Poverty Alleviation and Development in Shandong Province

　　【Overview】 In 2011, based on the key areas for support and the guiding ideology set by the provincial party committee and government, in the poverty alleviation and development, Shandong Province concentrated forces to solve the rural poverty problem in impoverished mountain areas, the Yellow River Beach, saline and waterlogging areas, reservoir areas and the regions concentrated with minorities. The entire village advancement program supported 200 poor villages to construct income-generating projects, the industrial poverty alleviation program helped strengthen the demonstrating role of 14 poverty alleviation leading enterprises and the Rain Plan trained and transferred 10,000 poor rural labors. Meanwhile, it increased 170 pilot villages for mutual funds and arranged five counties for pilot survey on poverty alleviation statistics monitoring. The province organized poverty alleviation investigations to make clear the poverty situation in rural areas and formulated the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in Rural Areas of Shandong Province (2011-2020)” and the “Work Program on Implementing the Objectives and Tasks of the ‘Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in Rural Areas of Shandong Province (2011-2020)’” jointly with relevant departments. The poverty alleviation and development in the new decade has a good start and took a big step forward. The province mobilized all circles of society to get involved in the anti-poverty work, creating a large-scale "trinity" poverty alleviation pattern integrating special poverty alleviation, industrial poverty alleviation and social poverty alleviation.

　　【Poverty alleviation research】 We provided relevant data for the preparation of the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in Rural Areas of Shandong Province (2011-2020)". Before and after the Spring Festival of 2011, the provincial poverty alleviation office, jointly with the provincial development and reform commission and the provincial department of finance, carried out the survey on rural poverty situation, the provincial and city poverty alleviation offices wrote 17 research reports and prepared the “Research Reports on Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development in Shandong in 2011”. The survey results show that Heze, Linyi, Liaocheng, Binzhou and Dezhou had a large poor population who lived in deep poverty. At the end of 2010, these five cities’ per capita net income of farmers and local fiscal revenue per capita respectively accounted for 62% and 36% of the provincial average. Jointly with the provincial statistic bureau, based on 14 specific indicators in three categories, namely the income of farmers, agricultural production and farmers’ livelihood, we selected 200 towns with the most difficult financial situation from the 1868 towns in the province, prepared the “Distribution Map of 200 Impoverished Towns of Shandong Province” and identified 3000 poorest villages as the key targets of the anti-poverty work in the province during the 12th Five-Year Plan period.

　　【Entire village advancement】 The province integrated the central and provincial financial anti-poverty funds to support the 22 poor counties, 200 impoverished villages and the objects of poverty reduction with farmers’ per capita net income of less than 2100 Yuan in five types of poor regions. First, support poor villages to strengthen agricultural production and infrastructure construction. It developed 1.2 million mu of barren hills, built roads of 130 kilometers to facilitate production, dug 112 motor-pumped wells and erected 56 kilometers of transmission lines to improve the basic production conditions. Second, support poor villages to develop income-generating leading industries. It did a good job of contiguous development planning. Focusing on fruit, forest and vegetable planting and livestock breeding, it arranged financial anti-poverty funds of at least 300,000 Yuan for each poor village to boost the sound and rapid development of leading industries. Third, support poor villages to establish professional cooperative production organizations. It set up 28 specialized cooperatives for vegetable planting and livestock breeding to provide timely pre-production, production and post-production services for the farmers of poor villages, solving the difficulties in operations such as the lack of supply of seedling, production technology guidance and sales information.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 Since 2011, the provincial poverty alleviation office and provincial department of finance no longer arrange the central anti-poverty discount funds to support poverty alleviation leading enterprises. Instead, the province used the anti-poverty discount funds of 5 million Yuan issued by the central government for Zibo, Jining, Dezhou, Binzhou, Liaocheng and Heze City to independently support the agricultural product processing enterprises. The provincial government required that in the allocation of project discount funds, priority must be given to national or provincial poverty alleviation leading enterprises; and the rural household discount funds must be used to support the poor villages and rural households in the key counties for provincial poverty alleviation. The discount funds guided the planning of 148.59 million Yuan of loans for poverty alleviation leading enterprises and poor rural households, of which 2.5 million Yuan was discount funds for 14 enterprises’ construction projects and guided the issuance of loans of 88.4 million Yuan; 2.5 million Yuan was discount funds for 4580 rural households and guided the issuance of loans of 60.19 million Yuan. The arrangements of the funds supported the development of small and medium-sized agricultural product processing enterprises in poor areas and helped the poor solve the problem of shortage of funds in the development of production.

