one farm), accounting for 62.51%. There are now a total of 8,363 old revolutionary base villages in various cities, accounting for 57.1% of the total villages. In 2010, the central government issued 200 million Yuan of special funds for the construction of old revolutionary base areas in Guangxi.

　　【Post-disaster restoration and reconstruction】 In 2010, the autonomous region arranged 35.555 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds for the construction of 693 projects, including repair of the roads, bridges, irrigation channels, small reservoirs, small docks and retaining walls of poor villages destroyed in the disaster, and recovered the normal operation of destroyed infrastructure in poor areas.

　　【Poverty alleviation in special poor areas】 From 2009 to 2010, Guangxi invested 1.13 billion Yuan to carry out the infrastructure improvement campaign of the Frontier Construction Action for those areas 3-20 kilometers away from the border line; from 2010 to 2011, it invested 2.3 billion Yuan to implement the drinking water construction projects for the residents and livestock in 30 counties (cities, districts) of six cities in the northwest of Guangxi. The situation of the three campaigns completed or implemented in 2010 was as follows:

　　The Frontier Construction Action for those areas 3-20 kilometers away from the border line was launched in July 2009. As of the end of December 2010, 1.13 billion Yuan was issued, accounting for 94.6% of the total. Except some land consolidation projects, most of the 47,422 (project number after the adjustment) projects in nine categories had been completed and passed the inspection and acceptance. After the campaign, the production and living conditions of the poor in border areas were significantly improved and the problem of food, roads, drinking water and schooling had been greatly alleviated.

　　The infrastructure construction campaign in five counties of the western regions of Guangxi was launched in September 2008 and 52087 projects in 19 categories would be implemented with total investment of 141 million Yuan. As of the end of June 2010, all the projects had been completed and 153 million Yuan was invested, 118 million Yuan more than the planned figure, and A total of 58,394 projects were constructed, 6,307 more than the planned figure. After the campaign, the infrastructure and production and living conditions of the five counties in the western areas of Guangxi were greatly improved, rural highroad project covered 611 administrative villages and 790 natural villages, nearly 450,000 people got the convenience of nearby bus service, the problem of bus taking and farm produce transportation of the masses in project area was addressed and the objective of “highroads for all villages” in the “11th Five-Year Plan” period was achieved one year ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, it solved the drinking water or safe drinking water problem of more than 300,000 people, strengthened the flood control capacity of counties and reservoirs; renovated thatched cottages for 7940 households, built bright brick houses for the poor, improved the living conditions of nearly 40,000 poor people, newly built 43931 rural biogas digesters and 55.95% of the households got biogas digesters, 6.95 percentage points above the regional average.

　　The campaign of drinking water project construction in 30 counties (cities, districts) of six cities in the northwest of Guangxi is being implemented, and the construction period is two years. According to the plan, it will build 60,000 home water tanks, implement more than 180 network expansion projects, more than 1,500 artesian water diversion projects, 650 water pumping projects and more than 500 projects combining water diversion and storage. Through the campaign, it will comprehensively address the drinking water problem of the masses who needed water delivery due to drought, newly address the drinking water problem of 1.2 million people, increase effective irrigation area of more than 1.5 million mu, effectively prevent soil erosion in mountain areas and further improve the production and living conditions and ecological environment as well.

　　【Pilot projects of mutual funds】 Since 2007, the autonomous region has launched pilot projects of mutual funds for poor villages in 210 villages of 27 counties in nine cities, namely Baise, Hechi, Liuzhou, Nanning, Guilin, Chongzuo, Laibin, Hezhou and Wuzhou. In 2010, the central government issued 11.25 million Yuan of special funds for pilot project construction in poor villages of Guangxi and the pilot projects were implemented in 75 villages of 17 counties, namely Shanglin, Longsheng, Ziyuan, Mengshan, Tiandong, Pingguo, Jingxi, Napo, Leye, Xilin, Nandan, Tian’e, Donglan, Bama, Du’an, Dahua and Xincheng. In addition, the autonomous region arranged 15 pilot villages for lottery public welfare projects in Luocheng and Rongshui County, making the number of pilot villages for mutual funds in the autonomous region reach 105 in 2010. As of the end of December 2010, 65 of the 105 pilot villages completed the registration of mutual aid societies of poor villages. Among the 210 impoverished villages that had implemented pilot projects, 144 had set up mutual aid societies, 1,356 mutual aid groups were set up, 12,263 rural households, including 7,090 poor households applied to participate in the mutual aid societies, a total of 33.1202 million Yuan of mutual funds were raised, 8.1039 million Yuan of loans were issued to rural households and 2,658 people received loans. 2.0045 million Yuan of loans were repaid on time, a total of 2.0045 million Yuan of loans were repaid and the repayment rate reached 100%. Most of the loans for rural households issued by mutual funds in poor villages were used for the development of planting and breeding industry and good results were achieved in the invested projects. According to the survey on some pilot villages in 2010, the projects constructed with loans increased the per capita income of farmers by more than 300 Yuan.

