Poverty Alleviation and Development in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

　　【Overview】 In 2010, under the guidance of scientific outlook on development, focusing on coordinated development of mountain areas, through combining local poverty relief with off-site relocation, natural resource development with environmental protection, infrastructure construction with social development, and project support with intellectual development, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region vigorously promoted poverty alleviation and development, significantly improved the infrastructure in poor areas, accelerated the pace of agricultural industrial structure adjustment, made new progress in social development and new rural construction and curbed the trend of deterioration of ecological environment. The rural per capita net income rose from 2916 Yuan in 2009 to 3415 Yuan in 2010, with an increase of 499 Yuan, up 17.1%, and the growth rate was above the regional average of 15.5%.

　　【Poverty reduction program】 2010 is the last year for the implementation of the outline for the poverty alleviation and development in the first decade of the new century and the “11th Five-Year Plan”, and the crucial year for the development of the outline for the poverty alleviation and development in the next decade and the 12th Five-Year Plan. After summarizing the experience in poverty alleviation and development in the past decade, based on extensive survey and research and expert demonstrations, Ningxia completed the drafting work of “Planning for Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development of Ningxia (2011-2020)”, “Planning for Poverty Alleviation in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period”, “Planning for the Contiguous Development in Poor Areas with Special Difficulties in Liupanshan” and “Special Planning for Labor Migration”, and started the preparation of the planning for a new round of entire village advancement. These programs highlighted “five combinations”: First, combine central agriculture-benefiting measures with local agriculture-benefiting measures; Second, combine with a series of west development strategies in the autonomous region; Third, combine with the major measures for integrated urban and rural development in the autonomous region; Fourth, combine with the development of featured industries in impoverished areas; Fifth, combine with the special programs of various sectors and departments.

　　【Issuance of anti-poverty funds】 In 2010, the state allocated 742 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to Ningxia and the autonomous region issued matching funds of 40 million Yuan. Aiding units (including the twinning counties, cities and districts) invested 115 million Yuan and entire village advancement (including contiguous development) integrated 860 million Yuan from various departments and sectors and 9 million Yuan of interest subsidy was issued to guide financial institutions to provide poverty relief loans of 240 million Yuan.

　　【Entire village advancement】 2010 is the last year for the implementation of entire village advancement for the third batch of 298 key villages in Ningxia. In accordance with the overall objective of “poverty reduction, income growth, gap narrowing, development promotion and building a harmonious society” and the overall requirements for new rural construction, various counties and cities (districts) strengthened coordination, integrated resources,  strengthened the responsibility and took effective measures to promote poverty alleviation and development by entire village advancement. In 2010, 576 million Yuan was issued, averagely 1.93 million Yuan for each village, which lifted 138,000 people out of poverty. The key villages basically achieved the goal of "four accesses and ten possessions" (access to road, water, bus and information; possession of primary schools in villages or nearly schooling; possession of clinics in villages, offices and party cultural centers in villages, nearby agricultural technical or farming service stations, production and living means shops in villages, leading industries or featured competitive industries in villages, mutual funds in villages, income growth projects for households, training of one labor force for each household, per capita high-standard basic farmland of 1-3 mu, one safe house for each household, and new energy facilities for more than 50% of the rural households).

　　【Labor transfer training - Rain Plan】 In 2010, Ningxia Leading Group for the Development of Labor Service Industry arranged middle and long-term trainings of 5000 people in poor villages, issued 8 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for professional skills trainings of “two backward students” in impoverished areas, clarified the responsibility of county (district) poverty alleviation offices and training schools and strengthened the supervision on trainings, which ensured enough training personnel, training time, training courses and good training effect. Based on the needs of enterprises for employees, the autonomous region government conducted inspection, the city, county (district) government organized students and enterprises and training schools carried out basic skills trainings for “two backward students” to achieve the effective convergence of labor trainings and labor transfer. In 2010, the autonomous regions exported 680,000 person-times and the labor service income was nearly 4 billion Yuan.

　　【Industrialization and leading enterprise of poverty alleviation in poor areas】 In 2010, in order to achieve the construction objective of “four one-million mu” (i.e.: one-million mu of facility agriculture, one-million mu of film moisture rainwater harvesting for supplemental irrigation water-saving agriculture, one-million mu of Yanghuang supplemental irrigation water-saving agriculture and one-million mu of water-wanted industries), Ningxia government allocated 25.57 million Yuan of “Three West” funds and Fujian-Ningxia pairing-off poverty relief funds for the development of regional featured industries, mainly potato, juncao, vegetable and modern facility agriculture. Meanwhile, to make poverty alleviation leading enterprises play a more active role in increasing farmers’ income and alleviating the poor’s fund shortage problem for development of income-generating projects, the government issued interest subsidy of 9 million Yuan to 31 poverty alleviation leading enterprises and more than 20,000 poor rural households, which encouraged the issuance of 240 million Yuan of poverty relief loans.

　　【Relocation for poverty reduction】Ecologic poverty relief relocation: Since the implementation of pilot projects in 2008, by the end of 2010, Ningxia had approved the resettlement of 160,800 immigrants involved in ecologic poverty relief relocation, 122,000 people settled down, houses of 1.9 million square meters were built, farmland of 277,000 mu was developed and 2.89 billion Yuan was invested.

