Tianjin-Gansu Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 Tianjin conscientiously implemented the spirit of the Fifth Forum on Work in Tibet and the work conference on western development, explored new areas and new initiatives with an accurate understanding of the new situation of east-west pairing-off poverty reduction and targeting at new tasks and achieved positive progress, constantly moving towards the goal of highlighting key points and comprehensively promoting Tianjin-Gansu pairing-off poverty alleviation.

　　In 2010, Tianjin donated a total of 41 million Yuan in kind and cash to Gansu Province, of which 20 million Yuan was issued by the city government to support annual counterpart assistance for Gansu. Tianjin City organized over 100 trainings for medical service personnel and poverty relief cadres. Exchange visits between the two places reached 370 person-times, including three provincial and ministerial visits. The Work Conference on Tianjin’s Counterpart Support and East-West Cooperation and the Meeting of Tianjin Leading Group for Counterpart Assistance in Poverty Alleviation were successively convened to summarize the results and experience of twinning poverty alleviation, convey and implement the spirit of the meetings of the central government and make arrangements for anti-poverty work.

　　To celebrate the 14th anniversary of Tianjin-Gansu pairing-off cooperation in poverty reduction and to express gratitude to Tianjin City for its support for the residents of Zhouqu affected by severe debris flows, Gansu Province arranged two performances of dance drama of "Romance on the Silkroad", fully indicating the deep friendship between the people of the two places.

　　【Anti-poverty mechanism】 Based on the actual situation, Tianjin further strengthened its organization, adjusted the former leading group for western development and set up a high-level leading group for counterpart support. Central Politburo Member and Secretary of Tianjin Municipal Party Committee Zhang Gaoli acts as the head, Deputy Secretary of Tianjin Municipal Party Committee and Mayor Huang Xingguo acts as the first deputy head, Member of the Standing Committee of CPC Tianjin and Executive Vice Mayor Yang Dongliang, Member of the Standing Committee of CPC Tianjin and Director of Organization Department Shi Lianxi and Vice Mayor Li Wenxi act as the deputy heads, with the principals of 14 units as the members. The Leading Group Office is in Tianjin Office of Cooperation and Exchange, providing a solid organization guarantee for the counterpart assistance and east-west pairing-off poverty reduction. Various counties, districts and departments also arranged special agencies and staffs to take charge of the work, building a three-dimensional network, which consolidated the basis for anti-poverty work and effectively promoted east-west pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction.

　　【Policies and measures】 With an increasing amount of anti-poverty funds and a growing number of projects for the counterpart support, to further standardize and improve the management of counterpart assistance funds and projects, Tianjin Commission for Discipline Inspection, Tianjin Municipal Finance Bureau, Tianjin Municipal Audit Bureau, Tianjin Municipal Supervision Bureau and Tianjin Municipal Office of Cooperation and Exchange jointly drafted the "Interim Measures of Tianjin City for Management of Counterpart Support Funds and Projects", the "Implementation Regulations of Tianjin City on Management of Counterpart Support Projects" and the ""Implementation Regulations of Tianjin City on Management of Counterpart Support Funds" to guide the counterpart support work.

　　【Focus on supporting Tibet】 According to the requirements of the Fifth Forum on Work in Tibet and the "Circular on Strengthening Tianjin-Gansu Pairing-off Cooperation for Poverty Reduction" (Guo Kai Ban Fa [2010] No. 51) issued by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP), in consultation with the Gansu Province, Tianjin’s annual anti-poverty funds for counterpart support for Gansu will mainly be used to support Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County. After the "May 12th" earthquake, in accordance with the overall planning for post-disaster reconstruction in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Tianjin donated 8.3 million Yuan to the disaster-hit areas of Gansu, of which 4.8 million Yuan was used to construct helio-greenhouses and plastic greenhouse vegetable growing projects in Zhouni, Lintan, Zhouqu, Diebu and Xiahe – five key counties for poverty reduction which were severely affected by the earthquake, and a total of 2000 standard greenhouses were set up, including 1,800 helio-greenhouses and 200 plastic greenhouses. The projects generated considerable economic benefits, accelerated the pace of post-disaster reconstruction in Gannan Prefecture, promoted local agricultural structure adjustment and increased the income of farmers and herdsmen, widely praised by local cadres and the masses. After severe debris flows happened to Zhouqu County, Tianjin again donated 20 million Yuan and the social forces and citizens all donated money and materials to support the residents of Zhouqu.

