Poverty Alleviation and Development in Shaanxi Province

　　【Review of decade of poverty alleviation and development】 From 2001 to 2010, Shaanxi Province put in a total of 13.46 billion Yuan for the construction of 10,491 key villages for poverty reduction, organized the relocation of 1.33 million poor people, issued a total of 14 billion Yuan of discount loans and 247 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds, set up industrial development mutual funds in 1,450 impoverished villages, completed the trainings for 3.93 million poor people and the construction of WB loan project – Qinba Mountains Poverty Alleviation Project with total investment of $ 71.75 million, successfully strived for and launched the WB’s Phase V Poverty Relief Project with total investment of $ 60 million and successively implemented more than 3,000 typical projects of new socialist countryside in accordance with the standards and requirements for new rural construction. In 2010, the rural per capita net income in key counties for poverty alleviation and development reached 3617 Yuan, up 222% over 2000 and up 12.4% over the previous year, 1.6 percentage points above the provincial average; the per capita grain possession reached 389 kilograms and 5.71 million people were lifted out of poverty.

　　【Construction of key villages】 In the construction of key villages for poverty alleviation and development by entire village advancement, in accordance with the guiding line of "government coordination, fund integration, comprehensive development and entire village advancement", focusing on infrastructure construction such as watercourse regulating, farmland improving, road building and electricity providing, the province strived to promote the development of social undertakings in poor villages and improve the basic production and living conditions of the poor, and vigorously promoted industrial development, the improvement of village appearance and the construction of village-level leaders, laying a solid foundation for the economic development of impoverished areas.

　　Over the past decade, Shaanxi Province allocated a total of 13.46 billion Yuan of anti-poverty funds (of which 3.408 billion Yuan was financial anti-poverty funds) for the construction of 10,491 key villages for poverty reduction and pilot projects of contiguous development in 22 counties; and invested 390 million Yuan of special anti-poverty funds to support the post-disaster restoration and reconstruction of 507 affected poor villages in the “5.12” Earthquake. According to relevant statistics, the government newly built rural highroads of 78,000 kilometers for impoverished areas, increased transmission lines of 47,000 kilometers and basic farmland of 3.92 million mu, and solved the drinking water problem of 6.5 million people and 3.3 million head of livestock.

　　【Relocation-based poverty alleviation】 In accordance with the guiding line of "government guidance, voluntariness of farmers, unified planning and farmland resettlement", targeting at the poor living in the areas with harsh conditions, the province constantly explored ways for development-oriented relocation, gradually enhanced the subsidy standards for immigrants’ house building and, through combining local relocation and scattered resettlement with entire village/team relocation, relatively concentrated resettlement, integrated urban-rural development and cross-regional resettlement, combined relocation of immigrants with small urban construction, new rural construction and modern agricultural development to fundamentally change the living and development environment of relocated poor households and ensure that they all have houses to live, farmland to plan, water to drink, schooling opportunity for their children and development opportunities for them to get rich.

　　Over the past decade, Shaanxi Province organized the relocation of 1.25 million poor people (including 350,000 people for ecological relocation and 300,000 relocated for renovation of dilapidated houses). Since 2009, combined with the construction of central towns, the province implemented the “project for relocation of poor people from 1,000 villages” and put in a total of 3.736 billion Yuan (including financial anti-poverty funds of 850 million Yuan) to relocate 123,000 poor people in the regions with harsh production and living conditions, which improved the living conditions of the masses in low-income villages

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 Adhering to the guiding line of "market guidance, project coverage, driving of leading enterprises and support by loans", Shaanxi Province issued a total of 8.5 billion Yuan of discount household loans to support 2.3 million poor households to develop featured farming and breeding, and invested 5.5 billion Yuan of discount project loans to support 376 leading enterprises to develop processing, transportation and marketing of agricultural products. Meanwhile, Shaanxi Province allocated 247 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to set up mutual funds for industrial development in 1450 poor villages and build a long-term mechanism for the poor to increase income of farmers. Through many years of support, the dates and sheep in northern areas, the apples in Weibei and the tea and edible mushroom in southern areas have become local leading industries and main source of income of the masses.

　　【Rain Plan】  In accordance with the principle of "government-leadership, market operation, training for employment and tracking service", the province organized employment transfer skills trainings for children from needy families to enhance their capacity for serving non-farming industries and capability for urban transfer employment and entrepreneurship, achieving the goal of "exporting all labors receiving training and lifting the whole family out of poverty through providing a job for one family member". The province organized trainings for 393,000 poor people and more than 85% of them got stable jobs with averagely wage income of 18,000 Yuan. Meanwhile, it held practical technical trainings for more than 1 million people, which greatly improved the job skills and production technology level of the masses.

