Liaoning-Qinghai Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 According to the uniform deployments of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, Liaoning Province started its counterpart support for Nanqu of Tibet, 15 national poor counties of Qinghai Province (till this year), Chongqing City of Three Gorges Reservoir Area (Fengjie County and Zhong County), Hubei Province (Xingshan County), Guizhou Province (Liupanshui City and Zunyi City) and Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang (to the end of 2010) respectively in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2005. After 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, it also assumed the task of post-disaster reconstruction of An County, Sichuan Province. After Yushu Earthquake, it was responsible for the post-disaster reconstruction of Batang Town, Yushu of Qinghai Province. In 2010, the national work conference on support for Xinjiang designated Liaoning Province to support Tacheng of Xinjiang and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Agricultural 8th Division and 9th Division. In 2010, besides the 4 billion Yuan issued to support An County of Sichuan Province, Liaoning had donated 1.913 billion Yuan for the above areas, of which 1.149 billion Yuan was from the provincial government, 411 million Yuan was for Naqu of Tibet, 225 million Yuan for Qinghai Province, 165 million Yuan for Fengjie County of Three Gorges, 148 million Yuan for Kizilsu Prefecture of Xinjiang and 200 million Yuan for Tacheng of Xinjiang and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Agricultural 8th Division and 9th Division, which greatly boosted the economic and social development of the aided regions. Liaoning Province successfully completed the periodical tasks assigned by the central government and the State Council.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】 In 2010, Liaoning Province donated 37.3 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to Qinghai, of which 28 million Yuan was from the provincial government, 2 million Yuan more than that in 2009 (26 million Yuan), and 9.3 million Yuan was from 13 prefecture-level cities and Liaodian Company. In accordance with the “Guidance on 2009-2010 East-West Pairing-off Cooperation in Poverty Reduction” issued by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, Liaoning Province increased efforts on anti-poverty cooperation through entire village advancement, labor transfer and employment training and poverty reduction by industrialization and achieved good results.

　　【Pilot projects of entire village advancement and contiguous development】 In 2010, based on the entire village advancement of 20 villages completed in the previous years, Liaoning Province continued to invest 7 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to implement the “county-based contiguous development and entire village advancement by integrating funds and comprehensive governance” in five impoverished villages, covering 1,221 households and 5,354 people. It focused on the anti-poverty work in three aspects in these five villages: First, based on local conditions and the characteristics of local resources and residents, it invested in vegetable or rapeseed planting and organized villagers to develop selected poverty relief projects; Secondly, it implemented highroad, drinking water, virescence, health care, cultural and other public welfare projects to support the construction of new socialist countryside. Thirdly, it organized political and technical trainings for village cadres and leaders in getting rich to guarantee the smooth and long-term implementation of industrial projects.

　　In order to promote the entire village advancement, Liaoning Province mainly adopted the following measures: 1. Organize experts and scholars to carry out pro-phase research and demonstration to ensure the scientific selection of industrial projects and the long-term poverty reduction effects; 2. Provide each household with a long-term project to help villagers get rich based on their actual situations; 3. In order to promote the durability of villagers’ projects and make the projects develop into large-scale featured industrialization projects, it mainly selected relatively concentrated projects in each village in principle and generally practiced the industrial management mechanism of "company + base + farmers, vegetable growing cooperatives + farmers" on this basis. Through organizing technology trainings, it helped each village master this production technology and practiced unified planting, uniform sales, uniform pest control and unified training to change blood-transfusion poverty reduction into development-oriented poverty alleviation; 4. Construct farmland and water conservancy projects, sanitary latrines, cultural activity rooms and other cultural development projects to improve the living conditions of villagers; 5. Build hardened village roads and construct village improvement and virescence projects to greatly improve the village appearance; 6. Organize more than 120 people to visit Liaoning, including the village committee secretaries, village heads, accountants, leaders in getting rich and transferred young farmers and herdsmen in the five villages involved in entire village advancement, invited experts to give lectures on modern agriculture, planting and breeding technical trainings, and organize relevant persons to visit some new rural construction projects in our province so that the village cadres and leaders in getting rich further clarified their thinking, broadened their horizons, learned the techniques and became more confident in future new rural construction and leading villagers shake off poverty and become rich. At the same time, it organized a six-month welding, lathing and milling skills trainings for 52 transferred youth to Liaoning. As a result, these young men got the certificates of primary skills issued by the Ministry of Labor and achieved employment transfer.

