2014.No.02（11-20 January，2014）

1. China Development Bank (CDB) innovated the “Guizhou Mode” in promoting poverty alleviation through financial innovation. In 2013, Guizhou Branch of CDB accelerated its financial innovation to improve the “Guizhou Mode” aiming at promoting the poverty relief and counties’ economic growth in accordance with the actual situation in Guizhou Province. Unique methods employed by CDB to achieve the above goal include providing financial product like petty agricultural loan and student loans, a work mode of serving every county with its economic development, as well as a mechanism in providing supports for small and micro enterprises, and so on.
Source: xinhuanet.com 2014-01-13
2. Asian Development Bank (ADB) supports China in its environmental protection and poverty alleviation. ADB will give strong supports to China in its environmental protection and poverty alleviation, and help China to promote innovation in those areas. In the following five years, ADB will help China to respond to climate changes, control air, water, and soil pollutions, realize sustainable management on its wetlands, rivers, lakes and forests, mitigate land degradation and preserve biodiversity. In addition, ADB will continue assisting China in narrowing the gap between the wealthy and the poor, and help eliminate China’s rural poverty through enhancing agricultural productivity, providing more channels to offer financial service and improving rural infrastructure.
Source: Economic Daily 2014-01-13

3. In 2013, 1.66 million people and six counties in Guizhou Province shook off poverty. In 2013, four more developed cities and nine more central units joined in offering aids to Guizhou, which brought the whole province under the cover of counterpart assistance and fixed-point poverty alleviation program. Guizhou has set up an accurate work mechanism of poverty alleviation to strengthen audit and supervision over poverty alleviation funds, better manage the poor, accurately deploy resources and properly offer assistance to poor farmers so that poverty relief resources can be truly applied to the farmers in poverty-stricken areas.
Source: xinhuanet.com 2014-01-16

4. Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region built a safety net for poverty reduction and providing assistance for the disabled. In 2013, Guangxi government supervised and guided the applications for the “Construction of a Sunshine Base for Providing Assistance to the Disabled and Poverty Reduction” all over the region, verified 123 such programs and helped more than ten thousand disabled people to settle down and increase their incomes through productive work with an allocation of 22.22 million yuan as special subsidy funds. Besides, Guangxi district provided a subsidy of 6.5 million yuan for practical skills training of rural handicapped residents in poverty, namely 1,000 yuan for per person per year, enabling 29,000 of them to finish the training. Thanks to the efforts of the government, 234,000 handicapped people in poverty were covered in the subsistence allowance system, with 17,000 of them obtaining counterpart assistance.
Source: People’s Daily 2014-01-15

5. Hong Kong media reported that Hong Kong government allocated 20 billion Hong Kong dollars for poverty alleviation. On January 15th, Liang Zhenying, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, released the second Government Report during his presidency. According to the report, the government will give more welfare to people living at the lower level, with low- income families, senior citizens, handicapped people and ethnic groups benefiting most. It is estimated that the government will spend 20 extra billion Hong Kong dollars to cover all the items the Report refers to. In addition, the Report contains a series of measures for poverty alleviation and educational investment, with “subsidy for low-income working families” as top priority, which will call for 3 billion Hong Kong dollars per year to aid families whose income are below 144,000 Hong Kong dollars.
Source: China News 2014-01-16

6. In 2013, Bazhong city invested 2.456 billion yuan in poverty relief in 15 districts. In 2013, 15 development zones for poverty relief implemented “Six Poverty Alleviation Projects”, namely new Bashan residences, industry cultivation, country road construction, education promotion, public service improvement and bio-environment protection, with the total investment reaching 2.456 billion yuan. Thanks to those projects, rural people received 181,100 times of practical skills training, 4,200 people received labor transfer training and great improvement has been made in public services such as local medical care, public sanitation, education and culture. As a result, villages targeted by the projects have made huge progress in shaking off poverty.
Source: Sichuan Online 2014-01-13

7. Rural credit cooperative delivered loans of 190 million yuan for poverty reduction. Rural credit cooperative of Kaihua County, Zhejiang Province spared no efforts in helping the poor and the weak by offering inclusive financial loans for poverty reduction. By the end of 2013, it had delivered loans of 190 million yuan for poverty reduction in forms of petty agricultural credits, loans with discounted interest for low-income farmers, poverty reduction loans for farmers working outside of their hometowns as well as student loans. As a result, the inclusive financial program has made certain achievements. To be specific, the cooperative has delivered various package loans of 61.45 million yuan for the construction of nine off- mountain communities for poverty reduction and student loans of 4.84 million yuan to the county’s 613 poor college students.
Source: Financial Times 2014-01-16

8. Henan Province reforms its appraisal mechanism of poverty-stricken counties’ and diverts its efforts to poverty alleviation development. Henan government is studying measures of reforming its appraisal mechanism of poverty-stricken counties by shifting its appraisal index from GDP to the achievements in poverty alleviation development, with the improvement of people’s living standards and the decrease of the number of people in poverty as major index. Besides, the government will build up a system to encourage poverty-stricken counties to shake off poverty. That is, Counties which shake off poverty ahead of the end of 2015 will be publicly rewarded and can enjoy special policies for poverty alleviation for another two years. On the contrary, counties that cannot fulfill the task of poverty alleviation with the gap between their economic and social progress as well as their farmers’ income level and those of the province’s average widening will be criticized to spur on their development.
Source: newpaper.dahe.cn 2014-01-13

9. Last year, 1.1 million people in Shaanxi Province shook off poverty which hit a historical high. Last year, Shaanxi province invested 5,816 billion yuan as special funds for poverty relief, up by 28.5% compared with that of 2012. According to statistics, three national districts—Qinbashan District, Liupanshan District and Lvliangshan District—have invested 67.6 billion yuan and launched more than 1,500 projects. Besides, in the relocation of poor people, the government stuck to the tough target of an integrated settlement rate of above 80%. As a result, 552,000 poor households, an equal of 2,175,000 people have been relocated.
Source: Shaanxi Daily 2014-01-12
Organizer: Beijing Normal University China Poverty Reduction Research Center