Dr. Lok Nath Bhusal
China has claimed that it has eradicated absolute poverty two years ago. This is attributed to its last 40 years’ development strategy, in general, and ambitious targeted poverty reduction efforts started in 2013, in particular. About 99 million people have been lifted out of poverty since 2012 alone while more than 770 million poor people have become non-poor or rich since 1978. This shows that about 18 million people were made non-poor annually since 1978. Now, no one is absolutely poor in China and no country has ever made such progress. The Sustainable Goal 1 has set the target of eliminating all forms of poverty everywhere by 2030. Comparing with this global target, China has achieved 10 years ahead.
China considers this as a remarkable contribution towards creating a poverty-free, peaceful and prosperous world. This article is an attempt to discuss the underlying factors behind the success in the battle against poverty in China. The first underlying factor is the real identification of poor households and anti-poverty programme implementers. For this to happen, very targeted and specific approach was applied across the country considering the unique case of individual poor households. Political and bureaucratic machinery was heavily and intensively mobilised to register the cases of poverty and specific measures were applied to bring individual households out of absolute poverty. Party cadres were individually made responsible for the plight of poor families in their areas.
People-centred approach
Performance in poverty reduction was tied with their career development. This was more like a clinical and people-centred approach. It was thoroughly understood that poverty, as a disease, has many causes. This paved the way for screening poverty cases and applying case by case anti-poverty medicine (support) by the most appropriate agents; government, private sector, community or NGOs. The second underlying factor for the absolute poverty eradication was increasing production. Industries were established even in the rural areas using local raw materials and manpower. This ensured self-employment and paid employment for many identified poor households. It has been noted that “industrial development-led poverty alleviation, for example, proved the most straightforward, effective and sustainable, as it created jobs and increased people’s incomes. Poverty-stricken areas were encouraged to develop industries with local resources and features, and new forms of businesses such as e-commerce and tourism”.
Reports also show that ‘e-commerce is said to have created about 7.71 million rural jobs and increased the income of some 6.18 million poor people’. What a pro-poor industrial and commercial undertaking! The third underlying factor was the Poverty Alleviation Relocation (PAR) of households in remote rural areas. The PAR programme’s goal was to move 10 million poor people living in deep mountains or earthquake-prone areas to suitable areas to fundamentally change their living environments and improve their living standards and self-development abilities by 2020.
It has been reported that by the end of September 2020, almost 9.61 million poor people had been relocated. Almost all the relocated households were made non-poor by 2020. These findings make us think about the utility of keeping scattered settlements in the high hills and mountainous regions of our country and launching pro-poor programmes there every year alongside the regular government expenses for other public services. The fourth factor was providing ecological compensation. It has been noted that China is a global leader in the use of ecological compensation. Under this, government provides fiscal transfers for environmental and natural resources management.
China is one of the most fiscally decentralised countries in the world, with 85 per cent of government spending occurring at subnational levels. In this context, poverty eradication became possible at the local level through ecological conservation efforts. Research has indicated that cash payment under the scheme lifted many of the identified poor households out of absolute poverty. Nepal can also implement similar programmes with the twin goals of poverty reduction and environmental/ecological conservation.
The fifth factor was improving education standards. Considering the crucial role of education in reducing inter-generational transmission of poverty, China has turned to classrooms. It has been reported that government’s budgetary spending on education remained above 4 per cent of GDP since 2011. In 2018 alone, nearly 100 million poor students got subsidy. Secondary vocational schools have played an instrumental role in upskilling and integrating young people into the labour market and providing high quality technical skills. Nearly 600,000 students in various areas hit by extreme poverty were enrolled for technical skills. Access to higher education was also made inclusive. Since 2012, the programme has helped more than 600,000 rural students enter key universities. Quality of education has also improved drastically for the poor.
Robust social security
The sixth factor was giving allowances. China has also put comprehensive social security systems in place for the deserving poor in poor areas. It is stated that ‘the standards of eligibility for rural subsistence allowances in designated poor counties are all higher than the national poverty threshold.’ As an achievement, ‘some 19.36 million impoverished people have been covered by rural subsistence allowances or extreme poverty relief funds, and 60.98 million by basic pension schemes for rural and non-working urban residents, achieving nearly 100 per cent coverage’.
An academic research shows that high economic growth helps reduce and ultimately eradicate poverty if there is good governance and extended social protection in the country. Globally, anti-poverty interventions are designed around this idea. It appears that China followed this standard global model to some extent only. Much more can be credited to its own innovative micro-macro and clinical approach for the historic record in eradicating absolute poverty. This is also very useful in Nepal’s battle against poverty. (The Rising Nepal)
(Dr. Bhusal works at National Planning Commission.)
