Shenzhen - Guizhou Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】Since 1996, Shenzhen has always taken counterpart support for Bijie and Qiannan Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province as an important political task, conducted multi-channel, multi-level aid activities in various forms in education, health care, science and technology, labor cooperation, economic and trade exchanges, training of cadres, social donations and business cooperation, concentrated various anti-poverty funds to address the livelihood problems of the poor such as living, education and health care problems, and strived to make more contributions to building a moderately prosperous and harmonious society. According to incomplete statistics, in 2010, Shenzhen donated 50.8 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to Bijie and Qiannan of Guizhou, of which 42.2 million Yuan was aid project funds, 7.3 million Yuan was disaster relief funds and 1.3 million Yuan was for trainings of cadres. It implemented 105 aid projects to directly benefit 127,000 local residents, including entire village advancement, drinking water projects for human and livestock, irrigation projects, rural roads, rural housing reconstruction, education, health care projects, etc; organized trainings for 850 poverty relief cadres and professionals for education and health care, subsidized 12,000 needy students and organized the export of 15,000 labors.

　　【Working mechanism】 Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government attached great importance to counterpart support for poverty reduction in Guizhou. Main leaders personally took charge of the work and department heads were responsible for specific work. They stressed practical results and seriously implemented the plan. First, the counterpart support work was included into the important agenda of the municipal party committee and government, annual work conference on counterpart support was held to conduct special studies, develop special programs and make special deployments, and the counterpart support was included into the city and district government’s major work to receive assessment; Secondly, improve the working mechanism and strengthen the organization and leadership. The city set up a leading group for counterpart support work. The Mayor and Vice Mayor respectively acted as the Head and Deputy Head. The leading group office is, as a standing body, responsible for the coordination of the city’s counterpart assistance, and various districts also set up relevant agencies to take charge of the counterpart support, forming an east-west pairing-off poverty alleviation structure featured "leadership of special principals, guidance of work plans, supervision and inspection". Thirdly, set up a poverty-relief network through building twinning relationship between districts and counties. To support the counterpart assistance, Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Government designated six districts, Guangming New Districts, three Party Working Committees directly under the municipal government and key state-owned enterprises of the city to build twinning relationship with 11 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development in Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture of Guizhou Province. In 2010, main leaders of relevant districts and units conducted field survey in the twinned poor counties, developed anti-poverty plans and implemented aid projects. Shenzhen Investment Holdings Co., Ltd. was twinned with Sandu Shui Autonomous County and, adhering to the guidance of “helping Sandu equals supporting a nationality”, donated nearly 100 million Yuan to implement 75 aid projects; Shenzhen Energy Group donated more than 5.5 million Yuan to build three schools and set up the County Scholarship Fund for Pingtang County of Guizhou Province, and organized 285 CPC members to carry out "one-for-one" donation activity to subsidize the needy students of Pingtang County.

　　【Management system】 Shenzhen always adheres to institutionalization, standardization and routinization in counterpart support work, makes strict assessment on aid projects, stresses practical results and strives to do good and practical things for the poor. First, carry out anti-poverty work relying on local party committee and government. All aid projects must be approved by county’s relevant department and reported to the county (city) and prefecture government for approval. The county (city) government is responsible for the project construction management; Secondly, do a good job of project investigation and evaluation. Organize relevant experts to carry out field research in Guizhou, apply for projects and conduct inspection on the 2009’s project construction. It also set up an aid project review team composed of relevant experts to directly participate in project survey and demonstration to strengthen social supervision and professional guidance; Thirdly, uphold the publicity system to accept supervision. In order to make the use of anti-poverty funds more transparent to the public, all aid projects must be publicly announced before implementation according to the regulations of Shenzhen City. Through announcing the annual aid projects and the allocation of funds at the government website, it consciously accepts the supervision of all circles of society and financial and audit sector; Fourthly, strengthen the sense of responsibility and implement the responsibility system. Through signing the “Liability Agreement on the Management of Counterpart Support Fund Projects”, they clarified both sides’ responsibilities and obligations and jointly performed the monitoring duties for anti-poverty funds and aid projects.

　　【Capital investment】 According to incomplete statistics, in 2010, Shenzhen donated 50.8 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds to Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture of Guizhou Province, of which: 42.2 million Yuan was from financial departments at all levels, 7.3 million Yuan was disaster relief funds and 1.3 million Yuan was for training of cadres. It implemented 105 aid projects to directly benefit 127,300 local residents, including entire village advancement, drinking water projects for human and livestock, irrigation projects, rural roads, rural housing reconstruction, education, health care projects, etc.

