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Since the 1990s of the past century, the Chinese government makes it a point of drawing on the experience of the international community in poverty alleviation and continues its effort for closer cooperation with international organizations in this field and has registered remarkable progress. The cooperation between the World Bank and China is the earliest one as illustrated by the Bank¡¯s biggest input. The ongoing three-phase poverty alleviation loan given by the Bank to China involving the Southwest, Qin and Ba mountainous areas as well as the west regions will total US$ 610 million and its projects will cover nine provinces, regions and 91 poor counties. Once completed, they would benefit over 8 million poor people in terms of a secure subsistence. Apart from that, some countries, international organizations and NGOs have also initiated wide-ranging cooperation with China in the domain of poverty alleviation. Several UNDP¡¯s development projects and research projects in China are just case in point.
China-World Bank Poverty Alleviation Loan Assistance
Projects1
China-World Bank Southwest Loan Project. It was implemented in 35 State-designated poorest areas of the three provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi) and other regions beginning July 1995. The total project investment amounted to 4.23 billion yuan and the World Bank contributed US$ 247.5 million whereas China matched 2.18 billion yuan. The project included eight components: mega-agriculture, infrastructure construction, development of secondary and tertiary industry, sending laborers to other provinces, build-up of educational, health-care and institutional building and poverty monitoring. Once accomplished, 3.5 million poor people in the project-related areas will lead a secure life. As China¡¯s first cross-province, cross-profession and comprehensive poverty alleviation project and one of the biggest anti-poverty projects using foreign investment, it is going ahead smoothly and comes close to the final stage.2. China-World Bank Qing and Ba Mountainous Areas Poverty Alleviation Loan Project. It was formally executed in 1997 in 26 State targeted poor counties in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Ningxia and regions with total investment amounting to 2.988 billion yuan, which also included US$ 180 million of World Bank Loan. The project comprises of small credits in addition to those components of the World Bank¡¯s Southwest region loan. The completion of the project will result in securing the subsistence for 2.3 million poor people in the two mountainous areas.3. China- World Bank Poverty Alleviation in Western Region Project. The project is being implemented in over 20 State-targeted counties in Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Qinghai. The subsistence problem of over 2 million poor people will be solved on the completion of the project. |
