Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu Province

　　【Overview】In 2011, in accordance with the guiding ideology and overall deployment of the provincial party committee and provincial government on the “three rural issues”, Gansu Province earnestly implemented the “Key Points for Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development in 2011”, completed the anti-poverty targets and tasks set at the beginning of the year and achieved the two objectives of making rural per capita net income growth rate two percentage points above the provincial average and reducing the poverty-stricken people by 400,000.

　　【Organization and leadership】 In 2011, Gansu Party Committee Secretary Wang Sanyun and Governor Liu Weiping stressed the significance of poverty alleviation and development in accelerating the development of the province and achieving leapfrog development in the transition. Department leaders of the provincial government held a number of conferences to make deployments and give guidance for the key work of poverty alleviation and development, and discussed and approved the “Plan for Gansu Province to Implement the ‘Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)”, the “Planning for Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu during the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period”, the “Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Ordinance of Gansu Province” and the planning for poverty alleviation of Zhouqu County during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, etc. The provincial government held in Yongjing County of Linxia Prefecture the on-the-spot meeting on relocation-based poverty reduction and held in Pingliang City the on-the-spot meeting on entire village advancement and contiguous development. Deputy Director of the Provincial People's Congress Ma Shangying personally took the lead to organize relevant departments to carry out investigations and surveys on the preparation of the “Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Ordinance of Gansu Province”. Six deputy directors of CPPCC Gansu Provincial Committee headed a delegation to conduct field research on the poverty reduction of two prefectures and two cities in three contiguous poor areas, and put forward guiding and constructive opinions and suggestions.

　　【Funding】 In 2011, the province invested a total of 2.18 billion Yuan of special anti-poverty funds, of which 2.008 billion Yuan was from the central government and 172 million Yuan was from the provincial government.

1. 763 billion Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds mainly managed by the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office was allocated, of which 1.644 billion Yuan was central anti-poverty funds and 119 million Yuan was provincial matching funds.

　　【Entire village advancement and contiguous development】The province arranged 539 project villages for entire village advancement, 58 pilot projects for entire town advancement focusing on entire village advancement, 22 pilot projects of contiguous development (including 6 national pilot projects and 16 provincial pilot projects) and put in a total of 1.11141 billion Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds in the project construction and 520 million Yuan (including financial anti-poverty funds of 250 million Yuan) in the construction of 58 pilot entire town advancement projects, significantly improving the production and living conditions of the poor. Various cities and prefectures intensified the integration of project funds to improve the quality of project construction. Linxia Prefecture, for instance, integrated more than 300 million Yuan of various funds to promote the implementation of 86 entire village advancement projects, 3.26 times the financial anti-poverty funds.

　　【Infrastructure construction】 In 2011, a number of infrastructure construction projects were implemented in impoverished villages, including terrace building of 147,200 mu, rainwater harvest area of 5600 mu, new irrigation area of 76,300 mu, renovation of dilapidated buildings for 12200 poor households and village road hardening of 3311 kilometers.

　　【Rain Plan】In 2011, the province transferred 20,700 labors to other provinces. The ex-situ relocation of Yongjing, Tianzhu and Gulang accumulated rich experience in poverty alleviation by large-scale relocation. Baiyin, Pingliang, Qingyang and Tianshui explored the combination of relocation with new rural construction, urban-rural integration, land transfer and park development. Meanwhile, smooth progress was made in the relocation of poor residents of Hexi. In 2011, the province organized trainings for 60,000 junior and senior middle school graduates, launched the pilot reform of Rain Plan implementation planning in ten counties, and organized labor transfer for 42900 people, achieving labor service income of 2.57 billion Yuan.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 In 2011, the province arranged discount funds of 67.46 million Yuan to guide the issuance of loans of more than 1.65 billion Yuan, and continued to boost the development of competitive industries with local characteristics in impoverished regions such as herbivorous livestock, potatoes, fruit, herbal medicines, vegetables, etc. As for technology demonstration, the province further promoted the introduction and application of new species and new technologies. Based on the large-scale development and quality improvement of cow industry and fruit industry, through the combination of lectures and field instruction, the combination of farm slack season and project construction, and the combination of technology going to the countryside and technology poverty reduction, Pingliang City strengthened the popularization and publicity of new technologies for agricultural production. The province organized practical agricultural technical trainings for 100,000 person-times in the impoverished regions. Income from poverty relief industry accounted for more than 50% of the rural per capita net income of impoverished regions.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】 In 2011, various departments and sectors in the province integrated 1.5 billion Yuan of anti-poverty funds. Taking the aiding units for fixed-point poverty alleviation as the core, the province continued to increase efforts on social poverty reduction and improve the systems for central organs’ fixed-point poverty alleviation, Tianjin-Xiamen poverty alleviation cooperation and for provincial leaders to contact the key counties. The Organization Department of the Central Committee was designated to provide counterpart support for Zhouqu County, mobilizing the enthusiasm of the central aiding units for fixed-point poverty alleviation. An increasing number of state organs conducted field research in the twinned counties and an increasing number of cadres were sent to the key counties. Tianjin-Xiamen pairing-off poverty alleviation paid more attention to the poverty reduction in minority areas. The State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) supported Tongwei County to implement the upgrading of rural power grids with investment of 24.74 million Yuan. The Huajialing Wind Farm with a total investment of 4.2 billion Yuan was also launched at the end of 2010. New progress was made in the poverty alleviation by social groups. The United Nations poverty alleviation project of Children's Nutrition and Health was launched in Yongjing County and Jingchuan County. China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation implemented the Care Package project in Zhouqu County, Huan County, Yongjing County and Kangle County and smooth progress was made in the pilot microfinance project in Zhouqu County. LGOP successively organized the participants of the “Seminar on Development-oriented Poverty Alleviation Policies and Practice for African Senior Officials” and the “Seminar of African Ministers” to conduct field research in Dingxi and Tianshui for exchange of experience. The African officials were very interested in Guansu’s practice and experience in poverty alleviation and development.