　　To better understand the status of poverty in Tibetan areas of Gansu Province, from November 19 to 25, 2010, Tianjin sent a research group to Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County for field survey to learn actual situation, analyze local strengths and weaknesses and find out a breakthrough in poverty alleviation to lay a good foundation for the development of future pro-poor policy.

　　【Poverty reduction by project construction】The counterpart support projects in 2010 mainly included contiguous development of whole villages and whole watersheds, industrialization projects for income growth, rural infrastructure construction and practical technical trainings, etc. The government of the 14 districts (counties) of Tianjin provided twinning assistance based on their actual situations and the characteristics of the twinned counties and implemented a number of poverty relief projects to promote the anti-poverty work. The effective demonstration of the city and district government played a good leading role, so the city’s counterpart support poverty alleviation work has entered a new phase.

　　It is the key to poverty reduction to make good use of the relief funds and correctly select anti-poverty projects. According to the guiding line of “east-west cooperation for poverty reduction”, under the principle of doing practical work and seeking effectiveness, in order to address the most direct, most urgent and most practical livelihood problems of local poor people, Tianjin and Gansu carefully selected projects and carried out relevant investigations and demonstrations to ensure all the anti-poverty funds were effectively used. In 2010, Tianjin further strengthened support for entire village advancement, industrial development and the projects to increase the income of farmers. The project construction helped to lift the impoverished areas of Gansu out of poverty, boosted the sound and rapid development of the regions with relatively good conditions and improved the infrastructure restricting the economic development of poverty-stricken areas.

　　【Poverty reduction in education】  In 2003, Tianjin began to jointly run vocational schools with Gansu Province. In 2006, in order to strengthen the cooperation and speed up the pace of cooperation, Tianjin Municipal Education Commission and Gansu Provincial Department of Education signed the "Memorandum of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission and Gansu Provincial Department of Education on Strengthening Counterpart Support for Further Development of Vocational Education" and the "Training Plan for Ten Thousand Secondary Vocational School Students". Taking advantage of the resources of vocational education and the employment strength of Tianjin City, within three years, they jointly trained more than 10,000 students from impoverished areas. Meanwhile, Tianjin Municipal Education Commission decided to allocate 2 million Yuan to issue one-time subsidy of 200 Yuan for each of the students in Tianjin from Gansu Province and help them to complete the secondary vocational education and find jobs. So far, 30,000 students of the vocational schools in Tianjin are from Gansu Province.

　　In addition, Tianjin and a few secondary vocational schools of Gansu Province also sent exchange teachers and cadres, carried out work-study activity and practiced flexible education system in some colleges to actively explore ways and means for free vocational education. Taking advantage of the strength of its teacher training bases for national secondary vocational education, Tianjin trains 20 professional teachers for the secondary vocational schools in Linxia.

　　【Poverty reduction by personnel training】To build the new-type personnel team, Tianjin carried out multi-level human resources trainings. In view of the low level of medical services and weak publicity for new medical reform policy in impoverished areas of Gansu Province, they invited the principals of relevant divisions of Tianjin Bureau of Public Health and experts of Tianjin People's Hospital and Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital to give lectures and organized the trainees to visit the medical service agencies in communities. Based on its characteristics, Tianjin has formed the district-level medical system and mature and smooth operating mechanism, which is of great reference significance for remote regions and minority areas.

　　Through combining study in Tianjin with field survey in relevant provinces and cities, combining classroom teaching with field research, and linking seminar holding with analysis of common problems, the trainings achieved good results. Many participants said that the training themes were carefully selected, the field visits had strong pertinence and the training provided them with new ideology and opened up new areas of thinking. According to the "satisfaction survey", 100% of the trainees were satisfied with the trainings. The trainings conformed to the guiding line of "great pattern of poverty reduction", complied with the cooperation and exchange function in the new era and further promoted the multi-level all-round friendly relationship between Tianjin and Gansu Province.

