A national anti-poverty project called Whole Village Promotion
has won praise from authorities and local people for its role in
the development of northwestern provinces including Gansu, Shaanxi and Qinghai.
Wang Zhengyi, a farmer living on the Loess Plateau in Lianxing
Village, one of the poorest villages under the administration of
Dingxi, a city in Gansu, said he could not believe such great
changes in his life two years after the project came to his
village.
"Living in a remote area, we used to lead a very poor life and
some of us could not get enough food and clothing," the farmer
said.
"Now, we have roads linking us to the outside world, we use
methane for cooking and heating in our newly-built houses, and we
can develop new agricultural production methods," Wang said.
According to Wan Xuewen, head of the village committee, the
project was conducted in 2004 with about 700,000 yuan (US$87,500)
in government anti-poverty funds and a 500,000-yuan (US$62,500)
loan.
The village spent the money on the construction of a road, a
school, a clinic, a library, methane development and introduction
of new kinds of farming equipment.
The improved infrastructure and the development of industries
have helped increase local farmers' incomes.
In 2005, the average annual income of local farmers in villages
that have benefited from the project reached over 3,000 yuan
(US$370) per person, while the figure in 2001 was 1,088 yuan
(US$134), said Liu Weimin, deputy mayor of Dingxi.
According to official statistics, more than 45,000 poor villages
like Lianxing across the country have benefited from the
project.
In 2001, the central government started to implement the project
across the country to provide enough food and clothing for 26.1
million poverty-stricken people.
These people were living in 148,000 poor villages, 21 percent of
China's total villages, according to the anti-poverty office of the
State Council.
Wang Shousen, vice governor in charge of the anti-poverty drive
in Shaanxi Province, said that the project helps villages map out
their development plan and enables them to further develop with
improved infrastructure and industry, he said.
The local government will continue its efforts to promote the
project, which has provided enough food and clothing for 1.93
million poor farmers in the province since 2001, Wang said.
However, at the end of 2005, Shaanxi still had 5.24 million
people suffering from poverty.
In Qinghai Province, the project was carried out in 179 poor
villages and helped 115,000 local people out of poverty, said the
provincial anti-poverty authority.
(China Daily May 29, 2006)