Poverty Alleviation and Development in Hunan Province

　　【Overview】In 2011, through joint efforts of all circles of society, Hunan Province achieved remarkable results in the anti-poverty work and witnessed rapid development. Based on the new poverty line of 2300 Yuan, the province reduced the poverty-stricken people by 980,000 that year. The rural per capita net income of 37 counties with contiguous areas with special difficulties reached 3528 Yuan, up 17.7%; and the rural per capita net income of 20 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development reached 3091 Yuan, up 15.9%. The counties for poverty reduction witnessed rapid economic development and great changes took place to the appearance of poor villages. In 2011, village-level highroads of 6,300 km were built and effective irrigation area of 13,500 mu was increased for the impoverished regions. The province solved the drinking water problem of 280,000 people, increased economic fruit and forest area of 256,000 mu; bred more than 1.1 million heads of livestock, including cows, sheep and pigs; organized technical trainings for 38,000 person-times and practical technical trainings for 145,600 person-times.

　　【Investment of anti-poverty funds】In 2011, a total of 949 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds was invested in Hunan Province, of which 825 million Yuan was from the central government and 124 million Yuan was from the provincial government.

　　【Management of anti-poverty funds】Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office and the Provincial Department of Finance made innovations to the way of issuance of financial anti-poverty funds, allocated the projects and funds in batches and announced the allocation publicly. The financial anti-poverty funds were divided into special funds for the effective convergence of “two systems”, special funds for “Rain Plan” and special funds for “contiguous development”, which were allocated to the counties, cities and districts in 14 batches. Meanwhile, the project contents and investment directions of the funds were clearer and the operation process was more transparent. At the same time, the province made innovations to the project approval mode, and concentrated forces for collective project review and approval to solve the existing problems in project approval, not only improving the efficiency of project approval, but also enhancing the credibility and transparency of the project approval.

　　【Support of pro-poor policies】Hunan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government attached great importance to the major adjustment of pro-poor policies and held a few executive meetings to talk about the anti-poverty work. Secretary Zhou Qiang, Governor Xu Shousheng, Vice Secretary Mei Kebao, Secretary-General Yang Taibo and Vice Governor Xu Minghua as well as other provincial party committee and government leaders personally took a hand in the anti-poverty work and headed delegations to report to relevant ministries about Hunan’s achievements in anti-poverty work and actual difficulties as well, striving for support of the central government. In the new round of poverty alleviation and development, 37 counties (cities) of two contiguous poor areas – Wuling Mountain area and Luoxiao Mountain area of Hunan Province were listed among the national contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties for poverty reduction. Plus the three counties that were not listed among the contiguous areas but enjoy the key support of the state, a total of 40 counties of Hunan Province will get key support in the new round of poverty alleviation. Especially on November 15, 2011, the kick-off meeting on the regional development and poverty alleviation in Wuling Mountain area was convened in Jishou City of Xiangxi, Hunan Province. It not only marked the formal implementation of a new round of poverty alleviation and development strategy, but also indicated the formal launching of the pilot project for another major national strategy following the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan's "Dual-Model" Community and the Industrial Transfer of South Hunan.

　　【Preparation of poverty alleviation planning】Jointly with the policy research office of provincial party committee, the provincial development and reform commission and the provincial department of finance, Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office successively prepared the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development in Rural Areas of Hunan Province (2011-2020)”, the “Planning of Hunan Province on the Eradication of Poverty and the Construction of A Moderately Prosperous Society During the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period” and the “Planning for Entire Village Advancement During the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period”, started the preparation of the “Planning for Regional Development and Poverty Alleviation in Wuling Mountain Area of Hunan Province” and the “Planning for Regional Development and Poverty Alleviation in Luoxiao Mountain Area of Hunan Province”, and actively promoted the process of legislation for poverty alleviation. Through the planning, the province aimed to create a platform and conditions for all lines to increase investment in impoverished regions.

