Ningbo-Guizhou Pairing-off Poverty Alleviation

　　【Overview】 2010 is a key year for east-west pairing-off cooperation in poverty reduction. Over the past year, Ningbo municipal party committee and government combined the implementation of the instructions of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development with the implementation of the objectives and tasks of counterpart support during the "Eleventh Five-Year" plan period, always adhered to the working mechanism for municipal authorities and various cities and counties to support the impoverished counties of Guizhou Province through building twinning partnership, enhanced coordination and instructions and, through promoting the visits of municipal leaders’ delegations, holding municipal poverty alleviation work conference to make deployments and organizing the units concerned to carry out project research in the twinned regions, highlighted the priorities, implemented aid projects and successfully completed the scheduled tasks. In July, Deputy Mayor Chen Bingshui headed a party and government delegation of over 70 members to conduct field research in Qiandongnan Prefecture and Qianxinan Prefecture and signed with them the 2010 counterpart support project contracts. According to statistics, in 2010, Ningbo constructed 309 aid projects in Guizhou with investment of 81.85 million Yuan, including 148 aid projects implemented by the government at all levels with investment of 43.15 million Yuan and 161 social poverty relief projects with investment of 38.7 million Yuan. These projects mainly involved the model village building for new rural construction, support for agricultural development, drinking water projects for human and livestock, construction of boarding schools, trainings of township cadres and leaders in new rural construction, practical skills trainings, etc.

　　【Drought relief】 Since October 2009, Qiandongnan and Qianxinan have suffered severe droughts. At the critical moment for drought relief, Ningbo municipal party committee and government promptly sent a message of condolences to the two prefectures and donated 2 million Yuan of relief funds to each of the prefecture. Ningbo’s major news media promptly reported the disaster situation in various forms to create an atmosphere of "one in trouble, all to help". Leaders of Nongbo Poverty Alleviation Office headed delegations to conduct in-depth field survey in the disaster-hit areas and discussed donation and drought relief programs and government aid projects such as drinking water projects for human and livestock and industrial development projects.  Party committees and governments at all levels and the general public actively carried out large-scale disaster relief fund-raising activities. According to statistics, a total of 10.22 million Yuan of relief funds and materials was donated to Qiandongnan and Qianxinan Prefecture, which effectively solved the drinking water problem of human and livestock and boosted the development of key industries in the two prefectures. Covering 86 towns of 8 counties (cities), the donation helped create and transform the pumping, water storage, water delivery and irrigation facilities, solved the drinking water problem of more than 200,000 people and 30 schools and boosted the development of vegetables, tobacco, fruit and nut trees and Angora rabbit breeding industry, helping farmers achieve no reduction in production or income despite the catastrophe.

　　【Construction of model villages and poverty alleviation by industrialization】 In 2010, Ningbo’s aiding units increased investment to the twinned regions in Guizhou, paid more attention to new rural construction and the construction of efficient agriculture demonstration bases and combined infrastructure construction with the support for competitive industries to promote the development of demonstration zones and industrial bases. In 2010, it identified 109 integrated rural development projects in Guizhou and put in 31.19 million Yuan for the project construction, accounting for 70% of total government anti-poverty funds, of which 14.4 million Yuan was for the construction and renovation of 58 model villages and 6.14 million Yuan was for industrial development, involving construction of tea, honeysuckle, thin-skinned walnuts and other agricultural bases to further expand the scale of oil tea and high-quality peach tree planting, long-haired rabbit and blue-shelled-egg duck breeding, etc. Meanwhile, it also introduced Ningbo’s new varieties of high-quality white loquat to Qianxinan Prefecture. In order to enhance the management level of the red bayberry bases with seeds introduced from Ningbo, they invited senior agronomists to give on-site instructions and trainings for red bayberry and white loquat growers. According to statistics, since 2006, Ningbo City has invested a total of 51.53 million Yuan to support the construction of 103 model villages in the two prefectures and completed the new rural construction in 16 poor old revolutionary base villages according to the requirements for poverty alleviation and development by entire village advancement. It invested over 15 million Yuan to construct 13 large-scale efficient eco-agricultural bases and successfully completed the tasks for the 11th Five-Year Plan period. Implementation of these projects has not only greatly improved the production and living conditions in rural mountain areas and increased local farmers' income, but also had a significant demonstration effect on local new rural construction and poverty alleviation by industrialization.