　　【Entire village advancement】 According to the general requirements of “reaching villages and households, entire village advancement” and “ensuring to directly benefit the masses” of the central government on poverty alleviation and development, in 2010, Shenzhen constructed 105 aid projects in Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture of Guizhou Province, including 31 entire village advancement (ecological civilized home) projects; 24 drinking water and irrigation projects and laying of pipeline of 143.63 kilometers; 367 water cellars; 27 highroad projects with total length of 54.3 kilometers; 13 rural house renovation projects for 601 households; 4 education projects and 2 other projects, which directly benefited 127,300 local residents. Good results were achieved in the construction of above projects through entire village advancement and contiguous development. Changshun County of Guizhou Province, for example, integrated various anti-poverty funds to conduct entire village advancement and contiguous development and became a model county in treatment of stony desertification in karst areas and poverty alleviation and development in mountainous areas of Guizhou. In 2010, with Shenzhen’s anti-poverty funds of 1 million Yuan and local matching funds of 246,000 Yuan, the county implemented such projects as house renovation, rural road hardening and drinking water projects for DabaYuan Village and Wengla Village of Zhongba Town, constructed farmers’ sports gym, supermarket, reading room and clinics and achieved good results.

　　【Drought relief】 In March 2010, Guizhou Province suffered the rare serious drought. Shenzhen municipal party committee and government paid high attention to the disaster and immediately sent a message of condolences to Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture. It successively donated 7.3 million Yuan of relief funds to actively support the drought relief and post-disaster reconstruction of the disaster-hit areas. In view of the drought conditions of the disaster-hit areas, Shenzhen allocated the special funds for 14 counties of Bijie and Qiannan Prefecture to construct 24 drinking water and farmland irrigation projects and build 367 water cellars, which effectively improved the conditions of water for production and living of local residents.

　　【Labor service cooperation】 Shenzhen – Guizhou labor service cooperation is an important part of Shenzhen’s counterpart support work. In early March 2010, the Ten Thousand-person Job Fair for Shenzhen – Bijie Experimental Zone Strategic Cooperation in Labor Services opened in Bijie City. Vice President Wang Mingzheng of Guizhou Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, Bijie’s administrative commissioner Zhang Jiyong and Vice chairman of the CPPCC of Shenzhen Municipal Committee Zhang Xiaomin attended the event. The "spring action" was a major measure of Shenzhen to support Bijie and achieve win-win situation of the two places. Human Resources and Social Security Administration of Shenzhen organized 55 enterprises of Shenzhen to provide 19,137 working posts on the fair and more than 11,0000 job seekers attended the event. Shenzhen also signed a long-term strategic agreement on labor service cooperation with Bijie. On November 23 of the same year, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development held in Guiyang City the seminar on pilot work of labor trainings. Relevant principals of Guizhou Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, Shenzhen Counterpart Support Office, Bijie Labor Service Office and Shenzhen Xiechuang Technical School were present at the meeting.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】  From 1996 to 2002, in accordance with the central government’s guidance of development-oriented poverty reduction, through low-interest preferential lending, Shenzhen Economic Cooperation and Development Fund issued a total of 140 million Yuan of loans to support 133 “blood-making” projects in Guizhou and, through “promoting the development of one industry by one project and enriching one regions by one project”, increase the tax and financial sources of poor areas to boost local economic development. Guizhou Xinbang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. set up a production base in Luodian County of Qiannan Prefecture, constructed Ginkgo biloba extract and GMP production lines with loans of 8.75 million Yuan from Shenzhen Economic Cooperation Fund, achieved output value of 2.764 billion Yuan, made profit of 248 million Yuan, paid taxes of 290 million Yuan, accounting for one third of the fiscal revenue of Luodian County, and invested to develop traditional Chinese medicine bases of over 30,000 mu, which lifted 17,300 local rural households out of poverty. In April 2010, Guizhou Xinbang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and became the first listed company of Qiannan Prefecture and a model business in development-oriented poverty reduction.

　　【Training of cadres】 In 2010, in accordance with the poverty relief cadre training plan jointly developed by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and Shenzhen Counterpart Support Office, Shenzhen Managers Training College held a total of 8 training courses for 378 poverty relief and economic management cadres of Guizhou Province. The training contents included: Hot and difficult topics, Shenzhen’s experience, cutting-edge theory, skills and field research. The training forms included: special lectures, field research, study tours, theme seminars, discussions and exchanges. The training topics included "innovative capability building and management ability enhancement", "investment inviting and industrial structure upgrading", "agricultural industrialization" and "small town construction and management", etc. After one decade of unremitting efforts, Shenzhen Managers Training College has done a great deal of work for national training of poverty relief cadres and is regarded by the participants as the "workshop of the reform and opening up". In November 2009, Shenzhen Managers Training College was titled as “Human Resource Construction Base for East-West Pairing-off Cooperation in Poverty Reduction” by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. On November 13, 2010, LGOP Deputy Director-General Wang Guoliang headed a delegation to conduct survey on the poverty relief cadre training and encouraged Shenzhen Managers Training College to make continuous innovation in training of poverty relief cadres and create more good results.