　　【Convergence of two systems】In 2011, Hunan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government listed the support for 600,000 poor people in impoverished regions into the assessment contents of practical things done for the people that year. This is not only the first time for Hunan’s poverty alleviation department to independently undertake the task of doing practical things for the people, but also a major initiative to promote the refined poverty alleviation according to the requirements of the provincial party committee and provincial government. The government issued, in two batches, the household project funds of 275 million Yuan for the effective convergence of the two systems and successively introduced five documents to provide guidance for the relevant work. Jointly with the provincial assessment office, we conducted two special inspections on the work. According to the requirements of “poverty reduction planning for households, project planning for households, fund allocation to households, support responsibility on specific persons, project implementation responsibility on specific persons and contact responsibility on specific persons”, the province provided support for a total of 613,432 people in the whole year and overfulfilled the scheduled task, 102.2% beyond the plan, achieving the goal of “project for every household and development for every family” and the income growth per household of 1500 Yuan.

　　【Entire village advancement】In accordance with the overall deployment of LGOP and the overall requirements of the “12th Five-Year Plan”, Hunan Province re-identified the impoverished villages for the “12th Five-Year Plan”, including 1200 national key villages, 2181 provincial key villages and 562 municipal key villages, and planned to conduct a round of anti-poverty work every two years in the key villages. Focusing on the entire village advancement of 480 national poor villages in the new round of anti-poverty work, the province invested 940 million Yuan in 2011, averagely 1.96 million Yuan for each village, of which 230 million Yuan was from the central government, averagely 476,000 Yuan for each village. A total of 1993 projects were launched with project qualification rate of 100% and high-quality project rate of 70%, and the province comprehensively completed the assigned task. At the same time, it actively explored the establishment of new patterns for poverty alleviation by farmer-participated entire village advancement and allocated 30 million Yuan of lottery public welfare funds to implement pilot projects in 21 villages of Sangzhi County and Baojing County.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】Hunan Province took a variety of forms to solicit funds to promote the industrial development of the poor areas. It allocated 25.62 million Yuan to support the construction of raw material production bases of 55 agricultural product processing enterprises, issued 4.38 million Yuan of discount funds to encourage the issuance of 280 million Yuan of anti-poverty funds for 28 key leading enterprises, allocated 40.5 million Yuan of mutual funds for impoverished villages to support the establishment of 2800 mutual aid groups with nearly 20,000 farmer members and share capital of 15 million Yuan, help farmers develop family business and enhance the self-development capacity of the villagers. Meanwhile, it allocated 2 million Yuan to promote improved seed yield technology in Longhui County and Fenghuang County; allocated 25 million Yuan of special funds and integrated more than 100 million Yuan to conduct contiguous development in Pingjiang, Yuanling, Baojing, Guzhang and Yongshun  County, which speeded up the transformation and development of the competitive industries with local characteristics.

　　【Rain Plan】The province supported 12,000 children from needy families to complete their vocational education, which was listed among the assessment contents of the practical things done for the people by Hunan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government in 2011. It selected 45 vocational schools in the province to launch the Rain Plan, allocated training funds of 19.33 million Yuan for the project. In fact, the project trained a total of 15,130 people, completing 126% of the scheduled task. At the same time, the county poverty alleviation departments organized short-term skills trainings for 23,000 person-times and practical technical trainings for nearly 150,000 person-times.

　　【Mechanism innovation】The province carried out key problem tackling for poverty alleviation in high and cold mountain areas of ethnic minority regions, introduced the “Opinions on Addressing the Production and Living Difficulties of the Poor in the High and Cold Mountain Areas of Ethnic Minority Regions”, striving to basically lift the poor in high and cold mountain areas of ethnic minority regions out of poverty in five years or so. In accordance with the principle of “promoting overall advancement by fixed-point demonstration and pilot work in key areas”, the province lunched the pilot projects in Laer Mountain area of Fenghuang County, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture and allocated more than 42 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to support the renovation of dangerous houses, village road building and drinking problem solving for people and livestock, built 41 village roads of 91.315 km, seven projects for centralized water supply for people and livestock, laid water distribution network of more than 200,000 meters to the benefit 1,582 households and 8,540 people from seven villages of five towns; and renovated 1,520 dilapidated houses in rural areas, covering more than 5,000 rooms of more than 200,000 square meters, addressing the housing problem of more than 6,000 people.

