Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and State Council Issue Decision on Winning the Battle Against Poverty

Ensuring that the rural poor are lifted out of poverty by 2020 is the most arduous task in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The following decision is hereby made on winning the battle against poverty.

I. Enhancing the sense of mission and urgency in winning the battle against poverty

Eliminating poverty, improving people's livelihoods, and gradually achieving common prosperity are the essential requirements of socialism and an important mission of our Party. Since the launch of reform and opening up, we have implemented large-scale poverty alleviation and development programs, lifting 700 million rural poor out of poverty, achieving great accomplishments that have attracted worldwide attention and writing a glorious chapter in the history of humanity's fight against poverty. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, we have incorporated poverty alleviation and development work into the “Four Comprehensives” strategic layout, made it a key task for achieving the first centenary goal, placed it in a more prominent position, vigorously implemented targeted poverty alleviation, continuously enriched and expanded the path of poverty alleviation and development with Chinese characteristics, and constantly opened up new prospects for the cause of poverty alleviation and development.

China's poverty alleviation and development has entered a sprint phase of cracking hard nuts and storming fortifications. Some provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) in the central and western regions still have relatively large poor populations, and the remaining poor people are deeper in poverty, with higher costs of poverty reduction and greater difficulty in escaping poverty. To achieve the established goal of lifting more than 70 million rural poor out of poverty by 2020, time is extremely tight and the task is quite heavy. We must continuously innovate ideas and methods for poverty alleviation and development on the existing basis and resolutely win this battle.

Poverty alleviation and development bears on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, on the well-being of the people, on consolidating the Party's governing foundation, on the long-term stability and security of the country, and on China's international image. Winning the battle against poverty is a major measure to promote all people sharing the fruits of reform and development and achieving common prosperity, an important symbol of the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and an important way to expand domestic demand and promote economic growth under the new normal of economic development. Party committees and governments at all levels must treat poverty alleviation and development work as a major political task, effectively enhance their sense of responsibility, mission and urgency, effectively resolve prominent problems such as inadequate understanding, unsound systems and mechanisms, and failure to implement work measures, fulfill their mission, be courageous in taking responsibility, seize the day, work hard, accelerate filling this prominent weak link in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, never let a single region or ethnic group fall behind, and achieve the poverty alleviation goals set in the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development.

II. Overall Requirements for Winning the Battle Against Poverty

(1) Guiding ideology

Comprehensively implement the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the Party and the second, third, fourth and fifth plenary sessions of the 18th Central Committee, take Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of “Three Represents” and the Scientific Outlook on Development as guidance, thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important speeches, focus on the “Four Comprehensives” strategic layout, firmly establish and effectively implement the development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, fully leverage political and institutional advantages, take targeted poverty alleviation and targeted poverty eradication as the basic strategy, adhere to mutual promotion between poverty alleviation and development and economic and social development, adhere to close integration of targeted assistance with development of contiguous poverty-stricken areas, adhere to equal emphasis on poverty alleviation and development and ecological protection, adhere to effective linkage between poverty alleviation and development and social security, cling to the green mountain without letting go, adopt extraordinary measures, come up with solid methods, and pool the strength of the whole Party and society to resolutely win the battle against poverty.

⟦NL> (2) Overall goals

By 2020, steadily ensure that the rural poor have no worries about food and clothing, and have guaranteed access to compulsory education, basic medical care and housing safety. Achieve a growth rate of per capita disposable income of farmers in poverty-stricken areas higher than the national average, and bring the indicators of major areas of basic public services close to the national average. Ensure that the rural poor under China's current standards are lifted out of poverty, all poverty-stricken counties are removed from the poverty list, and regional overall poverty is resolved.

(3) Basic principles

—— Uphold Party leadership and consolidate the organizational foundation. Fully leverage the leadership core role of Party committees at all levels in overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties, strictly implement the top leader responsibility system for poverty alleviation, with the five-level secretaries of province, city, county, township and village all working together. Effectively strengthen the building of rural grassroots Party organizations in poverty-stricken areas so that they become strong fighting fortresses leading the masses to escape poverty and become prosperous.

