Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Foreign Affairs

　　【Overview】 2010 is the last year for the implementation of the "Planning for Poverty Reduction of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006-2010)" and the key year to complete entire village advancement in three kinds of impoverished villages by the end of 2010 as required by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP).

　　Under the guidance of the scientific outlook on development, based on domestic and international situations, after overcoming many difficulties, making innovations and giving play to its advantages, Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs strengthened propaganda for poverty reduction and achieved new breakthroughs in fundraising by multi-channel funding, strengthened and improved the management of poverty alleviation projects, successfully addressed the food and clothing problem of the masses, implemented health care, education, training and entire village advancement projects and achieved remarkable results, which promoted the economic and social development in Jinping and Malipo County.

　　【Anti-poverty funds】 In 2010, the world economy gradually recovered, but the shadow of the global financial crisis has not been cleared, the frequent natural disasters in China, such as the severe drought in five southwestern provinces, Yushu earthquake in Qinghai, landslides in Zhouqu of Gansu and the floods in many southern provinces aroused the concern of all Chinese people at home and abroad and the task of poverty reduction became more arduous, bringing new difficulties and challenges for the anti-poverty work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

　　In 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs broadened thinking and raised anti-poverty funds of 33.07 million Yuan through multi-channel funding, hitting record high, up 60.3%. Concerned about the poverty-stricken areas in Yunnan, subordinated units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, overseas embassies and consulates as well as the offices in Hong Kong and Macao all carried out poverty relief advocacy through various channels and strived to raise anti-poverty funds. With support from overseas embassies and consulates and the offices in Hong Kong and Macao, a total of 23.2 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds was raised and foreign government, companies and friends donated 6.66 million Yuan, accounting for 90.3% of the total, fully showing the efforts made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the field of poverty reduction.

　　At the same time, a growing number of cadres and workers of the subordinated units of Ministry of Foreign Affairs participated in poverty alleviation, donated a total of 1.01 million Yuan and many touching stories happened. Other domestic units and individuals donated more than 2.2 million Yuan. The total of these two figures accounted for 9.7% of the anti-poverty funds of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2010.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds and project implementation】Based on the successful experience, scientific coordination, careful planning and earnest implementation, the Poverty Alleviation Office of Ministry of Foreign Affairs successfully completed the annual poverty relief projects. In 2010, it allocated more than 21 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds, of which 9.05 million Yuan was for Jinping County and 11.18 million Yuan for Malipo County, and 770,000 Yuan of other funds (including consolation money to relevant departments of Honghe Prefecture and Wenshan Prefecture and the drought resisting and disaster relief funds to Wenshan Prefecture and Pu’er City). 77 projects were launched in the two counties, of which 36 were in Jinping County and 41 in Malipo County, including 10 projects to solve food and clothing problem with investment of 2.42 million Yuan, such as drinking water projects and irrigation projects; 20 education projects with investment of 9.35 million Yuan, such as construction of primary and secondary schools, dormitory buildings and toilets and procurement of teaching equipment, books and refrigerators; 10 grant and scholarship projects with investment of 1.96 million Yuan to subsidize poor primary and secondary students and college students and reward excellent teachers, benefiting more than 2000 people; 3 medical service projects with investment of 1.28 million Yuan to help the two counties build hospitals and provide financial aid for the new rural cooperative medical system in the two counties (it benefited nearly 40,000 people in 18 towns); 14 training projects with 240,000 Yuan; 5 entire village advancement projects with 2.92 million Yuan and 15 other projects with 2.07 million Yuan.

　　【Measures】 1. Attach great importance to it and give full play to the role of leaders. Leaders of Ministry of Foreign Affairs attached great importance to poverty reduction and strived to promote anti-poverty work, which was highly praised by relevant ministries of the State Council and local governments and received a positive response from many domestic and foreign donators.

　　Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with donors despite his busy schedule and repeatedly stressed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not stop provide counterpart assistance unless the two counties shake off poverty; During his visit in Malipo County to attend the ceremony for Sino-Vietnamese Land Border Treaty to take effect in July, Vice Minister Zhang Zhijun paid a special visit to local foreign-funded poverty alleviation projects; Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Head of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development Song Tao attended various poverty relief activities and met with donors; At the beginning of 2010, an appreciation meeting on poverty reduction was convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to strengthen propaganda for poverty alleviation; Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held the meeting of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development and put forward new ideas and new requirements for the anti-poverty work under the new situation.

　　With wide social contacts, Honoray Ambassador for Poverty Alleviation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Aimei made propaganda for poverty alleviation by diplomacy and strived to persuade people to donate for poverty reduction, making a great contribution to raising anti-poverty funds. Through the platform of poverty alleviation by diplomacy, Counsellor Le Aimei was actively involved in public diplomacy to promote the friendly relations with the countries concerned. At the end of September 2010, Romanian famous female artists donated paintings to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support the poverty alleviation in Yunnan Province, which greatly promoted the development of friendly relations between China and Romania.