　　【Economic and trade cooperation】 To promote bilateral economic exchanges and cooperation, Ningbo City seized the opportunity to actively guide and built a platform for follow-up services. First, it organized two batches of enterprises to conduct field survey and negotiations with parties concerned in Guizhou on cooperation in medicine, water and electricity field and reached an intention of cooperation in construction of Chinese herbal medicine production and processing bases and development of small hydropower resources. Secondly, through holding tea expos, Zhejiang investment and trade symposiums and food fairs, it actively supported over ten food production and processing enterprises of Guizhou Province to participate in the fairs and introduce their products in Ningbo to seek cooperation and expand product marketing channels. Thirdly, track the development of the enterprises it invested in Guizhou such as Fenghua Yile Food Co., Ltd, actively helped the companies to coordinate with local governments for problem solving, provided related services and guided the enterprises to increase investment for further development.

　　【Exchange and training of cadres】 In order to help the cadres of its twinned regions to broaden their visions, learn new knowledge and enhance their capacity to meet the new needs of rural reform and development, in 2010, Ningbo increased efforts on two-way exchange and learning and personnel training. It held 9 seminars in the twinned regions and western areas, received four batches of temporary cadres and trained 635 cadres and technical persons for the twinned regions. Ningbo held one new rural construction training course respectively in Qiandongnan Prefecture and Qianxinan Prefecture and 174 township cadres attended the trainings. Various counties, cities and districts held three training courses: Xiangshan County and Ningbo Municipal Economic Commission jointly held a training course for Huangping county of Qiandongnan Prefecture to enhance the leaders’ ruling ability and more than 70 leaders of relevant authorities and township cadres attended the event; Jiangbei District organized a training of cadres for Ceheng County of Qianxinan Prefecture and 30 people were present at the meeting; Cixi City held a cadre training course for Leishan County of Qiandongnan Prefecture and 40 people attended the event. The Municipal Organization Department received 8 temporary division-level cadres sent by Qiandongnan and Qianxinan Prefecture for six-month experience learning; the Municipal Education Bureau received two batches of 50 outstanding headmasters to act as temporary cadres in Ningbo for one semester; the Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce received 20 cadres in the field of industry and commerce to attend a one-month training in Ningbo.

　　【Labor transfer】 In 2010, Ningbo City organized large-scale human resources companies and related businesses to negotiate with Qiandongnan and Qianxinan Prefecture of Guizhou on labor service cooperation for three times and reached the cooperation agreement on labor transfer trainings in Guizhou. Meanwhile, Ningbo’s Chi Mei, Ling Mao, Younger, Shenzhou and other enterprises needing a large number of employees also set up skilled personnel training bases in Guizhou.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In 2010, while continuing the donation for education of Taiwanese compatriot Mr. Zhu Yinglong and the "warm lunch" activity, Ningbo City put more emphasis on the construction of the normalized and sustained long-term mechanism, the improvement of the supervision mechanism and the integration of poverty relief forces. It actively looked for love resources, published online donation information according to law and organized warmhearted people to learn how their donated funds were used for many times. Meanwhile, it cooperated with relevant units to carry out the "care package" and "Singing Dong Choir on the World Expo" event. Various authorities attached great importance to social poverty relief and made full use of department advantages to mobilize enterprises to participate in the anti-poverty work. Ningbo City Buddhist Association, Seven-Pagoda Temple, Buddhist Lodge and other religious and charitable organizations were dedicated to social assistance work, donation for drought relief, student assistant and the project construction of "Water Cellar for Mothers". With love for the twinned regions, the donation upsurge was set off again among the citizens. In 2010, in addition to more than 26 million Yuan donated by Mr. Zhu Yinglong for school building, more than 12 million Yuan of social aid funds were used in the counterpart support, which was the largest amount over the years. Ningbo’s program of "student assistance by ten thousand people" was commended for the Third Zhejiang Charity Award Nomination by Zhejiang Provincial People's Government.