　　【Pilot poverty alleviation projects】 Do a good job of pilot work for poverty reduction and explore ways to establish and improve the poverty alleviation and development mechanisms.

　　Steadily expand pilot area for mutual funds. At the end of 2011, the number of pilot counties of mutual funds for villagers’ development in impoverished villages of the province reached 28 and the number of mutual fund associations and mutual funds cooperatives in impoverished villages reached 688. The amount of the mutual funds came to 167 million Yuan, of which 115 million Yuan was financial anti-poverty funds, 51 million Yuan was share capital of members and 1 million Yuan was donations and reserves. These mutual aid fund organizations had issued a total of 496 million Yuan of loans to 99,000 poverty-stricken households, helping the objects of poverty reduction address the difficulties in obtaining loans from financial sector as they once had to provide guarantee or collateral and wait for a long time for the loans in the past.

　　Continue the pilot work of effective convergence of the two systems. 2 million Yuan of funds was arranged for the pilot convergence of the two systems in Huangsheng Town of Zhanhua County to support 24 villages and 1967 households to expand production base of 850 mu and vegetable greenhouses of 300 mu and raise 1200 sheep, and helped the pilot households set up income-generating projects.

　　Carry out investigations and research on the pilot monitoring of poverty alleviation statistics. In accordance with the deployment of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development on the monitoring of poverty alleviation statistics, Shandong Province launched the investigations and research on the pilot monitoring of poverty alleviation statistics, developed the “Planning of Shandong Province for Monitoring of Poverty Alleviation Statistics” and selected five counties (Yishui, Sishui, Huimin, Qingyun and Juye) from the 34 key counties (districts) for poverty reduction in the province for the research. Five villages of each county and 20 households of each village were involved in the investigations. The province completed the investigation and data monitoring task on time and reported to the higher authority according to the requirements of LGOP.

　　【Poverty alleviation in minority areas】 The central government allocated 11 million Yuan of development funds for Shandong to support the underdeveloped minority regions, 2 million Yuan more than that in 2010, and the provincial government issued 4 million Yuan of matching funds. 3 million Yuan was used to support the pilot project of protecting the villages with minority characteristics, 500,000 Yuan more than that in 2010, and the remaining funds were all used for the implementation of 91 projects, involving the construction of roads, water conservancy facilities, electricity facilities, breeding, planting and new energy projects in some poverty-stricken ethnic minority villages of 64 counties in 13 cities, namely Jinan, Zibo, Zaozhuang, Weifang, Jining, Tai'an, Rizhao, Laiwu, Linyi, Dezhou, Liaocheng, Binzhou and Heze, benefiting 137,000 minority people.

　　【Poverty alleviation by forestry development】 The province solved the drinking water problem of the needy workers of Shandong’s state-owned forest farms, arranged 5 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to support 17 forest farms respectively in the northern suburb of Jinan City, Haoshan of Yiyuan County, Luoshan of Zhaoyuan City, Jiushan of Linqu County, Lashan of Dongping County, Jimushan of Laicheng District of Laiwu City, Pingyuan of Pingyuan County, Jihe of Jihe County, Dashahe of Shan County, Hezhuang of Yucheng County, Shatu in Mudan District of Heze City, Yangjun of Laiyang City, Yiqian’er of Lijin County, Chashan of Rongcheng City, Shawo of Huimin County, Maxi of Shen County and Tianbaoshan of Pingyi County, dug 37 motor-pumped wells, built 10 reservoirs and dams, erected overhead wires of 47.2 km, solved the tap water problem for 2300 people and provided these forest farms with conditions for sapling irrigation and forest fire control.