　　【Foreign-funded poverty alleviation】 The province fully completed the construction of WB Loan Project – Qinba Mountains Poverty Alleviation Project with a total investment of $ 71.51 million, which directly benefited 172,000 poor households and 705,000 poor people. It successfully strived for and launched the WB’s Phase V Poverty Relief Project with total investment of $60 million and comprehensively launched many projects in poor areas, including infrastructure construction and public service, community development funds, sustainable land use, addressing climate change, project monitoring and management in 471 project villages of 10 counties, aiming to build the capacity of "self-organization, self-management and self-development" of communities. It also implemented ADB's poverty reduction project in Yulin, the poverty relief project organized by volunteers of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Chunhua, the poverty relief project of First Sino Bank in Xunyi and other foreign-funded poverty alleviation projects to expand the international exchange and cooperation in the field of poverty reduction.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 It actively contacted relevant ministries and commissions to carry out fixed-point poverty alleviation, contacted Shaanxi’s poverty relief consultants in Beijing to support the poverty reduction in Shaanxi and coordinated developed eastern and western regions to support poverty reduction of Shaanxi. In accordance with the principle of "cadre leadership, department taking responsibility, fixed-point poverty alleviation and social participation", it organized the party and government organs at all levels and enterprises and units to participate in fixed-point poverty alleviation, strengthened policy measures, assigned poverty reduction responsibility, improved the incentive mechanism, strengthened inspection and assessment and enhanced the effectiveness of poverty reduction. Meanwhile, it organized and mobilized private enterprises to participate in poverty alleviation and development, and guided and organized all circles of society to support poverty reduction in various forms.

　　The province strived to innovate social poverty alleviation, actively implemented the activity for "One Thousand Enterprises to Support One Thousand Villages" and further mobilized powerful enterprises to participate in the activity according to the guiding line of "decentralized management, county as the core, department leadership and enterprise participation". Through supporting project construction, providing technological trainings and market information, it increased the income of the farmers in relevant villages by more than 1000 Yuan. As of 2010, 3362 enterprises provided counterpart support for 3552 low-income villages and 1901 poverty relief projects were implemented with investment of 133 million Yuan.

　　【Construction of a new socialist countryside】 Starting from poverty alleviation and development, the province vigorously promoted new rural construction. Taking the construction of key villages in entire village advancement and the new immigrant villages as a platform, it integrated various resources and department funds to promote the construction of new socialist countryside featured rapid development of production, affluent life, civilized social atmosphere, clean and tidy village appearance and democratic management according to the standards and requirements for new rural construction. In recent years, through combining poverty alleviation and development with new rural construction, various regions in the province successively constructed more than 3000 model projects of new socialist countryside, which became a beautiful landscape in impoverished areas. The new rural construction in poor areas promoted by poverty alleviation and development in Xunyi, Pingli and Zichang County had a great impact in Shaanxi and even in the whole county.

　　Standardized management mechanism. The party committees and governments at all levels attached great important to poverty alleviation and development. Key counties practiced leader responsibility system and governments at all levels founded the leading group for poverty alleviation and development with main leader as the head and representatives of relevant departments as members, and set up professional permanent offices. According to the principle of tasks, responsibilities and assessment to the county, governments at all levels included poverty alleviation and development in the coverage of annual assessment. Various departments strengthened cooperation with clear responsibility and gave priority to poor areas in the allocation of project funds. A great pattern of poverty alleviation that all participating enterprises, social groups and individuals actively implement social obligations for special poverty alleviation, industrial poverty reduction and social poverty alleviation was formed. As for project fund management, governments at all levels actively improved the legal person system, bidding system, project supervision system, etc. As for fund management, the government implemented the county financial reimbursement system and special personnel management system and opened special accounts for special use. As for working mechanism, it improved the mechanism for increasing investment in poverty alleviation, key county dynamic management system and anti-poverty resource integration system to constantly raise the level of anti-poverty work.

