Hosted by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and co-sponsored by the CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP), the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) on Poverty Alleviation was opened in Kunming, Yunnan province on July 17. Chinese President and General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao sent his congratulations to the Conference. Hui Liangyu, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council attended the opening ceremony and made a keynote speech. Participants of the Conference also included LGOP Director-General Fan Xiaojian, LGOP Deputy Director-General Zheng Wenkai, Director-General Zhang Lei, Deputy Director-General Tan Weiping and Director Cao Hongmin of the Department of International Cooperation and Social Mobilization, IPRCC Director-General Wu Zhong and IPRCC Research Division Chief Wang Xiaolin. Director-General Wu Zhong delivered a report titled “International Cooperation on Poverty Reduction and Realization of MDGs”.
Three aspects were included in Wu’s report:
Firstly, the realization of MDGs is imbalanced worldwide. In 2000, leaders of various countries set farseeing goals to make a majority of people shake off absolute poverty, hunger, illiteracy and diseases. Till nowadays when a decade is to pass by, in general, our mankind has made tremendous progress in meeting the MDGs, but major imbalances have existed among regions. With regard to such significant goal as eradicating poverty, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Caribbean are still confronted with enormous challenges. Mankind is still shouldering heavy responsibilities in attaining the goal of poverty reduction.
Secondly, developing countries boast a great deal of successful experience in poverty reduction. Although many developing countries and regions are facing with great challenges in realizing the MDGs, at the same time, there are other developing countries and regions that have succeeded in poverty reduction. A number of developing countries, such as China, India, Vietnam and Ghana, boast a lot of successful experience in poverty reduction.
The micro finance represented by Dr. Muhammad Yunus has succeeded in providing the poor with affordable financial loans services in Bangladesh and many other developing countries.
In 1997, Brazil, Mexico and Bangladesh implemented the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), which has been currently expanded to 30-odd countries and regions.
Indonesia has successfully carried out the Community Driven Development (CDD) projects. By involving community residents in the project design, implementation, monitoring and assessment, CDD projects have comprehensively enhanced the self-development capacity of the impoverished population and achieved success in a multitude of developing countries. China is conducting the CDD pilot projects as well.
Through development-oriented poverty alleviation, China has successfully realized the goal of halving the poor population as provided in the MDGs, and its achievements in poverty reduction have been fully affirmed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.
Thirdly, promote poverty reduction by sharing experience and strengthening cooperation. These achievements of China in poverty reduction have virtually benefited from the successful international cooperation on poverty reduction, in addition to the great efforts exerted by the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government and the Chinese people. In the 1980s when the large-scale development-oriented poverty alleviation was started in an organized and planned way, China attached great importance to the international cooperation on poverty alleviation, and established partnerships with UNDP and other international organizations in the fields of theoretical studies on development-oriented poverty alleviation and human resource development; in the 1990s, China focused on collaborating with the World Bank and other bilateral and multilateral development aid agencies to execute a series of poverty reduction projects intended to explore the effective mode and approach for development-oriented poverty alleviation. The aforementioned cooperation programs played an active role in promoting China’s basic settlement of the problem of food and clothing in 2000.
In 2004, in order to further expand and deepen international cooperation on poverty alleviation, the Chinese government and the World Bank jointly organized the 1st Global Conference on Poverty Reduction, generalizing successful cases of international cooperation on global poverty alleviation and exchanging and sharing poverty reduction experience. During the Conference, the Chinese government and the United Nations jointly established the International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) in a hope to provide a sustaining exchange platform and mechanism for facilitating global poverty reduction and development. In 2005, General Secretary Hu Jintao put forward in the 60th UN General Assembly, “The formal establishment of IPRCC in Beijing is aimed to contribute to the global poverty elimination cause.”
The establishment of IPRCC is supported by the Chinese government, UNDP, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) that constitute the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Center. Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Muhammad Yunus, UN Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang, and World Bank Vice President Justin Yifu Lin act as Senior Advisors of the Center.
Since its establishment, IPRCC has conducted the following work focusing on five aspects, i.e. poverty reduction research, training, exchange, cooperation, and information:
In terms of research, the following has been mainly carried out: frontier theory of poverty reduction, world poverty reduction policies and lessons learned; and poverty reduction and development assistance research. One example is the comparison of the results of poverty reduction in South Asia.
In terms of training, a serious of training topics have been designed and conducted for poverty reduction strategies, policy makers and project members. Until now, over 600 government officials at all levels from 87 countries have attended training, including half trainees from Asia.
In terms of exchange, an exchange mechanism for experience sharing is formed through organizing such activities as various forums, meetings, field trips, etc. Currently, two forums have been institutionalized. “Global Poverty Reduction and Social Development Forum” is organized each year on October 17, the International Poverty Reduction Day; and “China-ASEAN Forum on Social Development and Poverty Reduction” is convened annually. The 4th China-AEAN Forum themed with “Free Trade and Poverty Reduction” has just been closed in Guangxi province, China. In addition, numerous multilateral and bilateral visits and exchanges have been organized. In terms of cooperation, assistance is provided for formulating national poverty reduction strategies and launching pilot poverty alleviation projects by means of poverty reduction policy consultation in developing countries so as to strengthen poverty reduction cooperation and experience sharing. For instance, the Center is providing advice for the Tanzanian government to develop its national strategies for poverty reduction.
In terms of information, poverty reduction knowledge and various services are rendered for other countries by IT technology and information network. As the shared platform for poverty reduction cooperation and exchange between developing countries, IPRCC shall further promote its capacity of experience sharing, exchange and cooperation, and hopes for vigorous support from national political parties in Asia to make joint efforts for the poverty reduction undertaking of mankind and achieve the MDGs.