　　【Poverty alleviation by people's armed forces】The old revolutionary base area Yimeng Mountain was hit by a once-in-a-century drought and the masses in poor villages were in difficulties for drinking water and agricultural production. Beijing Military Region and Lanzhou Military Area dispatched 580 officers and soldiers on February 22 to work for 124 days in the old revolutionary base areas with well drilling machinery equipment. They dug 218 wells of 30,151.6 meters with water yield of 6908 cubic meters per house. Strict discipline must be obeyed in well drilling. The “13 Mass Disciplines for Drought Relief” and “Ten Prohibitions and Ten Preventions of the Mass Disciplines” were developed. According to the provisions, people cannot walk on wheat seedlings, the field must be leveled after the well drilling and compensations must be provided to the farmers for any wheat seedlings eradicated or pressed in the well drilling. Meanwhile, some officers and men were dispatched to participate in the Mengyin Mountain Forest fire suppression. The army and the people were one family in the three months of well drilling. The officers and soldiers participated in the well drilling said: “You’ll know how the Chinese people support the army from the situation of Shandong and know how Shandong’s people support the army from the situation of Linyi.”

　　【Women’s poverty alleviation】 Since the implementation of the “Action of Helping Impoverished Mothers” in 2007, the Provincial Women's Federation has constructed four demonstrative projects of poverty alleviation by women, namely the Rope Course Processing Project of Huimin County, Cherry Valley Duck Breeding Project of Qingyun County, Fast-growing Poplar Tree Planting Project of Qihe County and the Sheep Breeding Project of Shan County. On April 28, 2011, the provincial “Action of Helping Impoverished Mothers” – Demonstrative Sheep Breeding Project of Shan County was launched. The Provincial Women's Federation mobilized the working committee of the provincial authorities, Shandong Joyoung Group, Shandong Kaiwen Science and Technology Vocational College and Shandong Baishoufang Food Development Co., Ltd to donate 500,000 Yuan to help 200 poor mothers of Shan County raise goats to increase income. On May 20, it held the on-site promotion meeting of the “Action of Helping Impoverished Mothers” in Qingyun County and organized the donation of 200,000 Yuan. Dezhou City Women's Federation also applied for 110,000 Yuan of discount loans from the city financial bureau, Qingyun County Women's Federation and Zhong'ao Holing Group Co., Ltd provided joint guarantee for the loans of 2.2 million Yuan to help 100 poor mothers of Qingyun County construct the Cherry Valley Duck Breeding Base and expand the sources of income. The Provincial Women's Federation also organized 3121 agricultural experts and technicians to give 1907 lectures on agricultural production technology for poor rural women, trained 416,000 person-times, solved the technical problems of 254,000 people, carried out 1298 technical support activities for the countryside, provided medical services for 85,000 person-times free of charge, and organized the donations of agricultural materials goods worth 913,000 Yuan and drugs worth 366,000 Yuan.

　　【Poverty alleviation among the people with disabilities】 The province has a total of 5.7 million people with disabilities, of which 1.64 million are rural residents with disabilities with per capita net income of less than 2500 Yuan. Since 2006, the province adopted various measures to solve their production and living difficulties. First, provide living subsidies for the severely disabled. It provided subsistence allowance of at least 50 Yuan per person per month for the severely disabled among the permanent residents covered by the minimum living security system in Shandong Province. Second, launch the Warm Housing Project for the disabled. It invested 120 million Yuan to build houses for 6000 poor people with disabilities. Third, implement the “Poverty Alleviation Project of Supporting the Employment and Entrepreneurship of Tens of Thousands of People with Disabilities”. Taking the base as the carrier, by means of training and job placement, aiming to help the disabled shake off poverty, the province created and purchased 1000 public service jobs for people with disabilities, set up 100 training bases for poverty alleviation of the disabled, constructed 1000 poverty relief projects and trained 20,000 people with disabilities to master practical job skills, lifting 5,000 families with disabled members out of poverty. Since 2001, the central government has allocated 8.19 million Yuan of rehabilitation and poverty alleviation discount funds to Shandong Province to encourage the issuance of 256 million Yuan of loans. Through signing poverty alleviation agreements and bank loan letter of authorization with the disabled with guarantee of the bases, by means of unified issuance and unified repayment of loans, it helped 30,000 poverty-stricken people with disabilities find jobs.

　　【Poverty alleviation training】 It took poverty alleviation training as an important measure to improve the job skills of poor rural labors, increase the income of the poor and enhance the level of anti-poverty work of the poverty alleviation cadres.

