Annual Review

Overview of Poverty Alleviation and Development 
Work in 2016
2016 is the first year of winning the battle against poverty. Taking it as the prominent short board and bottom-line target of building a comprehensive well-off society, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has incorporated poverty alleviation into the“five-in-one”overall layout and the“four comprehensive”strategic layout and put it into an important position in governance. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping leads and supervises the battle against poverty and has carried out field survey on anti-poverty work for many times. He held and addressed the forum on the east-west pairing-off poverty alleviation in Yinchuan, and has presided over the meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensive Deepening of Reform for many times, focusing on research of the poverty-stricken county exit mechanism, poverty alleviation with returns on assets and the poverty alleviation responsibility system, given important instructions on filing riser and supply-side structural reform for poverty alleviation, on industrial poverty alleviation and on addressing the problem of formalism in the anti-poverty work, and given important instructions on learning from exemplary persons in poverty alleviation such as Li Baoguo. Premier Li Keqiang has repeatedly carried out field survey on poverty alleviation and development work, presided over the State Council executive meetings on mechanism establishment for targeted poverty alleviation, on accelerating the development of contiguous destitute areas, old revolutionary base areas, minority areas and border areas, and on the implementation of poverty-relief relocation, traffic poverty alleviation, education-based poverty alleviation and health poverty alleviation as well as the reform of the use and management of poverty-relief funds, and given important instructions on the supply-side structural reform of poverty reduction, the integration and allocation of fiscal agricultural funds, the supervision and inspection of anti-poverty work as well as the recognition of outstanding persons and units in poverty reduction. Other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee also attach great importance to poverty alleviation. Giving full play to its role of overall coordination and supervision over the implementation, the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development (hereinafter referred to as the“Leading Group”) has held 6 plenary meetings and 28 working conferences and special meetings this year to make deployments on the implementation of relevant work. Local governments and various departments work together and cooperate closely, and all circles of society actively get involved in fighting poverty. The working mechanism whereby the central government makes overall plans, provincial-level governments take overall responsibility, and city and county governments ensure implementation is implemented, the top-level design of four beams and eight columns has basically taken shape and the relevant policy decisions have been effectively implemented. In 2016, we won the first battle against poverty and reduced rural poverty-stricken people by 12.4 million. The income growth rate of rural residents in poverty-stricken areas is above the national average, the living standard of poor people is obviously higher than ever, and the backward situation of poor areas has been obviously improved.
Ⅰ. Strengthening top-level design and establishing a policy framework for poverty alleviation
（Ⅰ）Incorporating poverty alleviation into the overall strategy of economic and social development  The State Council issued the“Poverty Alleviation Plan for the ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ Period”. The Government Work Report 2016 set the goal of reducing rural poor people by at least 10 million, and local governments developed annual plan and rolling plan for poverty reduction, decomposed the task and arranged the work for specific counties, villages, households and persons.
（Ⅱ）Refinement of supporting policies and measures  The General Office of the CPC Ce-
ntral Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued 11 supporting documents of the“Decision of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council on Winning the Battle against Poverty”(hereinafter referred to as the“Decision”), 32 leading departments and 77 participating departments issued a total of 118 policy documents or implementation plans, and local governments have successively promulgated and improved the“1+N”anti-poverty documents, forming a“combined fist”of active policies to fight poverty.
（Ⅲ）Substantial increase in financial investment  In 2016, the central and provincial fin-
ancial anti-poverty funds exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, of which 66.7 billion yuan was from the central government, up 43.4%, and 49.35 billion yuan was from provincial-level governments, up 56.1%. A total of 961 counties (including 792 poor counties) launched pilot projects of integrating agriculture-related funds, involving more than 230 billion yuan of fiscal funds from governments at all levels, benefitting more than 30 million registered poor people. 
（Ⅳ）Giving full play to the role of financial poverty alleviation  In 2016, the balance of financial poverty alleviation funds in poor areas was 2.4878 trillion yuan, of which 818.1 billion yuan was issued that year. A total of 283.3 billion yuan of poverty-relief petty loans has been issued to 8.02 million poverty-stricken households, of which 170.6 billion yuan was issued in 2016. A total of 112.7 billion yuan of poverty-relief re-loans was issued, and 72.6 billion yuan of financial bonds was issued for poverty-relief relocation as well. 
（Ⅴ）More preferential land policy  Increased construction land planning indicators, giving 
priority to meeting the needs of poverty alleviation and development for land use; made special arrangements for annual indicator increase for construction land in key counties for national poverty alleviation and development; and strengthened the support of urban-rural construction land adjustment policy for poverty alleviation and poverty alleviation and poverty-relief relocation.
Ⅱ. Making innovations to the relevant system and mechanism to provide new impetus for fighting poverty
（Ⅰ）Establishing a responsibility system for poverty alleviation  Strengthened the worki-
ng mechanism whereby the central government makes overall plans, provincial-level governments take overall responsibility, and city and county governments ensure implementation. The Party committees and government s of 22 central and western provinces signed letters of responsibility to the central government. Chief Party and government officials will not be changed during the period of poverty reduction until they accomplish the anti-poverty task. Provincial, city, county, township and village-level leaders were all arranged specific responsibilities, creating the situation whereby five levels of party secretaries take charge of poverty alleviation and all Party members are mobilized to step up key-problem tackling in poverty reduction.