—— Uphold government leadership and enhance social synergy. Strengthen government responsibility, guide the market and society to work together, encourage those who are better off to help those who are less well off, and build a major poverty alleviation pattern in which special poverty alleviation, industry poverty alleviation and social poverty alleviation complement each other.

—— Uphold targeted poverty alleviation and improve poverty alleviation results. The value of poverty alleviation and development lies in precision, and the key lies in precision. We must resolve the questions of whom to support, who will support them, and how to support them, truly support the poor, truly alleviate poverty, and truly escape poverty, effectively improve the sustainability of poverty alleviation results, and give the poor a greater sense of gain.

—— Uphold ecological protection and achieve green development. Firmly establish the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, give priority to ecological protection, ensure that poverty alleviation and development does not come at the expense of ecology, explore new paths of ecological poverty alleviation, and let the poor gain more benefits from ecological construction and restoration.

—— Uphold the principal role of the masses and stimulate endogenous motivation. Continue to advance development-oriented poverty alleviation, handle well the relationship between state and social assistance and people's own efforts, carry forward the spirit of self-reliance, hard struggle and becoming prosperous through hard work, fully mobilize the enthusiasm and creativity of cadres and masses in poverty-stricken areas, focus on supporting the mind before supporting the pocket in poverty alleviation, and enhance the self-development capacity of the poor.

—— Uphold adapting measures to local conditions and innovate systems and mechanisms. Highlight problem orientation, innovate poverty alleviation and development paths, and transform from “flood irrigation” to “precision drip irrigation”; innovate the way poverty alleviation resources are used, and transform from scattered multiple channels to coordinated concentration; innovate poverty alleviation and development models, and transform from emphasizing “blood transfusion” to focusing on “blood production”; innovate the poverty alleviation evaluation system, and transform from focusing on assessing regional GDP to mainly assessing poverty alleviation results.

III. Implement the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy and Accelerate Targeted Poverty Eradication of the Poor

(4) Improve the targeted poverty alleviation working mechanism. Do a good job in the key link of targeted identification and registration, lay a solid foundation for winning the battle against poverty, and create conditions for promoting integrated urban-rural development and gradually achieving equalization of basic public services. In accordance with the requirements of precise support targets, precise project arrangements, precise use of funds, precise measures to households, precise dispatch of personnel according to villages, and precise poverty alleviation results, enable about 50 million of the registered poor to escape poverty through measures such as industrial support, transfer employment, relocation, education support and medical assistance, while the remaining poor who have completely or partially lost the ability to work shall be lifted out of poverty through social security policy as a safety net. Conduct regular comprehensive verification of registered poor villages, poor households and poor people, establish targeted poverty alleviation ledgers, and implement dynamic management with entry and exit. Provide classified support to the poor according to the causes of poverty and poverty alleviation needs.

Establish a mechanism for recognizing poor households' escape from poverty. For farmers who have already escaped poverty, let them continue to enjoy relevant poverty alleviation policies for a certain period to avoid the phenomenon of escaping poverty while returning to poverty, and truly ensure that those who should be included are included and those who should be supported are supported. Promptly formulate strict, standardized and transparent standards, procedures and verification methods for withdrawing national key counties for poverty alleviation and development work. The withdrawal of key counties shall be applied for by the county, preliminarily reviewed by the city (prefecture), examined and determined at the provincial level, and reported to the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development for the record. After key counties withdraw, the original national poverty alleviation policies shall remain unchanged during the battle period, and national assistance policies after the battle period shall be promptly formulated. Strengthen social supervision of poverty alleviation performance, carry out surveys of poverty alleviation satisfaction among the masses in poverty-stricken areas, and establish a third-party evaluation mechanism for the implementation of poverty alleviation policies and poverty alleviation results. In evaluating the results of targeted poverty alleviation, we must look not only at the number of people reduced in poverty but also at the quality of poverty escape, not set unrealistic indicators, and seriously hold accountable those who practice fraud and engage in “digital poverty alleviation.”