　　Shaanxi Province still has a poverty-stricken population of 5.58 million whose income is below 1600 Yuan. The situation of poverty in Baiyu Mountain area in Shaanbei, mountainous area along the Yellow River, Qinba Mountain areas in southern part of Shaanxi, Qinling Mountain areas and the "dry belt" areas in Weibei is still serious. The macroeconomic situation, market changes and disasters made a large number of people fall into poverty or return poverty and the wealth gap was further widened. It has become a main objective of future poverty alleviation and development to narrow the gap and build a harmonious society, and Shaanxi still has a long way to go in poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Poverty reduction program】 Relevant department actively conducted survey and demonstration and developed the planning for the poverty alleviation in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. According to the unified arrangement of the provincial government, through pro-phase survey and demonstration on poverty line, coverage of objects and policy measures, relevant experts, provincial departments and city poverty alleviation offices were invited conduct in-depth discussion and finally developed the “Planning for Poverty Alleviation of Shaanxi Province in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period” in October 2010 and submitted to higher authority. The planning for relocation-based poverty alleviation and the program for contiguous development are also being prepared. We organized the development of “Planning for Poverty Relief Relocation in Baiyu Mountain Area of Shaanxi Province” and submitted to the provincial executive meeting for approval; cooperated with the provincial People's Congress to conduct inspection on the poverty alleviation and development work of Shaanxi Province and received assessment; cooperated with the Agricultural Work Committee of the Provincial People's Congress to carry out early research for building legislation system for poverty alleviation, relevant draft legislative texts have been formed and submitted to the provincial poverty alleviation department. We are accelerating the process of legislation for poverty alleviation according to the procedure and have strengthened poverty reduction advocacy to create a good social atmosphere.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】In 2010, 1.16 billion Yuan of central and financial anti-poverty funds were issued to Shaanxi and the province launched the construction of 1436 key villages, implemented relocation of the poor from a thousand villages, including 284 new pilot villages, arranged 290 mutual funds project villages, and completed the “Rain Plan” training for 50,000 poor people. The rural per capita net income of key counties reached 3617 Yuan, up 21%, and 670,000 people were lifted out of poverty.

　　【Entire village advancement】  Focusing on “Three Guarantee”, the province increased efforts on entire village advancement. According to the requirements of “Three Guarantees” put forward by LGOP, in 2010, Shaanxi Province allocated 315 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds and launched the construction of 1149 key villages for poverty alleviation.

　　【Labor transfer training - Rain Plan】 In 2010, Shaanxi Province continued to strengthen the construction of “Rain Plan” projects. Through recommendation and competition, it designated 85 training schools to hold the “Rain Plan” trainings and selected 34 of them to implement pilot projects for combining “Rain Plan” trainings and secondary vocational education of 7000 people. Targeting at the “two kinds of backward students” (junior and senior middle schools graduates) in impoverished areas, the province issued 81.2 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to organize skills trainings and transfer trainings for 50,000 poor people and achieved the goal of "exporting all labors receiving training and lifting the whole family out of poverty through providing a job for one family member". Meanwhile, in order to develop local competitive leading industries, it held practical agricultural technical trainings for more than 1 million person-times, which greatly enhanced the capacity of farmers for income growth.

　　【Industrialization and leading enterprise of poverty alleviation in poor areas】 The province further strengthened poverty alleviation by microcredit. In 2010, the government issued petty loan interest subsidy of 52.2 million Yuan and household poverty relief loans of 1.04 billion Yuan to support 103,000 rural households to develop featured farming and breeding industry; implemented 85 loan projects of poverty alleviation leading enterprises and allocated anti-poverty discount loans of 960 million Yuan, which effectively increased the income of the masses in poverty-stricken areas.

　　【Relocation-based poverty alleviation】 In 2009, Shaanxi Provincial Government decided to launch the relocation project of the poor of a thousand villages and started the construction of 206 new immigrant villages that year. In 2010, the government issued 360 million Yuan of special funds for this project, relocated 18,000 poor households and 78,000 poor people and built 284 new immigrant villages. In 2010, the province comprehensively started the house construction for relocated households and completed more than 80% of the construction.

　　【Pilot projects of contiguous development】 In 2010, through active endeavour, six counties (districts) in Shaanxi Province were listed among pilot areas for contiguous development, namely Shangnan, Langao, Lveyang, Long County, Yaozhou and Chunhua. 12 million Yuan of state financial anti-poverty funds was issued for each county to develop “unified planning and conduct integrated governance and entire village advancement” in 10 -15 contiguous poor villages. Meanwhile, the provincial government issued 25 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds and selected Bin County, Heyang, Xixiang, Hanbin and Danfeng as pilot area for contiguous development. So far, all the pilot projects have been launched.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 The province innovated social poverty alleviation pattern and organized the "action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages". While promoting the poverty alleviation of "two linkages and one contract", in 2010, Shaanxi Province launched the "action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages". Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and Government printed the "Opinions on the Implementation of the Action for One Thousand Enterprises to Support One Thousand Villages", set up joint work office and designated the first batch of 26,20 enterprises to provide counterpart support for 3,000 low-income villages. As of the end of 2010, 3362 enterprises in the province had provided counterpart support for 3552 low-income villages and 1901 poverty relief projects had been launched with investment of 133 million Yuan.

　　【Post-disaster restoration and reconstruction】 In 2010, the government issued 74 million Yuan of special funds for the post-disaster restoration and reconstruction of impoverished villages and launched the infrastructure construction projects in 206 disaster-hit poor villages of four counties affected by Wenchuan Earthquake, namely Ningqiang, Lveyang, Mian County and Chencang.

