Poverty Relief: Strides Of Participatory Approaches
By Godlove BAINKONG, Cameroon Tribune
Although not wholly eradicated, China’s efforts in poverty-stricken
provinces are yielding palpable fruits and strategies could undeniably
serve as inspiration.
Poverty; the inability for someone or some people to lodge and feed himself or themselves, is by every means a worldwide problem. The way some governments go
about rolling back the scourge could be an inspiration to others for near efficiency in giving man an enjoyable rather than enduring life.
Although over 70 million of China’s close to 1.4 billion citizens still live below the poverty line, what the People’s Government is doing and results on the ground thus far easily ignites a wish for emulation of the strategies and adaptation to suit each country’s reality. That China moved from 250 million poor people in 1978 to 70 million in 2015 and was the first country to fulfill the MDG of halving poverty incidence by 2015 lends credence to her efficiency in poverty relief. Her approaches are participatory and results-driven.
Poverty-stricken provinces are targeted with specialised projects. When Cameroon Tribune went prying in Ningxia Autonomous Province, where nine of its 22 counties (districts) are termed poor areas, this reporter was told and saw that much has been achieved in lifting the population especially those in dry mountainous areas off the grip of abject poverty. Provincial authorities said the first step was identifying the poor people and families.
They said 78.4 per cent of the people lived below the poverty line in 1982 and the area predicted as, “one of the places that most severely lack human living conditions.” Today, 580,000 of the about 6.7 million population of the province are tagged poor (live below 2,900 Yuan annually - about FCFA 256,000, and are from families that have neither a civil servant nor a car.)
The local government of Ningxia like others in the People’s Republic of China first turned to agriculture whose growth, authorities say, has high impact in poverty reduction. Thanks to the community ownership of land, the resource has been equitably distributed to households based on their number likewise other agricultural productivity-enhancement inputs. With constant agronomic research, high-yielding disease-resistant seeds are made available to farmers, they are schooled on best farming methods, community sales are organized for their produce and common infrastructure like roads and energy made available.
Government also subsidizes agricultural productivity via farm inputs and farmer-friendly loans. Local processing of the produce is also aided to add value and better the livelihoods of the farmers. These efforts have increased pure income per farmer from 126.6 Yuan to 6,500 Yuan today.
People in arid mountainous areas have been relocated to better areas where lodging and means of livelihood are being provided to them by the State. This is the case of Liangtian, Jinfeng District in Ningxia where over 32,000 people have been resettled in over 750 newly-constructed households. Here, the local government provides the people with social amenities (health units, education, old people’s home) and schools for their children. There is also free senior high school education at Yucai and Liupanshan for students from poor families.
The educational system is highly professional and prepares graduates for either the results-oriented administration or specialised industries spread across the country whose implantation or growth are greatly aided by business-friendly administrative and legal instruments in place. With the best training, the poor areas are able to export skilled labour within and without China.
Ningxia exported over 600,000 skilled labour last year who fetched over 700 million Yuan. Fighting poverty here is therefore not a matter of crafting puffy programmes and projects some of which benefit all but the poor but rather going from problem to solution.
Poverty; the inability for someone or some people to lodge and feed himself or themselves, is by every means a worldwide problem. The way some governments go
about rolling back the scourge could be an inspiration to others for near efficiency in giving man an enjoyable rather than enduring life.
Although over 70 million of China’s close to 1.4 billion citizens still live below the poverty line, what the People’s Government is doing and results on the ground thus far easily ignites a wish for emulation of the strategies and adaptation to suit each country’s reality. That China moved from 250 million poor people in 1978 to 70 million in 2015 and was the first country to fulfill the MDG of halving poverty incidence by 2015 lends credence to her efficiency in poverty relief. Her approaches are participatory and results-driven.
Poverty-stricken provinces are targeted with specialised projects. When Cameroon Tribune went prying in Ningxia Autonomous Province, where nine of its 22 counties (districts) are termed poor areas, this reporter was told and saw that much has been achieved in lifting the population especially those in dry mountainous areas off the grip of abject poverty. Provincial authorities said the first step was identifying the poor people and families.
They said 78.4 per cent of the people lived below the poverty line in 1982 and the area predicted as, “one of the places that most severely lack human living conditions.” Today, 580,000 of the about 6.7 million population of the province are tagged poor (live below 2,900 Yuan annually - about FCFA 256,000, and are from families that have neither a civil servant nor a car.)
The local government of Ningxia like others in the People’s Republic of China first turned to agriculture whose growth, authorities say, has high impact in poverty reduction. Thanks to the community ownership of land, the resource has been equitably distributed to households based on their number likewise other agricultural productivity-enhancement inputs. With constant agronomic research, high-yielding disease-resistant seeds are made available to farmers, they are schooled on best farming methods, community sales are organized for their produce and common infrastructure like roads and energy made available.
Government also subsidizes agricultural productivity via farm inputs and farmer-friendly loans. Local processing of the produce is also aided to add value and better the livelihoods of the farmers. These efforts have increased pure income per farmer from 126.6 Yuan to 6,500 Yuan today.
People in arid mountainous areas have been relocated to better areas where lodging and means of livelihood are being provided to them by the State. This is the case of Liangtian, Jinfeng District in Ningxia where over 32,000 people have been resettled in over 750 newly-constructed households. Here, the local government provides the people with social amenities (health units, education, old people’s home) and schools for their children. There is also free senior high school education at Yucai and Liupanshan for students from poor families.
The educational system is highly professional and prepares graduates for either the results-oriented administration or specialised industries spread across the country whose implantation or growth are greatly aided by business-friendly administrative and legal instruments in place. With the best training, the poor areas are able to export skilled labour within and without China.
Ningxia exported over 600,000 skilled labour last year who fetched over 700 million Yuan. Fighting poverty here is therefore not a matter of crafting puffy programmes and projects some of which benefit all but the poor but rather going from problem to solution.
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