(5) Develop characteristic industries to escape poverty. Formulate plans for developing characteristic industries in poverty-stricken areas. Issue special policies, coordinate the use of agriculture-related funds, and focus on supporting poor villages and poor households in developing planting and breeding industries and traditional handicrafts according to local conditions. Implement the “one village, one product” industry promotion action in poor villages, and support the construction of a number of characteristic agricultural bases with high participation of the poor. Strengthen the cultivation of farmers' cooperatives and leading enterprises in poverty-stricken areas, give play to their role in organizing and driving the poor, and strengthen their interest linkage mechanism with poor households. Support the development of agricultural product processing industries in poverty-stricken areas, accelerate the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and let poor households share more of the value-added benefits of the entire agricultural industry chain and value chain. Increase support for brand promotion and marketing of agricultural products in poverty-stricken areas. Relying on the unique natural and cultural resources of poverty-stricken areas, deeply implement the rural tourism poverty alleviation project. Scientifically, rationally and orderly develop water and hydropower, coal, oil and gas and other resources in poverty-stricken areas, and adjust and improve policies for distributing resource development benefits. Explore a mechanism for sharing hydropower benefits, giving priority to using funds extracted from power generation for reservoir resettlement and subsequent development of reservoir areas. Guide central enterprises and private enterprises to respectively establish industrial investment funds for poverty-stricken areas, adopt market-oriented operation methods, and mainly use them to attract enterprises to engage in resource development, industrial park construction, new urbanization development and so on in poverty-stricken areas.

(6) Guide labor export to escape poverty. Increase investment in labor export training, coordinate the use of various training resources, take employment as the orientation, and improve the pertinence and effectiveness of training. Increase the implementation of vocational skills upgrading plans and education and training projects for poor households, guide enterprises to combine poverty alleviation with vocational education, encourage vocational colleges and technical schools to enroll children from poor families, ensure that the labor force in poor families masters at least one skill for becoming prosperous, and achieve poverty escape through skills. Further increase transfer payments of special employment funds to poverty-stricken areas. Support poverty-stricken areas in building county and township grassroots labor employment and social security service platforms, guide and support employing enterprises in establishing labor training bases in poverty-stricken areas, carry out order-oriented and targeted training well, and establish and improve labor docking mechanisms between output areas and input areas. Encourage local governments to provide transportation subsidies to rural poor working across provinces. Vigorously support the development of domestic services, logistics distribution, elderly care services and other industries, and expand the space for labor from poverty-stricken areas to find employment outside. Increase policy support for migrant workers from poverty-stricken areas returning home to start businesses. For rural poor who have worked and lived in cities and towns for more than one year, the government of the input area shall bear corresponding assistance responsibilities and give priority to providing basic public services, promoting the orderly citizenization of rural poor who are capable of stable employment and life in cities and towns.

(7) Implement relocation to escape poverty. Accelerate the implementation of relocation poverty alleviation projects for rural poor living in areas with harsh living conditions, fragile ecological environments and frequent natural disasters. Adhere to the principles of voluntary participation of the masses and active yet prudent implementation, choose relocation and resettlement methods according to local conditions, reasonably determine housing construction standards, improve follow-up support policies after relocation, ensure that relocated people have jobs to take and steadily escape poverty, and achieve the ability to move out, remain stable and become prosperous. Closely combine with promoting new urbanization, compile and implement relocation poverty alleviation plans, support areas with conditions in resettling relocated people relying on small towns and industrial parks, help them realize transfer employment as soon as possible, and enjoy basic public services equal to those of local people. Increase investment from the central budget and input from local governments at all levels, innovate investment and financing mechanisms, broaden funding sources, and raise subsidy standards. Actively integrate agriculture-supporting funds and social funds for transportation construction, farmland water conservancy, land consolidation, geological disaster prevention and control, forestry ecology and so on to support the construction of supporting public facilities in resettlement areas and ecological restoration in relocation areas. Use the policy of linking increases and decreases in urban and rural construction land to support relocation poverty alleviation. Provide eligible relocated households with interest-subsidized loans for housing construction, production and entrepreneurship. Support relocation and resettlement sites in developing property economies to increase relocated households' property income. Explore the use of rural vacant houses and land voluntarily and compensatorily withdrawn by farmers after settling in cities to resettle relocated poor households.