　　The Rain Plan arranged for employment training for rural poor labors. It adjusted the 11 Rain Plan demonstration training bases designated by the provincial government in 2011 and re-announced 13 training bases. It formulated the plan for transferring of 10,000 rural poor labors in 2011, implemented the file registration system, required the training bases to sign labor service contracts or agreements with the employing units and issued training funds of 3.5 million Yuan for five cities namely Dezhou, Binzhou, Liaocheng, Heze and Linyi according to the standard of 350 Yuan per person. Focusing on short-term technical training of mechanical maintenance, electricians, fitters, welding, computer operations, security, sewing and family services, the training bases helped 10,000 rural poor people find jobs and lifted 10,000 rural poor families out of poverty.

　　It intensified the business skills training of the chairpersons of villagers’ development mutual funds associations of impoverished villages and the accountants of poor villages. From November 29 to December 8, with support of the faculty of Shandong Agricultural University, it organized two trainings on 240 chairpersons and accounts of the mutual funds associations of 182 new poor villagers in 2010, and helped them master necessary knowledge on the work. We organized province's poverty relief cadres to participate in ten national trainings in poor regions for party and government cadres, entire village advancement, industrial poverty alleviation, Rain Plan, pilot work of mutual funds, department poverty alleviation, young cadres, poverty alleviation statistical data monitoring, performance evaluation and the lottery public welfare funds to learn the pro-poor policies, enhancing the special poverty alleviation capacity. Meanwhile, we organized the directors of some city and county poverty alleviation offices to conduct field research in other provinces to learn from their experience and broaden the thinking.

　　【Poverty alleviation publicity】 The province participated in the "Exhibition on China's Poverty Reduction Achievements in the New Century". Shandong Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office collected a lot of poverty alleviation and development data since 2001 and carefully designed the Shandong Pavilion to make propaganda for its practice of industrialization-based poverty alleviation. Themed on “entire township advancement and industrial poverty alleviation” of Shandong Province, we used 14 sections on the construction of agricultural production bases in poor areas, the leading role of poverty alleviation leading enterprises, market cultivation and the changes in farmer’s production and living, as well as the videos on farm produce and changes in Yimeng old revolutionary base areas in the poverty alleviation and development to display the achievements made by Shandong Province in the field of poverty alleviation and development over the past decade. During the exhibition period of the Beijing Agricultural Exhibition Hall from June 9 to 15, 2011, a total of more than 20,000 people visited Shandong Pavilion, including the party and government leaders, foreign diplomats and people from all circles of society. Deputy Director of Shandong Provincial People's Congress Yin Huimin attended the opening ceremony of the "Exhibition on China's Poverty Reduction Achievements in the new century" and Shandong Province won the Organization Participation Award on the exhibition. From October to December, relying on the media such as the “Farmers’ Daily”, Dazhong Daily and Shandong Satellite TV, Shandong Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office made propaganda on the results of poverty alleviation and development in the province over the past decade and printed ten relevant articles including the “Mechanism Exploration for Improving the Efficiency of Anti-poverty Funds”, etc, drawing high attention of all circles of society to poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Funding】 According to incomplete statistics, the relevant departments of Shandong at all levels invested a total of 389.0264 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds in the whole year, of which 233.4574 million Yuan was unpaid capital, 153.59 million Yuan was loans and 1.979 million Yuan was donations. The central government issued 60 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds, the provincial government allocated matching funds of 82 million Yuan, city and county government issued 91.4574 million Yuan, the banks issued loans of 153.39 million Yuan and donations amounted to 1.979 million Yuan.

　　【Performance evaluation】  The Ministry of Finance and LGOP conducted performance evaluation on the use of the financial anti-poverty funds of various provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) in 2010. Shandong Province was titled as A grade and obtained 17 million Yuan of special poverty relief funds as reward. According to the requirements, in late December, Shandong Province allocated the awarding funds to support the expansion of pilot area of mutual funds of 85 villages in 8 counties (districts), namely Lingang District of Linyi City, Tancheng County, Shanting District of Zaozhuang City, Yiyuan County, Wudi County, Yangxin County, Boxing County and Sishui County.