　　【Labor transfer】Tianjin and Gansu Province actively promoted their labor service cooperation to promote the effective transfer of the labors in Gansu Province. Since Tianjin and Gansu signed the “Agreement on Strengthening the Cooperation in Labor Transfer and Training” in 2009, 12 cities (prefectures) including Lanzhou and Wuwei of Gansu and 12 technical schools such as Gansu Provincial Senior Technical School for Non-ferrous Metal Research respectively signed cooperation agreements with 12 large-scale employing units including Tianjin Wanke Logistic Service Company and 12 technical schools such as Tianjin Institute of Industrial Technicians in Tianjin City. In 2010 Tianjin Trade Fair, the county and district bureaus of human resources and social security in Tianjin, Foxconn, Goubuli Steamed Stuffed Buns and other famous enterprises carried out a new round of labor service matchmaking with Gansu’s city and county labor service departments and ten technical schools. The human resources and social security departments of the two places jointly held in Tianjin the "Recognition Meeting of Outstanding Workers of Gansu Province in Tianjin" and rewarded 50 outstanding workers.

　　Tianjin has become an important destination of labor transfer of Gansu Province and Gansu has also become an important labor pool for Tianjin. Tianjin has set up the labor export base and labor transfer training base in the city to strengthen the "tailored" training and "oriented" training.

　　While actively encouraging and supporting enterprises to attract workers from Gansu Province, Tianjin also ensured their stable work in the city. Due to the impact of the global financial crisis, many companies in Tianjin have decreasing economic benefits and reduced employees. However, the enterprises employing workers from Gansu and the labor transfer bases all promised not to reduce workers from Gansu Province, which eased the workers’ worries. Currently, the number of workers in Tianjin from Gansu reaches 100,000. They mainly serve machinery manufacturing, electronic processing, catering and domestic service and have become the new force of many enterprises.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In the anti-poverty work, Tianjin gave full play to the strengths of various sectors, actively mobilized social forces to participate in poverty reduction and strived to explore the “great pattern” of poverty reduction featured “government leadership, cooperation of various sectors and social participation”.

　　The three-year Tianjin – Gansu counterpart support activity of hospitals was launched in July. The first batch of 50 experts of 22 majors from 17 hospitals of Tianjin City was sent to 10 county-level hospitals of Gansu for counterpart assistance. Through clinical services, personnel training, technical guidance, equipment support, etc, they helped county hospitals to improve medical service capacity. According to the counterpart support agreement between the two places, Tianjin’s aiding hospitals will also receive staffs of the county hospitals of Gansu to study for free in Tianjin in batches by stages.

　　Guanghe County Hope Primary School of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture funded by Tianjin People's Broadcasting Station has been completed and put into operation. Since Tianjin Radio Binhai and Tianjin Art Radio launched the "Response to Distance Call – Activity to Support the Construction of Gansu Guanghe Hope Primary School" in 2009 jointly with Ethnic Affairs Commission of Tianjin and Tianjin Youth Development Foundation, a total of 500,000 Yuan was raised for the construction of the teaching buildings of Guanghe Hui and Dongxiang Primary Schools in Linxia of Gansu.

　　Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone and Labor Office of Gansu Provincial People's Government also held in Gansu the "Matchmaking Meeting on Tianjin - Gansu Labor Service Cooperation and Vocational Training". Both sides signed the "Cooperation Agreement on Supply of Human Resources", officially established the long-term mechanism for the cooperation between Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone and Gansu Province in the supply of human resources, and built a matchmaking platform between Tianjin’s enterprises and the labor transfer bases and training schools of Gansu Province.

　　Meanwhile, Tianjin Women's Federation, Tianjin Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League and Tianjin Municipal Education Commission carried out targeted counterpart support work based on their own advantages and increased efforts on guiding the women of Gansu to come to work in Tianjin, providing free trainings, raising disaster relief materials, sending volunteers to impoverished areas of Gansu, supporting education and teaching trainings, gradually forming a network system and working mechanism for all circles of society to participate in the east-west pairing-off cooperation for poverty reduction in the whole city.