(8) Combine ecological protection with poverty escape. For major ecological projects implemented by the state, such as returning farmland to forest and grassland, natural forest protection, shelterbelt construction, rocky desertification control, desertification prevention and control, wetland protection and restoration, comprehensive improvement of sloping farmland, returning grazing land to grassland, and water ecological governance, further tilt projects and fund arrangements toward poverty-stricken areas and raise the participation and benefit levels of the poor. Increase ecological protection and restoration efforts in poverty-stricken areas and increase transfer payments to key ecological function areas. In conjunction with establishing the national park system, innovate ways of using ecological funds, and use funds from ecological compensation and ecological protection projects to convert some poor people with labor capacity in local areas into forest rangers and other ecological protection personnel. Reasonably adjust the retention indicators of basic farmland in poverty-stricken areas and increase efforts in the new round of returning farmland to forest and grassland in poverty-stricken areas. Carry out pilot comprehensive ecological compensation in poverty-stricken areas, improve the dynamic adjustment mechanism for public welfare forest compensation standards, improve subsidy and reward policies for grassland ecological protection, and promote the establishment of horizontal ecological compensation systems between regions.

(9) Focus on strengthening education to escape poverty. Accelerate the implementation of education poverty alleviation projects so that children from poor families can all receive fair and quality education and intergenerational transmission of poverty is blocked. National education funds shall be tilted toward poverty-stricken areas and basic education. Improve the preschool education assistance system and help young children from rural poor families receive preschool education. Steadily advance the nutrition improvement plan for students in the compulsory education stage in rural poverty-stricken areas. Increase support for building the ranks of rural teachers, tilt the special post plan and national training plan toward the grassroots in poverty-stricken areas, train targeted teachers for rural schools in poverty-stricken areas who can stay and remain stable and are versatile in one specialty, formulate teacher recruitment and introduction methods suited to grassroots reality, establish a provincially coordinated rural teacher supplement mechanism, and promote reasonable flow and paired assistance of urban and rural teachers. Comprehensively implement the living subsidy policy for rural teachers in contiguous poverty-stricken areas and establish an honor system for rural teachers. Rationally lay out rural primary and secondary schools in poverty-stricken areas, improve basic conditions for running schools, accelerate standardization construction, strengthen the construction of boarding schools, and improve the consolidation rate of compulsory education. Popularize senior secondary education, take the lead in exempting registered students from financially difficult families from tuition and miscellaneous fees in regular senior secondary schools and secondary vocational education, and enable all junior secondary graduates who do not enter regular senior secondary schools to receive secondary vocational education. Strengthen the construction of secondary vocational schools with professional characteristics and adapted to market demand, and raise the national grant funding standard for secondary vocational education. Strive to run special education and distance education well in poverty-stricken areas. Establish a long-term mechanism to ensure that students from rural and poverty-stricken areas enter key universities, and increase assistance to college students from poor families. Provide employment support to college graduates from poor families who have left school and are unemployed. Implement an action plan for paired assistance in education poverty alleviation.

(10) Carry out medical insurance and medical assistance to escape poverty. Implement the health poverty alleviation project, ensure the poor enjoy basic medical and health services, and strive to prevent poverty caused by illness and return to poverty due to illness. For the individual contribution portion of poor people participating in the new rural cooperative medical system, the government shall provide subsidies. The new rural cooperative medical system and critical illness insurance system shall adopt policy tilts for the poor, take the lead in covering all poverty-stricken areas with outpatient pooling, reduce the actual out-of-pocket expenses of the poor for major illnesses, and for those who still have difficulties with self-paid expenses after payment by the new rural cooperative medical system and critical illness insurance, increase assistance through medical assistance, temporary assistance, charitable assistance and so on, include all poor people in the scope of assistance for major and critical diseases, and effectively guarantee medical treatment for major illnesses of the poor. Increase rehabilitation services and medical assistance for the rural poor with disabilities, and expand medical rehabilitation items for people with disabilities included in the scope of basic medical insurance. Establish health cards for the poor. Implement classified treatment for major illnesses of the poor and a settlement mechanism of diagnosis and treatment first and payment later. Establish stable and sustained one-to-one assistance relationships between tertiary hospitals nationwide (including hospitals of the military and armed police forces) and county-level hospitals in counties in contiguous poverty-stricken areas and national key counties for poverty alleviation and development work. Complete the standardized construction of the three-level medical and health service network at county, township and village levels in poverty-stricken areas, and actively promote the extension of telemedicine diagnosis and treatment and health consultation services to poverty-stricken areas. Provide order-oriented free training for medical undergraduate and junior college students for county and township medical and health institutions in poverty-stricken areas, support poverty-stricken areas in implementing special post plans for general practitioners and specialist doctors, and formulate talent recruitment and introduction methods suited to grassroots reality. Support and guide eligible village doctors in poverty-stricken areas to participate in urban employee basic old-age insurance in accordance with regulations. Adopt targeted measures to strengthen prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, endemic diseases and chronic diseases in poverty-stricken areas. Comprehensively implement major public health projects in poverty-stricken areas such as child nutrition improvement, free screening for neonatal diseases, free screening for “two cancers” in women, and free pre-pregnancy eugenic health examinations. Strengthen family planning service management in poverty-stricken areas.

