Research Reports on the Elimination of Poverty in China - Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

    Wang Sumin, Wang Tai, An Chunying

Abstract

    As a long-standing social and economic phenomenon, poverty is a worldwide conundrum. Eliminating poverty is the common goal and good wish of all mankind. Since the Eighteenth Party's Congress,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC) under the leadership of Xi Jinping has given poverty alleviation and sustainable development an important position in governance and administration of state affairs, and raised it to the new height of mattering the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and the realization of the first centenary goal. Poverty alleviation, with the concept of “targeted poverty alleviation”being put forward, has been included in the decision-making and deployment of the “Five-in-One Overall Plan”( for promoting all-round economic, political, cultural, social and ecological progress) and the“Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy” ( i. e. to build a moderately prosperous society; to deepen reforms; to advance the law-based governance of China; and to strengthen Party self- discipline).

    For a long time, poverty in Tongliao City of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has been very serious due to the intertwined elements of its special location, geographical environment and ethnic characteristics. Profound as it is, it has been the anti-poverty focus in Inner Mongolia. Poverty in Tongliao City is typical in the targeted poverty alleviation in minority areas.

In the long-term theoretical summary and practical exploration of anti-poverty, Tongliao City, based on its own environmental characteristics and specialty resources, has developed featured industries to help its targeted poverty alleviation. Tongliao City has promoted the large-scale and standardized breeding of local cattle industry, thereby driving the development of forage, slaughtering, processing, sales and other related fields, and has helped farmers increase their income through variety improvement, scientific breeding and whole industrial chain management.

    To drive the transformation of the forms of production in poverty- stricken areas, and increase income and prosperity for farmers and herdsmen in the whole region, Mongolian traditional medicine has been built in Tongliao City by exploring the potential of Mongolian medicine in economy, science and technology, culture and ecology, expanding and strengthening the industry of Mongolian medicine, building the brand of Mongolian traditional Chinese medicine in Inner Mongolia.

    To carry out rural tourism, strive to promote the deep integration of ecological construction and poverty alleviation,“tourism + poverty alleviation” has been taken as an important starting point for people's livelihood industry and poverty alleviation in poverty-stricken areas so as to guide poverty counties to rely on local scenic spot tourism resources to improve scenic spots and the supporting facilities of scenic spots, and realize the driving force of scenic spot for surrounding poor villages, thereby helping the poor Gacha villages get rid of poverty by increasing income and continuously release new vitality for poverty alleviation.

    Taking advantage of the new policy of the country's unsubsidized Internet access at par project, Tongliao City has focused on promoting the One Million-Kilowatt Wind-Level Internet Project which combines ecological protection with environmental governance in promoting photovoltaic sand control, photovoltaic initiative, coal mining subsidence areas, and mining dump areas for photovoltaic power generation projects, encouraging the use of buildings and affiliated venues, formulating development plans for the photovoltaic energy industry, encouraging new energy companies to reduce costs by means of improved technology and introduced equipment, conducting orderly online bidding, and focusing on promoting wind power and photovoltaic power generation to achieve respectively parity access to the Internet.

    To develop“Internet +”projects and guide poor households to join in the e-commerce industry chain, the e-commerce industrial park has been built in Tongliao City which will actively promote online and offline interactive marketing of products from poor areas and poor households, and help increase the income of poor households. By promoting the ecological benefit compensation of public welfare forest, returning farmland to forest, and developing the grass and sand system governance, Tongliao City has carried out ecological poverty alleviation to take the advantages of ecological resources endowment in poor areas, and select featured industries that are closely integrated with ecological protection and have relatively stable markets to transform resources advantages into industrial benefits and economic benefits.

    By implementing the aid policy to students, the efforts of poverty alleviation through education has been strengthened to create conditions for children from poor families to receive better education. The aid policy has been carried out to help the students from poor families complete their studies and to develop national education. The endogenous power of poor people has been promoted through the organic combination of poverty alleviation and intellectual support, aiming to realize the transformation from “ blood transfusion ”poverty alleviation to“hematopoiesis” poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, a good combination of educational development and poverty alleviation has also been made, aiming to complete the important task of “developing education to lift a number of people out of poverty"; by enhancing social support project, carrying out the delivery of medical services and medicines for chronically illness and poor patients, and achieving door-to-door diagnosis and treatment, all the banners and counties have established a“one-stop” settlement service window and other measures to promote the social assistance system, in order to ensure that the basic living standard of the poor is compatible with that of the overall well-off people.

    In addition, this book has also discussed the achievements and enlightenment of targeted poverty alleviation in Tongliao City from the aspects of consolidating the achievements of targeted poverty alleviation, strengthening the assessment, improving the governance competence of local governments, promoting the strategy and policy formulation and implementation driven by competent people, aiming to overcome the difficulties of poverty alleviation and push forward targeted poverty alleviation in Tongliao City. In the future, Tongliao City will do a solid job in the follow-up assistance work to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation. It will pay close attention to the construction of working style and capacity so as to strengthen the supervision of poverty alleviation projects, especially in poverty-stricken counties. It will strengthen the leadership, improve key mechanisms as well as the policies and measures to focus on the completion of the remaining tasks of poverty alleviation, and increase the sense of achieving of the impoverished people.

Key Words

    Tongliao City; Targeted poverty alleviation; Model; Experience