2. Strengthen management to ensure good results of poverty reduction. Head of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development Song Tao clearly pointed out that we must do a good job of poverty alleviation with the enthusiasm and standards for foreign affairs as poverty reduction is actually also a kind of diplomatic work. After it was designated to provide counterpart support for the two counties in 1992, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation with a ministerial leader as the head. Under the Leading Group, it set up an office to take charge of daily management and coordination in anti-poverty work. Meanwhile, special regulations on the management of anti-poverty funds and projects were developed for strict supervision of funding sources to guarantee the scientific management and rational use of anti-poverty funds. With increasing anti-poverty funds and poverty alleviation projects, in 2009, it established a poverty alleviation project and fund database management system, realizing scientific, standardized, informationized and transparent management of anti-poverty funds and projects. In the process of use, the system was gradually improved in 2010. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made timely online announcements on the amount of poverty relief donations and the situation of project implementation on the public information network so that donors are clear about the management and use of the money they donated. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized the donors to visit the two counties for field research. In 2010, relevant leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accompanied 28 batches of 52 donors to visit the two counties for investigation, taking the satisfaction of donors as an important criterion for their work.

3. Adjust their thinking, increase efforts on contiguous entire village advancement in borderline areas and try to introduce anti-poverty funds. Based on the work done over the past decade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed its thinking and turned to focus on entire village advancement in Sino-Vietnamese borderline areas. According to the requirement of entire village advancement in contiguous poor areas with special difficulties put forward by the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development in October 2009, based on the actual situation of poor villages in Jinping and Malipo County, in 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs developed the overall planning and integrated relevant resources to implement two entire village advancement projects in Sumawan Village and Tangzibian Village of Malipo County; and the relocation and economic development projects in Yudong Village of Tongchang Town and Mawo Village of Mengla Town in Jinping County, covering 280 households and 1422 people. Through entire village advancement, great changes took place to the villages’ appearance, local residents became wealthy and the project construction brought significant social and economic benefits.

　　As for inviting anti-poverty funds, Bestseller Company of Denmark is now negotiating with Jinping County on their cooperation in rubber industry, which is an important step of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for introducing foreign funds for poverty reduction. Based on the situation of serious soil erosion and environmental degradation in the two counties, the Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) for cooperation in the field of bamboo cultivation and processing to improve the ecological environment, increase farmers' income and promote local sustainable economic development.

4. Strengthen trainings and attach importance to poverty alleviation by improving consciousness and education level. "Improve consciousness and education first to reduce poverty”. Personnel training is an important part of the fixed-point anti-poverty work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried out more trainings compared with the previous years. For the first time, it held in China Foreign Affairs University the “County and Township Leader Training for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Support the Poverty Alleviation in Jinping and Malipo County”. 31 grassroots cadres from the two counties participated in the theoretical study themed "frontier development and the quality of cadres" and visited the rural areas of Beijing. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also invited the grassroots cadres of the two counties to attend the “Training on Participatory Construction of Harmonious Communities” in Beijing sponsored by China Association for NGO Cooperation and subsidized by German Konrad Adenauer Foundation; invited four excellent teachers of the two counties to participate in the BMW WHF Summer Camp in Beijing; sent one young cadre of Malipo County to participate in the four-month English training in Pakistan and organized rural teacher training in Kunming. Through holding trainings, it enhanced the development awareness and ideas of the county and township cadres at all levels and helped to improve teachers’ teaching ideology and methods, improve classroom teaching quality and enhance the overall quality of teachers.

5. Expand social contacts and strengthen poverty reduction advocacy. With the enhancement of national poverty line and the implementation of entire village advancement, the anti-poverty work in Jinping and Malipo County became more difficult and complicated and a larger amount of anti-poverty funds were needed accordingly. Faced with this situation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs further strengthened poverty reduction advocacy. Through online information release, data presentation and person contact, it made more people understand its anti-poverty work and got more fundraising channels and more partners for poverty alleviation. In 2010, the Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released more than 200 pieces of information on the column of “poverty alleviation by diplomacy” and the "poverty alleviation network” on the website, of which 35 were picture news, 40 were work news, 30 were reports on the two counties and more than 110 were information on donations. Meanwhile, we had 20 “Poverty Alleviation Briefings” printed, issued more than 1,200 poverty reduction publicity materials and designed three "poverty Corners". The "Farmer's Daily" and "China's Poverty Alleviation" printed relevant articles to introduce the anti-poverty work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was also a good propaganda.

　　In 2010, relevant leaders of Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and representatives of Jinping County went to United Arab Emirates (UAE) on invitation to receive the poverty relief donations of the organization committee of "Miss Chinese Cosmos Pageant" Middle East Division of Phoenix TV for the poverty-stricken counties designated to receive the counterpart support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was the first time for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to invite anti-poverty funds from other countries over the past 18 years. It directly contacted the media, local overseas Chinese and donors and made propaganda for diplomatic pro-poor policies and the achievements so that more people will participate in and support its anti-poverty work. Such face-to-face communication had a multiplier effect.

