Why Is Targeted Poverty Alleviation Awkward? An Explanation of the Causes of Practical Dilemmas

From July to August 2012, the author went to Changwu, Shaanxi, specifically to investigate poverty alleviation work. One impression at the time was that the requirement set by the central poverty alleviation department that 70% of poverty alleviation funds be used for industrial poverty alleviation was a one-size-fits-all policy that failed to take local realities into account, and this policy also left local poverty alleviation departments struggling to cope while the overall results of poverty alleviation industrial projects were not ideal.

I. The Connotation of Targeted Poverty Alleviation

The emergence of the targeted poverty alleviation policy drew heavily on the experience of Guangdong Province's poverty alleviation "double-arrival" work [3]. From planning down to the household and responsibility down to the person [4] to the current poverty alleviation funds reaching villages and households, and the establishment of village-stationed poverty alleviation work teams, all are a distillation of the Guangdong experience. According to Document No. 25 [2013] issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, targeted poverty alleviation refers to guiding the optimized allocation of various poverty alleviation resources through the targeted identification, targeted assistance, targeted management and targeted assessment of poor households and poor villages, realizing poverty alleviation down to villages and households, gradually building a long-term mechanism for poverty alleviation, and laying a solid foundation for scientific poverty alleviation. Targeted poverty alleviation is a way of governing poverty that uses compliant and effective procedures to carry out precise identification, precise assistance and precise management of poverty alleviation targets in response to different poor regional environments and different poor farming household conditions. [5]

⟦NL> In this sense, targeted poverty alleviation does not exclude each province, autonomous region and municipality from determining specific assistance measures for targeted poverty alleviation according to local objective conditions. However, in specific policy implementation, the central guiding opinions on targeted poverty alleviation evolved into a high-voltage line that local poverty alleviation cadres could not touch. On the one hand, this is because localities had not formed a comprehensive and profound understanding of the targeted poverty alleviation strategy; on the other hand, it is because some poverty alleviation workers were unwilling to take responsibility for improving poverty alleviation results. Therefore, it is necessary for us to explain some core concepts of targeted poverty alleviation in order to clarify related concepts and understandings.

1. Targeted identification

The concept of targeted poverty alleviation was proposed precisely to solve the problem in past poverty alleviation work of unclear identification of poor people and poor villages in non-national poor counties and concentrated contiguous areas. From the actual situation, identifying poor villages is relatively simple, but accurately identifying poor people is not an easy matter. Overall, China's poor population has basically solved the problems of livelihood and food and clothing, that is, the number of absolutely poor people has been greatly reduced, but correspondingly, relatively poor people still exist in large numbers, and the income gap among relatively poor people is not obvious, so this makes it quite difficult to identify relatively poor people beyond the absolute poor. Targeted identification emphasizes identifying poor households through democratic, scientific and transparent procedures. The key here is the identification of poor households among relatively poor groups, and under a limited scale of poverty, identifying the poorest and most needy people.

2. Targeted assistance

So-called targeted assistance is designed in response to the previous one-size-fits-all, large and comprehensive assistance content and methods. Consistent with the principle that "concentrated contiguous poverty alleviation and development must attach importance to the uniqueness and differences of poverty in the area, so that a poverty alleviation strategy with local adaptability and effectiveness can be formulated" [6], assistance under targeted poverty alleviation will fully consider the actual causes of poverty of poor villages and poor households, and on this basis design targeted assistance measures and methods. In assistance, the helpers of poor villages and poor households must be determined, and within the range of manpower, material resources and financial resources that can be mobilized, forces must be concentrated to help poor villages and poor households escape poverty and become prosperous. Targeted assistance attaches importance to the special realities of poor villages and poor households, and carries out poverty alleviation work on the basis of respecting local actual conditions. This is also a development of past poverty alleviation working methods that valued the whole but not the particular.