　　【Poverty reduction in education】 Shenzhen Xiechuang Technical School is a Grade-I educational institution in Guangdong Province dedicated to poverty reduction by education. It enrolls the junior and high middle school graduates of needy families in central and western rural areas to continue their studies on a work-study basis so that the children can not only learn practical skills and obtain secondary and senior technician certificates, but also receive secondary school, college or undergraduate education and find jobs in Shenzhen. Parents of the children from rural poor families do not need to pay any fee for their children to receive the education. Instead, the children can earn money for their families. This school’s education-based poverty relief projects have obvious advantages: First, tuition-free education. Local poverty relief departments pay travelling expenses for all eligible students to Shenzhen after they are enrolled. In order to solve the practical difficulties of children from needy families, the school pays students’ training fee, course materials, insurance, lodging, meals and exam fees in advance. The students repay the charges through participating in the school’s work-study program. Secondly, students enjoy scholarships and tuition grants. The students can apply for 1,500 Yuan of state grants and 4,000 Yuan tuition grants per year and can be subsidized for two years. Thirdly, "three certificates" are issued. After students complete the course learning and pass the skills test, Shenzhen Municipal Labor Department will issue the secondary and senior technician certificates and technical school diploma to them. The students who are enrolled to colleges or universities can obtain e-registered college or undergraduate diploma recognized by the state. The school’s education-based poverty alleviation project has the following outstanding characteristics: First, it is conducive to the development of enterprises. The projects can not only ease the short-term labor shortage, but also train technicians for long-term development. Especially the students from poor areas are obviously hard-working and more welcomed by employing units after they receive the professional trainings. Secondly, it is conducive to the training of poor students. All junior high school students from poor families pay "zero fees". They not only don’t need financial support from their families, but can generate economic income of over 30,000 Yuan for their families during the three-year “work-study” period. Thirdly, it is conducive to innovation in vocational education. It helps the students to learn the skills and obtain diplomas and runs schools based on market development and enterprises’ demands, which not only enriched the school-running models for vocation education, but also broadened the channels for vocational education students. In 2010, Shenzhen Xiechuang Technical School enrolled 1,530 students for poverty reduction by education, including 1,080 poor students from Guizhou Province. The school also signed the “Agreement on Shenzhen – Bijie Cooperation in Human Resource Skills Development and Education” with Bijie Labor Service Department of Guizhou Province and planned to transfer employments for 10,000 labors in Bijie during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period. Its poverty relief by education was affirmed and supported by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. On June 30, 2010, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development titled the school as the “Human Resource Construction Base for East-West Pairing-off Cooperation in Poverty Reduction of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development”. On September 21, LGOP Deputy Director-General Zheng Wenkai was present at the Opening Ceremony of the base and Opening Ceremony of 2010 Work-study Students for Poverty Relief by Education. On November 13, LGOP Deputy Director-General Wang Guoliang visited the school, gave instructions on relevant work, fully affirmed its school-running model of work-study with love for impoverished areas and hoped that the school will continue to work hard and create the poverty relief brand of Xiechuang.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 National moral model and representative of Shenzhen’s warmhearted people Cong Fei donated over 3 million Yuan of charity funds during his lifetime to subsidize 178 out-of-school children from impoverished mountain areas and became a symbol of Shenzhen’s love for the poor. Comrade Sun Ying, an outstanding representative of the "Love Action" and "supporting education by recruiting teachers" voluntarily went to Yangchang Town of Dafang County in Guizhou Province to support local education. Over the past five years, through mobilizing social forces to donate for needy students, she has helped more than 300 poor students. She is also responsible for the supervision of the use of anti-poverty funds and helped to build 4 Hope Primary Schools. In December 2010, Sun Ying was titled as one of the "National Top Hundred Outstanding Volunteers" by Civilization Office of the Central Communist Party Committee and was recommended as a candidate of CCTV 2010 "Moving China" Figures. Shenzhen municipal party committee and government granted Sun Ying the title of "Civilization Envoy" and called the city to carry out activities to learn from Comrade Sun Ying. Themed "Sharing One Book Under the Same Blue Sky", Shenzhen Students’ Donation Activity began in 2007. By May 2010, over 130 schools and nearly 200,000 students had participated in this activity and a total of 219,500 books had been collected and delivered to the schools in Weining County and other twinned counties of Shenzhen in Guizhou Province.