The Malawi delegation, with a group of 6, headed by Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development of Malawi paid a visit to China from October 24 to November 1. The visit was organized and arranged by IPRCC. Mr. Zheng Wenkai, Deputy Director-General of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP) met with the delegation and introduced them the poverty alleviation development and rural development of China. Deputy Director-General of IPRCC He Xiaojun briefed the delegation IPRCC’s functions and its cooperation with Africa.

Malawi is currently by utilizing the loan from the World Bank to develop the pilot project “Community-based Rural Land Development Plan”. This study tour aimed at learning about China’s rural land reform, the formulation and implementation of rural poverty alleviation policies, the financial service and the promotion of agricultural technologies specifically to small peasant households, and the poverty alleviation projects targeting at rural communities, to that extent to summarize experiences for the promotion of pilot programme in large scale.

During their stay in Beijing, the delegation have paid visits to the relevant state ministries and commissions as well as research institutions for learning about China’s policies and measures on rural land reform, rural poverty reduction, and micro-credit service. Then they made a field trip to Sichuan province and visited the poverty alleviation projects as well as the CDD pilot projects and mutual fund projects, under the loans from the World Bank, among the impoverished villages. Later in Beijing where at the summing-up meeting, Fletcher, Permanent Secretary of the said ministry, summarized the gains of their trip to China. He said that the large amount of investments put by the Chinese government in poverty reduction in terms of resource mobilization, capacity building and policy guidance was impressive He expressed his willingness to develop further cooperation with IPRCC.