3. Targeted management

Targeted management first means that the information of all poor households and poor villages will be managed by information-based means, and at the same time, through comparative analysis and statistics of key indicators of poor households, key factors causing insufficient development capacity of farming households or deterioration of poverty conditions will be discovered. At the same time, targeted management also means that support for registered farming households will be dynamic: when the information system monitors and finds that a farming household has already escaped poverty, that household can be removed from the category of poor households, while some new households can again enter. Finally, targeted management is also supervision and management of poverty alleviation departments, whose main purpose is to promote the progress of their various work and to urge and remind them on work such as poverty alleviation funds and projects.

4. Targeted assessment

Through monitoring by the poor population information system, higher-level poverty alleviation departments can clearly and accurately discover the accuracy and seriousness of lower-level poverty alleviation departments in identifying poor households and poor people, and can promptly check the use and implementation of poverty alleviation funds and projects. Assessment of local cadres will also mainly rely on the content and indicators of poverty alleviation work. The establishment of targeted assessment will change the previous formalization problem in rural poverty alleviation assessment. Through quantitative assessment, it will accurately evaluate the work results of poverty alleviation departments at different levels. At the same time, on the basis of combining with village-stationed poverty alleviation work teams, targeted poverty alleviation will also establish an incentive mechanism linked to the future development of village-stationed cadres, thereby fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of village-stationed cadres in poverty alleviation work and also maintaining the necessary pressure in poverty alleviation work.

II. Practical Dilemmas of Targeted Poverty Alleviation

In this part, we will combine investigation materials to present to readers the dilemmas and confusions faced by Lan County, Ningxia, in the practice of targeted poverty alleviation, which can also reflect some deficiencies in targeted poverty alleviation work itself or places that need improvement.

1. Insufficient participation of farming households in targeted identification

Poverty identification is the basic work of targeted poverty alleviation. Its purpose is to find the targets of poverty, avoid poverty alleviation resources being misdirected, omitted or leaked, and enable individuals who truly conform to assistance policies to receive effective support. [7] The director of the Lan County Poverty Alleviation Office told us, "Registration and card establishment, that is, poverty identification work, is mainly handled by the village, with corresponding procedures, and it also has to be publicly announced. The district has regulations that five categories of people cannot enter (such as those with family members supported by public finance, entitled groups, etc.). Each area reports through the poor population information management system. After entering, registered and card-established households cannot be changed, fixed for three years. Registered and card-established households are the responsibility of the village. According to procedures, they must be publicly announced, and after public announcement the list is reported upward. Now ordinary people do not care much about this and feel it does not matter. It does not give money anyway. Whether it is determined or who is determined has little to do with me." It is precisely this situation that led us to find in the investigation that some farming households had never even heard of registration and card establishment, whether they were among poor households or not. Without sufficient participation of farming households, targeted identification is difficult to achieve.

When investigating in Lan County and Xinhe Village, a villager surnamed Zhang said: "Regarding registration and card establishment, I have heard of it. I am not very clear about how it is specifically done, because I often take my daughter out to seek medical treatment, and I do not know much about the village situation. I am not very clear about who the village determined. It should not be me. As for what poverty alleviation projects the village has or how they are implemented, I am not very clear and cannot say much." "It is very difficult to investigate the causes of poverty of poor households, understand household income, and manage their information dynamically." [8] This is the first situation encountered by targeted poverty alleviation: truly poor farming households are relatively indifferent to public affairs, and because of family difficulties, they are either working away from home, or physically disabled or afflicted by illness and have no heart to ask about it, so targeted identification work can only be done roughly.