（Ⅱ）Strengthening the mechanism of poverty restriction and withdrawal  Clarified nine criteria about what must be done, what is encouraged to be done and what is banned in poor counties, made clear the bottom line and set the red line, resolutely stopping the unwholesome tendency of poor counties with luxury government offices to flaunt wealth. The“Opinions on Establishing Poverty-stricken County Exit Mechanism”clearly defines the standards, procedures and follow-up policies for the withdrawal of impoverished counties and poor people.
（Ⅲ）Establishing the supervision and inspection system In accordance with the“Decision”
and the“Measures for Supervision and Inspection of Poverty Alleviation Work”, the Leading Group organized 20 oversight groups and two inspection teams to check the anti-poverty work in 22 central and western provinces, striving to find advanced models and outstanding problems and promote the rectification and implementation.
（Ⅳ）Establishing the assessment mechanism  According to the“Measures for the Assess-
ment of the Poverty Alleviation and Development Work of Provincial Party Committees and Governments”, the Leading Group organized the pilot assessment of the effectiveness of anti-poverty work of the 22 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) that signed a letter of responsibility for poverty reduction with the central government, entrusted relevant research institutions to carry out the third-party evaluation, aiming to timely find out outstanding problems in poverty alleviation and objectively reflect the quality and effectiveness of local poverty alleviation work. For the two provinces with prominent problems in the pilot assessment, the Leading Group held talks with the responsible comrades of the provincial governments, accumulating experience for the formal assessment.
Ⅲ. Highlighting key points in fighting poverty, and taking poverty alleviation as an effective way to promote the coordinated development between regions
（Ⅰ）Actively promoting the poverty alleviation work in Tibet and South Xinjiang  Ce-
ntral government leaders have repeatedly carried out field survey on the anti-poverty work in Tibet and South Xinjiang. In accordance with the deployments of the Central Tibet / Xinjiang Work Coordination Group and the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP) actively stepped up the relevant work and held in Lhasa the work conference on supporting the poverty alleviation work in Xinjiang. 
（Ⅱ）Increasing support for key areas  Taking contiguous destitute areas, old revolutionary base areas, minority areas and border areas as the key regions of poverty alleviation, the government gave priority to these areas in policy making, planning formulation, funding arrangements and project allocation. Accelerated the implementation of the“Regional Development and Poverty Alleviation Planning for Contiguous Destitute Areas”and the provincial planning of the contiguous destitute areas for the“13th Five-Year Plan”period, and improved the linkage coordination mechanism of contiguous destitute areas. 
（Ⅲ）Strengthening infrastructure construction to improve development environment   Actively launched poverty alleviation actions in the fields of transportation, water conservancy and electricity, and strived to break prominent bottlenecks in the development of poverty-stricken areas and the income growth of poor population.
（Ⅳ）Optimizing the rural living environment and strengthening the reconstruction of dilapidated houses in poor rural areas  Adjusted the policies on renovation of dilapidated buildings in rural areas, raised the central subsidy standards, and focused on addressing the basic housing security of four kinds of key objects including the registered poor. In 2016, we completed the renovation of dilapidated buildings of a total of 1.58 million registered poor households.
Ⅳ. Implementing different measures in various regions and taking targeted poverty alleviation as an important means to guarantee people’s livelihood
（Ⅰ）Implementing industry poverty alleviation  Issued the“Guiding Opinions on Develo-
ping Characteristic Industries in Poor Areas to Promote Targeted Poverty Alleviation”. Launched pilot project of poverty alleviation through e-commerce, made 261 poor counties the demonstrative counties for development of e-commerce in rural areas. The tourism-based poverty alleviation program covered a total of 22600 impoverished villages.
（Ⅱ） Promoting poverty-relief relocation  Developed and implemented the“National Plan-
ning for Poverty-relief Relocation during the ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ Period”, guided the involved provinces to prepare provincial planning and implementation plans, organized provincial investment and financing entities to get involved, and completed the relocation of 2.49 million for poverty reduction.
（Ⅲ）Promoting the transfer of employment Launched pilot labor cooperation in Guang-
dong, Hunan and Hubei, and adhered to principle of government-driven, market-oriented, classified policy and measure adjustment based on actual situation, accumulating replicable successful experience in achieving precise docking and promoting employment-based poverty alleviation.
（Ⅳ）Promoting poverty alleviation through education and health care  Took poverty al-leviation through education and health care as the fundamental initiatives to enhance the basic quality of the poor labor and block the intergenerational transmission of poverty, gave priority to the poorest areas, the weakest links and the most vulnerable groups in the allocation of education resources, and enhanced the  level of medical care for rural poor population and the medical ability of poor 
areas.