　　【Convergence of two systems】 In 2010, the pilot area for effective convergence of two systems in Guangxi was expanded to cover 27 key counties in Nanning, Liuzhou, Guilin, Baise, Hechi, Laibin and Chongzuo. As of the end of 2010, all the 27 pilot counties filled in the county and administration village registration form for information of poor households, completed the identification and data filing work of the poor, made records for 397,300 poor rural households and 1.3264 million poor people, of which 155,700 households and 577,800 people were objects of poverty reduction, accounting for 43.57% of the total poor; 127,900 households and 470,300 people were objects of both poverty reduction and the rural minimum living security system, accounting for 35.46%; 85,200 households and 246,200 people were objects of the minimum living security system, accounting for 18.56%, and 28,500 households and 32,000 people were objects of the “five guarantee” system, accounting for 2.41%. In 2010, LGOP’s cross-examination team for pilot work of effective convergence of two systems highly praised the pilot work of effective convergence of two systems in Guangxi: “Governments at all levels attached great importance to it and made good deployment, county leaders personally gave instructions, village cadres made extensive and in-depth advocacy, strong support measures were adopted and the operating procedures were standardized”.

　　【Foreign-funded poverty alleviation】 In 2010, new progress was made in the implementation and management of foreign-funded poverty alleviation projects in Guangxi.

1. Poor rural community development projects. As of September 30, 2010, Guangxi invested a total of 299.13 million Yuan in the construction of poor rural community development projects, accounting for 93.26% of the total after mid-term adjustment.

2. Pilot projects for innovation of community-based poverty alleviation mechanism. In 2010, the third batch of 22 poor villages for "entire village advancement" in 11 pilot counties passed three rounds of project competition and 302 poverty relief projects were implemented with total investment of 21.7604 million Yuan.

3. International non-governmental organizations' cooperative poverty relief projects. As of the end of October 2010, international non-governmental organizations provided a total of 28.88 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds, of which 19.71 million Yuan was from the World Vision, 5.04 million Yuan from Action Aid International, 3.33 million Yuan from Oxfam Hong Kong and 800,000 Yuan from Hong Kong Christian Council, etc.

4. Pilot community-oriented development projects. To solve the poverty problem of minority areas as soon as possible, after several negotiations between Guangxi and the World Bank and Canadian International Development Agency, relevant parties reached an agreement to jointly implement the “pilot community-oriented development projects in impoverished minority areas of Guangxi” in five minority counties in the World Bank’s fourth poverty reduction project area, namely Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County, Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Sangjiang Dong Autonomous County and Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County. The projects covered 62 administrative villages and 641 natural villages and benefited a total of 105,197 people, including 103,409 minority people, accounting for 98.3% of the total.

　　【Cooperation in poverty alleviation】 In November 2010, LGOP, All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region jointly held the meeting on Introduction of Competitive Industries for National Cooperation in Poverty Reduction and the Investment Promotion Fair. At the meeting, various cities and counties of Guangxi signed cooperation agreements on 37 projects worth 3.4 billion Yuan with the participating enterprises. As of the end of 2010, 27 enterprises organized investigation teams to carry out pro-phase survey in relevant cities and counties, 12 enterprises signed official investment contracts with relevant cities and counties and the total investment amounted to 755 million Yuan. So far, 25.31 million Yuan was issued.

　　【Practices and experience】  I. Develop early planning, make early deployment and strive to take initiative in the work. First, develop work plan in advance; second, make good preparations for project construction in advance; third, allocate funds in advance for timely production and construction; II. Effectively integrate various resources for the implementation of entire village advancement. Make clear the twinning relationship between organs directly under the provincial government and the poor villages for entire village advancement in the fixed-point poverty alleviation, and concentrate the financial anti-poverty funds, Guangdong’s counterpart support funds, various departments’ agriculture-related funds and foreign poverty relief funds for project construction. III. Clarify the work objectives. Develop acceptance criteria and specific measures for entire village advancement in impoverished villages to make poverty reduction work more operational. IV. Highlight the key points for steady progress. First, promote infrastructure construction to improve the production and living conditions and ecological environment of poor villages; Second, promote industrial development covering all the poor, combine the poor’s industrial development with regional featured industries and combine poverty alleviation leading enterprises with poor rural households to lay a basis for income growth. Third, organize labor transfer and job skills training as well as rural practical technical trainings in poor villages to improve the quality of farmers, promote the industrial development of poor rural households and increase the income of rural households. V. Target at the most vulnerable regions and groups to ensure real poverty reduction for the real poor. VI. Strengthen the management of “four to the county” projects and conduct transparent implementation of pro-poor projects. VII. Address the infrastructure problem of contiguous poor regions and the impoverished areas with special difficulties through campaigns. VIII. Actively promote participatory poverty alleviation to give play to the main role of poor masses.