　　Through project implementation, the agricultural production conditions and infrastructure of the project villages have been significantly improved, the planting structure has been obviously optimized, the development of advantageous industries has been accelerated, per household net income growth reached 600 Yuan and significant economic, social and ecological benefits were achieved, laying a solid foundation for achieving the goal of building a socialist new countryside featured “developed production, affluent life, civilized social atmosphere, clean and tidy village appearance and democratic management".

　　【Labor transfer】 Liaoning Province mainly implemented the following training projects in supporting the poverty reduction of Qinghai: First, it organized poor young farmers of Qinghai to receive employment transfer trainings in Liaoning. To promote the employment transfer of the poor young farmers and herdsmen in Qinghai Province, approved by the provincial department of human resources and social security and provincial department of civil affairs, in 2009, Liaoning Employment Transfer Training School was established. Its teaching base covers a land area of 15,000 square meters, including 1,200 square meters for teaching buildings, 1,500 square meters for internship bases, 500 square meters for dining room, 800 square meters for students’ dormitory building, 6,000 square meters for farming teaching lab base and 200 square meters for labor employment training workshop. In order to support the training, the school especially purchased lathing, clamping, riveting, welding devices and other production equipment for production skills trainings; set up modern greenhouses for teaching; and cooperated with the research institutes in the province to provide full-time and part-time teachers. It mainly organized practical skills trainings, etc, with junior technician training qualification. In 2010, it organized a three-month training for 75 young people of Qinghai Province and 50 people from other regions. After three months’ hands-on training, the young people of Qinghai Province all obtained the professional junior technician certificate issued by the state and changed their jobs. Secondly, it organized production skills trainings in local area of Qinghai Province and implemented “Rain Plan” for 4,836 people, including 4,415 people attending short-term skills trainings for 21 professionals including welding, garment processing, cooking, etc, and 421 people receiving medium or long-term professional skills trainings. The short-term training participants basically achieved labor transfer and the per capita income reached 10,000 Yuan a year. Thirdly, it held practical technical trainings for 30,000 poor farmers and herdsmen.

　　【Professional skills training】 It mainly implemented the following training programs: First, in 2010, Liaoning Province completed 6 trainings for 190 people in the in the newly built training school of Liaoning Provincial Economic Cooperation Office, including trainings for county, town and village-level poverty relief cadres and rural leaders in getting rich of Qinghai Province. The main contents included: seminars on counterpart support, trainings of modern facility agricultural production techniques and facilities and field visits with purpose of emancipating the mind and changing ideas. Through attending the trainings, the poverty relief cadres and grassroots cadres further broadened their horizons, changed their ideas, enhanced their modern thinking and sense of urgency for shaking off poverty, further librated their thoughts and updated their values. Secondly, Liaoning Province organized trainings on pro-poor policies, mechanism, project management and poverty monitoring in Qinghai for 657 people. First, it trained 390 cadres for the villages involved in entire village advancement and poverty relief cadres in 2010, which enhanced the project implementation capacity and level. Second, it trained 132 cadres for the development of the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period”, laying a solid foundation for the formulation of the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period”. Third, it organized 44 poverty relief cadres to conduct field research outside the province. Fourth, it held training courses on effective convergence of the two systems and the statistics and monitoring, and 91 cadres from prefecture and county-level poverty alleviation sector attended the trainings and mastered the procedures and methods of operation.