　　【Mutual funds】 To increase the income of rural households in poor villages, the province effectively implemented the mutual funds for one thousand villages. In 2010, it arranged 290 pilot villages (including 90 national pilot villages) for the project, covering 1,450 low-income villages, and the mutual funds amounted to 320 million Yuan, of which 250 million Yuan was financial anti-poverty funds and 70 million Yuan was benchmark mutual funds paid by rural households. A total of 240 million Yuan of mutual funds were issued to help the masses develop featured competitive planting and breeding industries. Through the implementation of mutual funds project, it helped poor villages to establish long-term mechanisms and effectively alleviated the problem of shortage of development funds.

　　【Convergence of two systems】  On April 14, 2010, according to the state’s unified arrangements, Shaanxi Provincial Government held the work conference on the effective convergence of two systems in the province and selected one county from each of the ten cities as pilot area. At the end of July 2010, the construction of pilot projects was completed and highly praised by the national cross-check group. On September 27, 2010, the provincial government held the videophone conference on the effectively convergence of two systems, summarized the pilot work and made overall arrangements for the convergence of two systems. At the end of 2010, the effective convergence of two systems was basically completed and promoted.

　　【Foreign-funded poverty alleviation】 Total investment to the WB’s Phase V poverty relief project in Shaanxi Province was 435 million Yuan, of which 260 million Yuan was from the World Bank. The project covered 205,000 poor people in 471 impoverished villages of 10 counties in three cities – Yulin, Yan’an and Baoji. The WB’s Phase V poverty relief project officially took effect on September 23, 2010, including the pilot projects in four project counties and 21 project villages. The preparation work has been completed and the project has been launched in the whole province. The WB’s community-based CDD project for Baishui and Pucheng successfully passed the inspection and acceptance in 2009. The cooperative project of Action Aid International, the poverty alleviation project of First Sino Bank in Xunyi and the poverty relief volunteer projects of the Korea International Cooperation Agency in Yaozhou and Changwu County have also been launched and smooth progress has been made.

　　【Pro-poor measures】   I. Strengthen organization and leadership. In 2010, through the convening of provincial poverty alleviation leading group meeting, work conference on poverty alleviation and development in Shaanxi Province, videophone meeting on the action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages, experience-sharing and on-site meeting on “Rain Plan” training and the experience-sharing meeting on "three farewell" in relocation-based poverty alleviation of Xianyang, the government made arrangements for 2010 work in detail and assigned job responsibilities. Xi'an, Xianyang and Yan'an City included poverty alleviation and development into the planning for integrated development of urban and rural areas and constantly increased investment in poverty alleviation and development, which greatly promoted the scientific development of anti-poverty work.

　　II. Strengthen supervision. To complete the annual task of poverty reduction, Shaanxi Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office further strengthened the inspection and guidance to seriously implement the annual plan. In 2010, it successively conducted comprehensive inspection on the implementation of the spirit of the work conference on poverty alleviation and development in Shaanxi Province, the launching of the action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages, progress of governments at all levels in the work over the past six months, the management and use of 2007-2009 financial anti-poverty funds, “Rain Plan” training, construction of key villages for poverty alleviation in 2007, 2007-2008 pilot projects of contiguous development, effective convergence of two systems, poverty alleviation of “two linkages and one contract” and the action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages. Meanwhile, it made propaganda for the action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages jointly with Propaganda Department of Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee. The inspections and model propaganda activities effectively promoted the successful completion of the work.

　　II. Focus on innovation and development. In 2010, Shaanxi Province continued to innovate the ideas and scientific concept of development for poverty reduction. Taking entire village advancement as a platform, Ankang City integrated various poverty relief resources and explored a new path for new rural construction in impoverished areas. Tongchuan, Hanzhong and Baoji City strengthened the measures for poverty reduction by industrialization, especially explored new ways for petty loans and mutual funds for villages and households, which helped people to increase income. The action for one thousand enterprises to support one thousand villages witnessed sustained development and Shaanxi Province successively introduced the experience twice at the work conference on national poverty alleviation. In Yulin City, the leaders attached great importance to the work, built the platform and provided good services, so a larger number of enterprises participated in the poverty reduction. Weinan City actively implemented the “Rain Plan” training program, strengthened the management of training schools and achieved good results in student recruiting, training and employment, having a great influence in the whole province. Combined with rural tourism, Shangluo City carried out featured trainings such as "happy farmhouse" and achieved good results. The pilot projects for the effective convergence of two systems were comprehensively implemented, which was highly praised by the national cross-check group.