　　Implement student aiding projects. The province issued the “Notice on the Implementation of Pilot Aiding Projects for Poverty-stricken Left-behind Children”, issued 2 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to conduct the pilot work in 10 poor counties and, based on the backward situation of education in Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture in Hunan, the government issued 2 million Yuan of financial anti-poverty funds to support 800 rural poor university students at campus in Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture.

　　【Social poverty alleviation】In accordance with the spirit of Xiang Zu Fa [2011]No. 8 Document, Hunan Provincial Party Committee Organization Department and Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office continued to send working groups to support the anti-poverty work in poor villages. 18 provincial leaders continued to work in impoverished villages and more than 4000 working groups composed of over 12,000 cadres were sent to the poor villages, becoming a strong mechanism guarantee for poverty alleviation of the villages. We actively strived for greater support from central organs for Hunan Province and held seminars on exchange of experience participated by the central organs.

　　The troops in Hunan Province, Federation of Industry and Commerce, and other social groups actively got involved in the "2211 Project of Supporting the Old Revolutionary Base Areas to Shake Off Poverty and Build A Moderately Prosperous Society”, village-enterprise cooperation in construction, care package, home appliances to the countryside for poverty alleviation and other activities, achieving good results. The construction of the Japanese Yen loan Projects have been basically completed, the first batch of Sino-German cooperation projects have been completed and accepted and the poverty alleviation effectiveness has become increasingly prominent. The province also paid attention to the poverty alleviation in other areas in addition to the pilot regions, creating a great atmosphere for the whole society to care for poverty alleviation.

　　【Poverty alleviation publicity】Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office compiled nine “Briefings on Poverty Reduction” in 2011, issued 1,000 pieces of information on the website and had 16 articles printed in provincial or central media. In particular, the Xinhua News Agency, Hunan Satellite TV and Hunan Daily all reported Hunan’s poverty alleviation in high and cold mountain areas through combining entire village advancement with poverty reduction, causing a big stir in society and enhancing the social influence of Hunan’s anti-poverty work. Meanwhile, the province seriously and timely handled the proposals. It received and coped with a total of 30 proposals in the whole year. On the “Exhibition on China’s Poverty Reduction Achievements in the New Century” held by LGOP, Hunan Pavilion was praised by Vice Premier Hui Liangyu and many other visitors and won the "Exhibition Excellence Award". At the same time, we actively participated in the national advanced poverty alleviation unit recognition activities and vigorously publicized the advanced models staying in poor villages for a long time such as Jiang Kongji.

　　【Organization construction】The province actively carried out the Activities of Excelling in Performance", introduced the "Implementation Plan for the Open Management of Party Affairs of Grassroots Party Organizations of Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Office", conducted the assessment of “Dedication to Working Position for Success” and the activities for institutions’ party committees to contact grassroots units, held the commendation meeting of advanced party members on July 1, carried out field research and the activities of “transformation of patterns for the establishment of a ‘dual’ society and transformation of working style to improve people’s livelihoods” and implemented the contact person system for key work, etc.

　　It set up and improved the regulations and rules, introduced the "Power Standardization Systems of Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Office" to standardize the project approval and fund management, which was approved by Hunan Office of Organ Efficiency Construction, revised and improved the "Financial Management Measures for Institutions" and "Measures on Conference Reception" to ensure the high efficiency of the systems and administration, and seriously implemented the “Rules on Clean and Honest Government” combined with the clean government building, focusing on self-examination of the implementation of three regulations: Suppression of public funds abroad travel, management of official vehicles use and prohibition of cadres in violation of the provisions of meddling project construction.

　　The province strengthened work team building. It arranged 2 people to participate in the training of young and middle-aged cadres organized by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, 5 people to receive the short-term training of the party school and 2 persons to attend the training organized by the provincial party committee organization department, and held 22 various types of trainings of poverty alleviation cadres for 1705 person-times. Throughout the year, the province adjusted the working positions of 17 leaders, of which one was invited, two were publicly elected, two division heads exchanged working positions, and one acted as organ party secretary, one as deputy director of the training center and two as deputy director of the foundation (department level). Meanwhile, we accepted four cadres transferred from the army in 2010 and 2011, of which one was transferred to the training center, one to political department and two were retired. In addition, four exchange cadres came back and a new cadre was sent to the poor villages.