（Ⅴ） Exploring new ways for poverty alleviation by assets income and ecological protec-
tion  The General Office of the State Council issued the“Pilot Program for Poverty Alleviation by Returns on Assets of Hydropower and Mineral Resources Development in Poor Areas”, aiming to make the results of resource development benefit more poor people. The size of photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects reached 5.16 million kilowatts, covering 30,000 impoverished villages. Turned registered poor people into ecological forest rangers, involving more than 280,000 poor 
people. 
（Ⅵ）Promoting the effective convergence between rural minimum living security policy 
and poverty alleviation and development  The General Office of the State Council forwarded the“Guiding Opinions on the Effective Convergence between the Rural Minimum Living Security System and the Poverty Alleviation and Development Policy”, promoting the effective convergence between rural minimum living security system and poverty alleviation and development in policy, object, standard and management. The number of counties (cities, districts) with rural subsistence allowance standard below the national poverty line was reduced from 1521 at the end of 2015 to 502 in 2016.
V. Strengthening basic work at the grassroots level and improving the efficiency of poverty alleviation
（Ⅰ）Promoting filing riser work to make clear the number of poverty-stricken people  From August 2015 to June 2016, nearly 2 million people were mobilized to get involved in the activity of“looking back”for filing riser, increased 8.07 million poverty-stricken people and excluded 9.29 million inaccurately identified people, further improving the recognition accuracy of poverty-stricken people.
（Ⅱ）Dispatch cadres to stay in impoverished villages in order to strengthen the sup-
port  Local governments sent a total of 128,000 village-stationed work teams and more than 775,000 village-stationed cadres to impoverished villages, and 188,000 outstanding cadres were dispatched to serve as the first secretaries of the impoverished villages and the villages with weak grassroots party organizations in order to enhance the ability of the masses to shake off poverty, covering all the impoverished villages. 
（Ⅲ）Strengthening supervision of poverty-relief funds   Carried out reform on the alloca-
tion of poverty-relief funds, supported poor counties to launch pilot projects of integrating fiscal agriculture-related funds, empowered poor counties to integrate fiscal agriculture-related funds independently, and empowered county governments to use the fund use right and project approval right. Launched the supervision and disciplines execution accountability in the field of poverty alleviation to regulate and further prevent duty crime in the field of poverty alleviation, organized performance assessment of fiscal funds for poverty alleviation, strengthened the management of the utilization of poverty-relief funds, policy tracking and audit, and strengthened warning education in the field of poverty alleviation, etc. Set up the hotline“12317”for poverty alleviation supervision and reporting, and comprehensively implemented the announcement and publicity system for poverty-relief funds allocation and project arrangements to accept the supervision from all circles of 
society. 
Ⅵ. Increasing efforts in mobilizing all social forces to participate in poverty alleviation
（Ⅰ）Deepening the east-west cooperation in poverty alleviation  Adjusted and improved the twinning relationship, achieving the full coverage of 30 autonomous prefectures nationwide, designated Beijing and Tianjin to provide counterpart support for Zhangjiakou, Chengde and Baoding of Hebei Province in the“Coordinated Development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei”, and launched the action of“hand in hand to well-off society”. 267 east developed counties (cities, districts) were designated to provide counterpart support for 406 western poor counties. 
（Ⅱ） Strengthen the fixed-point poverty alleviation work of central units  320 units dis-
patched 652 cadres to the twinned poor counties, and 307 units dispatched 336 cadres to serve as the first secretaries of impoverished villages in the twinned poor counties. The army and armed police forces actively supported the local poverty reduction and were twinned with more than 2,000 impoverished villages in the anti-poverty work. Trade unions, the Communist Youth League, women’s federations, and the federations of disabled persons all increased efforts for poverty alleviation. The central enterprises promoted the“Action in 100 counties and 10,000 villages”, focusing on addressing the water and circuit problems of 15,000 poor villages. Private enterprises were organized to carry out the targeted poverty alleviation action—“10,000 enterprises to support 10,000 villages”. 22,000 private enterprises helped 21,000 impoverished villages to develop characteristic industries, aiming to increase the income of the poor. 
（Ⅲ）Intensifying publicity  The central main media launched about 100 thousand reports on poverty alleviation. China issued the white paper on“China’s Progress in Poverty Reduction and Human Rights”and the blue paper on“Annual Report on Poverty Alleviation and Development in China (2016)”, showing the Chinese people’s determination to fight poverty and China’s achievements in poverty reduction. A series of activities were organized in the Poverty Alleviation Day and all circles of society were mobilized to get involved in poverty alleviation. 
（Ⅳ）Establishing the commendation system  38 winners of the endeavour award, contribu-
tion award, dedication award and innovation award in national poverty alleviation were commended. Li Baoguo and Jiang Shikun were posthumously titled as the“national poverty alleviation models”, and the advanced deeds reporting conference was held.
（Ⅴ）Promoting international exchanges and cooperation in poverty reduction
Actively responded to the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development; implemented the “East Asia poverty reduction Cooperation Initiative”, promoted the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in poverty reduction and the China-Africa cooperation in poverty reduction, and strengthened the experience sharing and exchange between China and Latin America in the field of poverty reduction. Held international seminars and training activities, and introduced China’s poverty reduction program to the international community. 
(Cao Zhenhua, Department of General Affairs,
State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development)  

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