　　Labor service relocation: In 2010, Ningxia integrated anti-poverty funds of 53.2 million Yuan to build 14 labour migration rental housing settlements in the downtown, industrial parks and industrial bases in Yinchuan, Shizuishan, Wuzhong, Guyuan and Zhongwei City. A total of 2,084 sets of houses of 66,000 square meters were built for 8,336 people. 597 sets of renting houses of 19,800 square meters were constructed for migrant workers in six settlements, namely Xiyuan Community in Xixia District of Yinchuan City, Lingwu Cashmere Industrial Park, Ningxia Yineng Company, Shizuishan Industrial Park, Qingtongxia Yuhuang Brewing Company and, Xiahua Meat Company, and the other construction task will be completed by the end of May 2011. In order to make it convenient for the two-way selection between enterprises and poor labors, Ningxia Poverty Alleviation Office successively made relevant propaganda in Xinhua News Agency, Ningxia TV, Huaxing Times and other news media and successively organized enterprises’ principals to carry out the convergence work in 8 national key counties for three times. Relevant enterprises successfully recruited more than 350 employees meeting relevant conditions.

　　【County-based pilot projects of contiguous development】 In accordance with the principle of openness, fairness and rightfulness, Ningxia determined Jingyuan, Longde and Tongxin County as the pilot counties for the “county-based entire village advancement and contiguous development by integrating funds” in 2010. The three pilot counties all set up leading agencies, developed implementation plans and management system, integrated the funds of various departments (sectors) and designed and launched some projects that year. At the same time, 2010 is also the last year for the implementation of pilot projects of the “county-based entire village advancement and contiguous development by integrating funds” in Yanchi, Yuanzhou, Xiji and Pengyang. In 2010, 286 million Yuan of department (sector) funds was integrated for the agricultural infrastructure facility and industrial projects in four counties (districts), covering 21 towns, 67 administrative villages and 110,600 people. Through the implementation of pilot projects, the number of the poor in the four counties (districts) decreased by 29.6%.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】In 2010, the central state organs (enterprises) designated to provide counterpart support for the key counties for poverty alleviation and development in Ningxia conscientiously implemented the spirit of the “Notice on Promoting Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation” jointly issued by the General Office of the Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council and increased efforts on fixed-point poverty alleviation. Ministry of Railway put in anti-poverty funds of 5 million Yuan for the infrastructure construction and farmer trainings in the immigrant settlements for education and ecologic relocation in Yuanzhou District, Guyuan City; Song Ching Ling Foundation invested 1.8834 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to buy 15 ambulances for the maternal and child care service centers, hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine and township hospitals in Pengyang County of Guyuan City. The 14th joint meeting on Fujian-Ningxia pairing-off poverty reduction was successfully held in Fuzhou City of Fujian Province; Fuzhou City sent the sixth and seventh batch of cadres to Ningxia and held the conference on “Ningxia-Fujian Economic and Trading Cooperation”. A series of exchange activities were carried out with the leading enterprises for agricultural industrialization in Fujian and Taiwan. In 2010, Fujian Province and the aiding counties and districts invested a total of 48.5 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds.

　　The units designated for fixed-point poverty alleviation in Ningxia conscientiously implemented the spirit of the work conference of Ningxia on poverty alleviation and development, actively donated money and materials to solve the difficulties of the poor in production and life. A total of 34.6 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds was invested. Ningxia Military Region and Ningxia People's Armed Police Corps successively sent more than 7000 officers and soldiers to support the afforestation, drought resisting and disaster relief in Hongsipu District, Xiji County and Longde County. Ningxia Military Region also donated computers worth 1 million Yuan to 9 primary and secondary schools in Hongsipu District.

　　【Cadre training in poor areas】In 2010, Ningxia allocated 1 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for the cadre trainings of poverty-stricken areas. Through combining theoretical study and field visits, it held two trainings for 100 township leaders, two trainings for 100 party committee secretaries of key villages, one training course for 50 university graduate village cadres and five training courses for 250 industrial leaders as well.

　　【Mutual funds】 On June 3, 2010, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Party Committee and Government organized the “On-site Meeting on Mutual Funds Projects in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region”. Vice Secretary of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Party Committee Yu Gesheng, Vice Director of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region People’s Congress Ma Xiufen and Vice Chairman of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region People’s Government Hao Linhai addressed the meeting. In 2010, a total of 89.25 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds was allocated (including 14.25 million Yuan allocated by LGOP) and 341 new project villages were built according to the standard of 300,000 Yuan for each big village and 200,000 Yuan for each small village. Two 1000-household eco-relocation villages were arranged in Tongxin County of Wuzhong City, 2 million Yuan for each village. 29 eco-relocation villages in farming system were included in the project construction, and ten villages were built that year. Pilot mutual funds were launched in the whole county of Yanchi in Wuzhong City, covering all the 89 poor villages in the county. So far, the mutual funds were established in 770 poor villages in Ningxia, accounting for 54.8% of the total poor villages; the projects covered 128 towns in 21 counties (cities, districts) and the total investment amounted to 320 million Yuan. 103,000 rural households participated in the mutual funds and 460,000 people benefited from the mutual funds.

　　【Convergence of two systems】 The pilot work of effective convergence of two systems is a basic work for the poverty alleviation and development in the next decade. Based on the pilot projects, in October 2010, the effective convergence of two systems was implemented in 8 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development and in Hongsipu District. The counties (districts) founded the leading groups for the pilot work with government leaders as the heads and principals of relevant departments such as poverty alleviation department, financial sector, civil affairs bureaus, disabled federation and statistics department as members, developed implementation plan and guideline for pilot work and organized business knowledge trainings for the working staff. Through propaganda, object recognition, information entry, data filing, etc, 9 counties (districts) identified and confirmed a total of 563,000 poor people (based on the poverty line of 1350 Yuan)