6. Strengthen horizontal communication to promote national policy preferences. Stones from other hills may serve to polish jade. In 2010, the Poverty Alleviation Office of Ministry of Foreign Affairs strengthened the exchange with International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) and Yunnan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office on cooperation in the field of poverty alleviation, attend the meetings on fixed-point poverty alleviation held by LGOP, exchanged experience and delivered speeches; attended the work conference on fixed-point poverty alleviation of central state organs held by Yunnan provincial government in Beijing and the Fourth China - ASEAN Forum on social Development and poverty Reduction held by IPRCC; participated in the seminar on industrial poverty alleviation in Yunnan Province, and went to Yi County of Hebei Province for field research on rural microfinance. Through a series of horizontal communications, we learned from various parties and enhanced the quality of anti-poverty work.

　　To strive for greater support and more investment of the state for the infrastructure construction and economic development in the two counties, Honghe, Wenshan Prefecture and even in the whole province of Yunnan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs actively contacted and communicated with the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Finance, Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Land and Resources and Ministry of Water Resources for policy preferences and financial assistance to support the rapid development of the two counties and two prefectures and speed up the pace of poverty reduction. While making horizontal communication, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also strengthened the cooperation with other ministries in the field of poverty reduction.

7. Support drought resisting and disaster relief. Since autumn 2009, especially in March and April 2010, Yunnan Province suffered a rare and severe drought. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs successively received disaster reports from Yunnan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, Wenshan Prefecture, Malipo County and Jinping County People’s Government. Relevant leaders attached great importance to the disaster relief and promptly sent condolences to Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expressed the care and love of all the cadres and staffs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for affected people in Yunnan. According to the instruction of the leaders, the Poverty Alleviation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took urgent action to actively raise funds for disaster relief. It donated a total of 1.81 million Yuan to Yunnan (690,000 Yuan for Malipo, 470,000 Yuan for Jinping, 500,000 Yuan for Wenshan Prefecture and 150,000 Yuan for Pu'er City) and delivered 183 tons of bottled water worth 934,000 Yuan to the worst-hit county – Malipo, which played an important role in addressing the drinking water problem of the masses, salvaging crops and resuming production.

　　Since it was designated to support the poverty reduction in the two counties in 1992, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has invested a total of 36.21 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds and implemented 204 water conservancy projects, including impounding reservoirs, small cisterns, diversion canals and field irrigation projects. These water conservancy facilities played a significant role in the drought relief.

　　【Review of Decade of Poverty Alleviation and Development】From 2001 to 2010, in accordance with the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2001-2010)" and based on the actual situation of Yunnan, Jinping and Malipo, in addition to the anti-poverty work in four traditional fields – food and clothing, education, health care and training, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs strengthened the implementation of entire village advancement and foreign-funded poverty relief projects in the two counties. Over the past decade, it invested a total of 151 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds in kind and cash in Jinping and Malipo and implemented more than 600 poverty relief projects.

1. Invested more than 31.5 million Yuan in food and clothing projects and implemented more than 100 projects, including drinking water projects for people and livestock, irrigation projects, planting and breeding projects as well as microfinance projects; solved the food, clothing and drinking water problem of more than 100,000 people in the two counties.

2. Put in more than 61 million Yuan in education and implemented more than 200 projects: Built and repaired more than 110 dilapidated buildings of primary and secondary schools (including teaching buildings, dormitories, dining rooms, playground, etc.), subsidized poor students who dropped out of school and rewarded outstanding teachers, covering about 17,000 people, and provided computers, books and other learning equipment and daily necessities for some schools, which greatly improved the teaching environment and conditions in the two counties.

3. Invested more than 23 million Yuan in medical service and implemented more than 80 projects: Built more than 80 county/township hospitals and village-level clinics and subsidized more than 100,000 people to participate in the new rural cooperative medical system; solved the medical service problem of most of the farmers and helped to enhance the health level of the poor.

4. Put in more than 8 million Yuan in training and implemented more than 100 projects: carried out trainings on planting and breeding leaders, rural women, rural doctors and school teachers as well as labor skills trainings, covering laws, health, planting, breeding, literacy, etc. More than 50,000 people from the two counties attended the trainings. It enhanced the consciousness of science and technology and awareness of law of the cadres and masses in poor areas and improved their capacity for production and life.

5. Invested more than 12 million Yuan in entire village advancement and implemented 20 projects: Improved the living conditions and appearance of 20 villages, helped the villages to enhance self-development capacity and increase income and strengthened the villagers’ capacity for democratic management.

6. Put in more than 15 million Yuan in other fields for frost resisting and restoration, drought resisting and disaster relief or as consolation payments for the two counties and funds of disbursement for poverty relief representatives in the two counties.

　　The anti-poverty work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was highly praised by LGOP, Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government as well as the cadres and masses in the two counties. In 2009, the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development added the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a member unit of the Leading Group.