　　【Poverty alleviation by industrialization】 The anti-poverty funds of Liaoning Province are mainly used as loan interest subsidies for 21 poverty alleviation leading enterprises identified by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and Qinghai Province to fundamentally achieve the transformation from “blood transfusion” poverty alleviation to “blood-making” poverty reduction. In addition, based on the joint greenhouse project implemented in 2009, with the aid funds and other project funds, Liaoning organized the project implementation in batches by stages and planned to make Huangzhong County a high-tech demonstration park for agricultural industry in Liaoning so as to optimize local industrial structure and develop featured competitive industries.

　　【Policies and measures】  1. Provincial government attaches great importance to the work and provided correct leadership. The provincial government approved the establishment of the leading group for counterpart support work and relevant governor acted as the head, which further strengthened the leadership. The leading group office is located in Liaoning Provincial Economic Cooperation Office and the leading group made clear the management department of investors and assigned relevant responsibility. Over the years, the provincial government leaders repeatedly went to the assisted areas to inspect and guide anti-poverty work. In addition, despite its difficult financial situation, adhering to the basic principle of "positive efforts, doing the best, stable base, increase year by year", Liaoning Province still gradually increased the investment of anti-poverty funds for the twinned areas. Especially since 2006, it determined the principle of increasing the anti-poverty funds by 10% per year and the aid funds increased from 15 million Yuan in 2005 to 28 million Yuan in 2010, which guaranteed the effective counterpart support.

2. Scientific decision-making and careful management of Liaoning Provincial Economic Cooperation Office. As a functional department of the province to undertake specific work, Liaoning Provincial Economic Cooperation Office conscientiously implemented the provincial government's deployment and made steady progress through scientific decision-making and careful activity-organizing. Based on a gradual increase in the capital, it continuously broadened the work thoughts, expanded the areas of development-oriented poverty alleviation and enriched the forms of poverty reduction. As a result, the counterpart support work of Liaoning Province became systematic, scientific and standardized, achieving the goal of doing solid work and stressing practical results with true love for the poor.

3. Always adhere to the basic principle of improving the “blood-making” function of local areas in the counterpart support. Liaoning Province paid more attention to directly benefiting poor farmers and herdsmen and vigorously promoted entire village advancement, labor transfer training and industrialization-based poverty alleviation. Practice has proved that it is the fundamental principle that must be followed in providing counterpart support to enhance the “blood-making” function of local areas. The main reason why it could be achieved and adhered to was that the organizer always had a high level of political responsibility and wholehearted enthusiasm, taking poverty reduction in Qinghai as its own duty, worked dutifully and developed scientific and standardized regulations on the work.

4. Highlight the priorities of poverty alleviation and do a good job of helping the poor. In 2010, Liaoning Province mainly implemented entire village advancement to improve the production and living conditions of impoverished villages and organized trainings to improve the labor skills of the poor and promote the employment transfer of labors. In order to improve the basic production and living conditions of the masses in impoverished areas and solve the food and clothing problem of rural poor residents, based on local situation, Liaoning strengthened infrastructure construction for farming and pasturing, carried out personnel trainings and exchanges to promote the development of education, culture, health care and other social undertakings, and highlighted the priorities of poverty reduction to promote the development of production, which further liberated and upgraded people’s ideas.

5. Innovate the patterns for poverty alleviation and development and make new progress in counterpart support. In 2010, based on the key work in poverty alleviation of Qinghai, Liaoning Province focused on the construction of typical demonstration projects, specialty agriculture and featured processing projects and kept updating the mechanisms in the implementation of aid projects. In the implementation of entire village advancement, for example, it adopted the industrialization poverty alleviation model of "company + base + farmers, vegetable growing cooperatives + farmers" and achieved unified planting, uniform sales, uniform pest control and unified technical training with a good demonstration effect. As a result, there was an increase of 600 Yuan in per capital annual income and local residents shook off poverty steadily.