　　【Key areas for poverty reduction】A total of 58 counties of the province were included into the Liupan Mountain area, Qinba Mountain area and the Tibetan area of Sichuan and the key counties for poverty reduction accounted for 67% of the total in the province, covering two prefectures and two cities, namely Gannan, Linxia, Dingxi and Longnan. At the same time, the province continued to implement the special pro-poor policies for the potato planting in Dingxi and cashmere goat breeding in Qingyang, and strived to make the construction of Qingyang Old Revolutionary Base County a central lottery welfare fund project and make Gongba River Basin of Zhouqu a pilot area of national poverty alleviation and development and disaster prevention and mitigation. Eight counties were listed in the pilot areas for Rain Plan implementation program reform. Based on careful research and demonstration, Dingxi City prepared the planning for Dingxi Project of the draft planning for “East-West Poverty Alleviation Cooperation Project with ADB Loans –Gansu • Tianjin Cooperative Project“ and formulated the “Proposal for ADB Loan Poverty Alleviation Projects”, involving six counties and districts, namely Anding, Tongwei, Longxi, Lintao, Weiyuan and Min County.

　　【Training and exchange of cadres】 In conjunction with the relevant departments and other provinces, through organizing by ourselves and participating in LGOP organizations, we strengthened the training of party and government leaders of key counties for poverty reduction, poverty alleviation cadres, village cadres of key towns, agricultural technology cadres, management personnel of poverty alleviation leading enterprises, leaders for industrial development of impoverished villages and demonstration households for agricultural technology for 330,000 person-times in 2011. At the same time, we held four provincial work conferences on poverty alleviation and development to summarize and promote the experience in entire village advancement, contiguous development, relocation-based poverty reduction, industrial poverty alleviation and the reform of the Rain Plan implementation planning, etc.

　　【Poverty alleviation publicity】 In 2011, Gansu Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office opened up a special column for the county party secretary, county magistrate and director of Gansu Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office to talk about poverty alleviation in Gansu Economic Daily and the website of Gansu Poverty Alleviation Information; prepared the special program of “New Starting Point” jointly with the Economic Channel of Gansu TV; publicized the relocation-based poverty alleviation of Yongjing, the entire county advancement and contiguous industrial development of Pingliang as well as the integration of capital for entire village advancement in Linxia in conjunction with the Xinhua News Agency and other central media; actively participated in the “Exhibition on China’s Poverty Reduction Achievements in the New Century” and the Achievement Exhibition of “Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu”, and won the Award of Excellence for Organization issued by LGOP. On the Dongfanghong Plaza of Lanzhou, we held the “Exhibition on Achievements of Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development in Gansu in the New Century” to vividly display the poverty alleviation and development achievements of Gansu in the past decade and the great changes happened to impoverished regions, expanding the influence and openness of the anti-poverty work. Giving full play to the publicity role of Gansu Poverty alleviation Information Network and the "Gansu Poverty Alleviation", we opened up a variety of columns with rich contents in various forms and collected a large number of grassroots publicity articles to make propaganda for the anti-poverty work. In 2011, we selected a number of advanced collectives and advanced individuals for anti-poverty work among the provincial, city, county and state organs, enterprises and institutions involved in fixed-point poverty alleviation, and the advanced units and advanced individuals for pairing-off poverty reduction. A total of 10 advanced collectives and 11 advanced individuals were rewarded by the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, a total of 100 advanced collectives, 100 advanced individuals, 69 advanced collectives for fixed-point poverty alleviation in Gansu and 31 advanced individuals for the fixed-point poverty alleviation of the province were rewarded by the provincial government.

　　【Poverty alleviation and development strategies】 In May 2011, the "12th Five-Year" plan for the poverty alleviation and development of Gansu Province was formally printed as Gan Zheng Ban Fa No. [2011] No. 198 Document, the “Implementation Methods of Gansu Province for the ‘Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)” was prepared and revised, and formally printed as Gan Fa [2012] No. 3 Document. On November 23, the “Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Ordinance of Gansu Province” was approved by the Provincial People's Congress and the province comprehensively started the preparation of poverty alleviation planning for three major contiguous poor areas. The provincial government issued the special documents on increasing efforts to promote the poverty reduction in Tibetan areas and Linxia Prefecture, approved the document on supporting the poverty reduction in Dingxi, and approved in principle the implementation of special policy research on the poverty reduction in Longnan City. As a pilot county for poverty reduction in the poorest areas, Zhouqu County’s poverty alleviation planning for the 12th Five-Year Plan period was approved by the provincial government and relevant documents were prepared. The development and introduction of the above supporting policies further highlighted the key problem tackling for poverty reduction in key areas and comprehensively promoted the integration of resources to vigorously boost the economic and social development of key regions for poverty alleviation and development.