(11) Implement the rural minimum living security system as a safety net for poverty escape. Improve the rural minimum living security system and implement policy-based safety-net guarantees for families that cannot escape poverty through industrial support and employment assistance. Increase provincial-level coordination of rural minimum living security, and areas with lower minimum living security standards shall gradually reach the national poverty alleviation standard. Promptly formulate implementation plans for effectively linking the rural minimum living security system with poverty alleviation and development policies. Further strengthen verification of the economic conditions of families applying for rural minimum living security, include all eligible poor families in the minimum living security scope, and ensure that all those who should be covered are covered. Increase the implementation of the temporary assistance system in poverty-stricken areas. Raise the level of support for rural people in extreme poverty and improve support conditions. Promptly establish an information platform for data interconnection and resource sharing between rural minimum living security and poverty alleviation and development, and realize dynamic monitoring and management and effective linkage of working mechanisms. Accelerate the improvement of the basic old-age insurance system for urban and rural residents, raise the basic pension standard in a timely manner, guide the rural poor to actively participate in and continue insurance, and gradually raise the level of protection. Areas with conditions and demand may implement “relieving poverty with grain.”

(12) Explore asset income poverty alleviation. Without changing the purpose, assets formed by special fiscal poverty alleviation funds and other agriculture-related funds invested in facility agriculture, breeding, photovoltaics, hydropower, rural tourism and other projects may, where conditions permit, be converted into shares and quantified to poor villages and poor households, especially poor households that have lost the ability to work. Assets may be uniformly operated by village collectives, cooperatives or other operating entities. Supervision and management must be strengthened, the responsibility of asset operators for preserving and increasing the value of assets formed by fiscal funds must be clarified, and a sound income distribution mechanism must be established to ensure that asset income promptly benefits poor households holding shares. Support farmers' cooperatives and other operating entities in driving poor households to increase income through land trusteeship, livestock foster care, and absorbing farmers' land management rights as shares. In the development of hydropower, mineral and other resources in poverty-stricken areas, grant equity to village collectives whose land is occupied, so that the poor can share in resource development benefits.

(13) Improve the care service system for left-behind children, left-behind women, left-behind elderly people and people with disabilities. Conduct a comprehensive survey of rural “three left-behind” groups and people with disabilities, and establish a detailed, complete and dynamically updated information management system. Strengthen service facilities and teams such as children's welfare homes, rescue and protection institutions, support institutions for people in extreme poverty, rehabilitation and care institutions for people with disabilities, and community children's homes, and continuously improve management and service levels. Establish a care service network for left-behind children linking families, schools, grassroots organizations, the government and social forces. Strengthen guardianship of minors. Improve the welfare guarantee system for orphans, de facto unsupervised children, and children in difficult circumstances such as those with severe illness or severe disability from low-income families. Improve mechanisms for discovery and reporting, emergency response, and assistance intervention to help special poor families solve practical difficulties. Increase implementation of rehabilitation projects, special education, skills training and care services for the poor with disabilities. In response to the special difficulties of people with disabilities, comprehensively establish systems of living subsidies for people with disabilities in difficulty and nursing subsidies for people with severe disabilities. For key assistance recipients such as the elderly, minors and people with severe disabilities in minimum living security families, raise the level of assistance and ensure basic living. Guide and encourage social forces to participate in care services for special groups.