2. Targeted assistance lacks differentiation

Because the causes of poverty differ, poor households have different needs for assistance, such as production relief, schooling relief, major illness relief, housing renovation, subsistence allowance relief, practical agricultural technology, guaranteed loans and so on, each differing. [9] Targeted poverty alleviation requires formulating corresponding poverty alleviation measures according to the specific situations of poor villages and poor households, but in the investigation we saw that poverty alleviation measures suited to the village and suited to the household did not appear. Poverty alleviation measures for poor people who desire development and have certain skills should be different from poverty alleviation measures for poor people who are lazy and do not engage in proper work, but in fact there is no difference at all between the measures for the two. The director of Xinhe Village was also rather worried about this point. He said: "Now the Communist Party's policies are good, but some farming households receiving poverty alleviation do not know how to be grateful. Regarding poverty alleviation funds, they all think it is free money, so why not take it. The mentality of waiting, relying and demanding is serious. Some people are poor entirely because they are lazy and unwilling to work and thus fell behind. Give them some subsidy, and once they get the money they eat, drink and play, and even go play mahjong and gamble. So poverty alleviation should also support the diligent and not the lazy. Some people really are not worth supporting. I remember during the 2014 Spring Festival when we visited poor households, we carried grain, oil and meat to one poor household, and by after ten in the morning they were still sleeping in at home. It made you furious just looking at it. What is the point of you helping this kind of person?

In addition, as much as possible do not give cash. According to the situation, give assistance in some means of production, such as chemical fertilizer, production tools or other things. Give more after they work. If you give cash, then as just said, they take the money and do something else rather than carry out production and operation." For farming households that are poor because of laziness and not engaging in proper work, although they are only a relatively small proportion of poor farming households, these people's use of poverty alleviation materials and funds truly caused poverty alleviation work to encounter a great challenge to its justice, and the negative effects of supporting such people also damaged the fairness and justice of poverty alleviation work. For this kind of poor household, the first task of poverty alleviation work is not to give money and goods, but to change their thinking and understanding.

3. Targeted poverty alleviation fund distribution easily triggers petitions

During the investigation, the deputy secretary of Hua Village told us: "'Double-arrival' funds were available in our village in 2012 and 2013. In 2014 the village did not ask for this money. The reason for not asking was that all had escaped poverty and there was no longer any need for support in this area. In fact, when the funds come it is also hard to distribute, because there are only 30 household quotas in total, and everyone's differences are not great. It is hard to decide who gets and who does not. In addition, this money can only be used for planting and breeding industries and cannot play much of a role."

For absolutely poor households in the village, villagers can form a consensus. Giving poverty alleviation fund support to this kind of farming household will not trigger villagers' dissatisfaction. But if some relatively poor households are to be supported as registered and card-established households, this will trigger everyone's dissatisfaction and scrambling for poverty alleviation funds, and some villagers will even threaten village and township cadres through petitions. On this point, the deputy director of the Lan County Poverty Alleviation Office also mentioned: "Some farming households are used to being lazy and used to relying on the government and society. Their initiative to develop and become prosperous is insufficient, and the big-pot mentality is serious. They do not care who gets registered and card-established. As long as money and goods are involved, everyone must get a share. If not given, they make trouble. Many things cannot be done." It is precisely because of these factors that poverty alleviation funds are regarded by some cadres as a hot potato, and not seeking poverty alleviation funds and projects sometimes becomes "management wisdom."

In order to reduce conflicts, the farming households in Hua Village that received "double-arrival" funds in 2012 and 2013 were not completely the same. This was both a reflection of the dynamic changes in farming households' poverty status and also a way to reduce petitions by expanding the coverage of poverty alleviation funds.

4. Targeted poverty alleviation funds are limited

For targeted poverty alleviation, "relying only on central government special poverty alleviation funds is far from enough. Therefore, support from social forces must be widely absorbed." [10] A registered and card-established villager surnamed Guo in Xinhe Village told us: "Regarding poverty alleviation funds, I think whatever the government can give, a few is a few. If there is none, then forget it. In fact, even if the township and village give some assistance, 1,000 or 2,000 yuan cannot solve any big problem, so whether there is any does not matter."

During the interview, the deputy party secretary of Liang Township in charge of poverty alleviation work told us: "Our township has determined a total of 951 registered and card-established poor households. The poverty alleviation 'double-arrival' funds obtained in 2014 were 800,000 yuan. Calculated at the standard of 2,000 yuan per household, this money can only support 400 registered and card-established households. At such a standard and funding amount, it would take at least 3 years for all registered and card-established poor households in the whole township to receive it. That is to say, a considerable number of registered and card-established households can receive only one round of 2,000 yuan 'double-arrival' poverty alleviation fund support within 3 years, while according to work requirements registered and card-established households must escape poverty within 3 years. A 2,000 yuan poverty alleviation fund truly cannot play much of a role and has little significance for farming households.

Villagers in this township mainly come from Hui migrants from the Liupan Mountain area. They have the habit of raising beef cattle. For raising beef cattle, 2,000 yuan cannot solve any production problem at all, at most it can buy some feed. On the other hand, villagers have a serious big-pot mentality: if you have yours, I must have mine. The whole township determined more than 900 households, while this year's funds are only enough for 400 households. It is also hard to determine who gets and who does not, and the conflicts are great."

The limited amount of poverty alleviation funds is an important factor constraining targeted poverty alleviation work. For the vast western regions, local finance is quite difficult, and they are unable to raise funds for poverty alleviation from their own fiscal revenue. Therefore, the amount of poverty alleviation funds allocated by higher levels will directly affect the results of targeted poverty alleviation. The issue of the amount of poverty alleviation funds mentioned here, and how to make poverty alleviation funds produce the greatest effect or solve the most urgent needs of poor households, is likewise worth our deep thought.

5. Targeted poverty alleviation policy is rigid

In the investigation, quite a few cadres and personnel of poverty alleviation work institutions questioned the current targeted poverty alleviation policy. The deputy director of the Lan County Poverty Alleviation Office said: "The existing targeted poverty alleviation policy is too rigidly restricted. Poverty alleviation funds can only be used for registered and card-established households. Registered and card-established households cannot do it or are unwilling to do it, while non-registered and non-card-established households are willing to do it but do not meet policy requirements. Such support policy provisions are too rigid, too dogmatic, and should be adapted to local conditions. Each place has different conditions, and grassroots conditions are also complex. Without adapting to local conditions, there will be no effect.

In fact, it would be better to support the non-registered and non-card-established households or large growers in the village who are willing to engage in agricultural projects and have development capacity to carry out industrialized operations. Their driving capacity and demonstration effect will be stronger, and the use effect of poverty alleviation funds will also be better. Many development projects are risky, and poor households have very weak capacity to cope with these risks. If large households take the lead in pilot-testing agricultural projects, after success other farmers will also learn or follow suit." On this point, the deputy party secretary of Liang Township thought: "For the use of poverty alleviation funds, it is still necessary to concentrate and focus on strengthening and improving infrastructure construction and basic industries, such as rural ditches, canals, roads, water and other production and living facilities, such as basic female livestock closely related to farmers' beef cattle fattening and breeding parks, or industrialized operation organizations, so that everyone can benefit from them, which is conducive to everyone's development and can also reduce conflicts. Also, focus on supporting those in agriculture and animal husbandry industries who have the desire to develop and become prosperous, who have a skill and drive. If they become big, they can also drive some people to work and can also absorb farmers into local employment and increase income.

Among the currently determined poor households, a considerable number have labor capacity but lack desire and motivation for development and are rather lazy. Under the current method, it is actually still sprinkling pepper powder, with no significance. Investing in infrastructure and some projects from which everyone can benefit, especially some with long investment periods and slow returns, benefits everyone. This method is best, and the masses have no objections." The lack of flexibility in targeted poverty alleviation is in essence that "in many places, in the implementation process of targeted poverty alleviation, there are surprise short-term actions, and valuing blood transfusion over blood creation is relatively common." [11] Poverty alleviation like this needs improvement.