Targeted poverty alleviation requires precise efforts, and identifying the right people to help is key

The things seen during two recent grassroots research visits are unforgettable: one was to a mountain village in an economically strong county, where the houses of about a hundred households were dilapidated, the most presentable street in the village was still a narrow road of rough stones, and the annual per capita income of most families was no more than 1500 yuan; the other was a visit to a provincial-level poverty alleviation county, where everywhere one saw tidy village appearances and beautiful homes, and almost every village had thriving industrial projects, with no trace of poverty visible at all. Comparing the two, the former made one feel that even wealthy places have poor people in need of assistance, while the latter made one feel that in some places the label of poverty had been wrongly applied or should be removed.

Poverty alleviation has always been a hot issue that the state attaches importance to and the people care about. Every year the state and the various provinces and cities spend great effort to help poor areas and poor groups escape poverty. Regarding poverty alleviation work, General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed the need to adapt measures to local conditions and to direct more targeted poverty alleviation toward specific populations and concrete populations. Looking at reality, we have to say that the degree of precision in poverty alleviation work is still far from sufficient. In recent years, the media has exposed some places where, after keeping the "poverty label," banners were hung in celebration, revealing that those doing the alleviating had taken the pulse inaccurately and that the recipients had a dependent mentality. Therefore, assistance purely in the form of funds cannot lift people's spirits, and instead easily fosters dependence on poverty alleviation funds.

Teaching a person to fish is better than giving them a fish. To help people escape poverty, projects must be the support, funds the auxiliary, and the value of the people must be highlighted. In targeted poverty alleviation, the spear must strike the right place, and the methods must be adapted to local conditions and vary from person to person. For example, Heze City accurately identified poor villages and poor households among all farming households citywide, made public announcements, established files and cards, and entered data, with assistance projects precisely reaching households. Only with such precision can one "see real poverty, assist real poverty, and truly alleviate poverty."

Blood-transfusion-style poverty alleviation policies only breed a "lazy man" mentality in local areas; they appear to alleviate poverty, but in fact wear away the local capacity for self-development. At present, some places still have the traditional poverty alleviation mindset of "wait, rely, ask," holding fast to a fixed "blood-transfusion-style" poverty alleviation mentality, while the targeted poverty alleviation proposed under the new situation makes the recipients of assistance more specifically targeted. To declare war on poverty and intensify reform of poverty alleviation methods, it is necessary to earnestly explore assistance projects that complement the actual conditions of poor areas, accurately position and precisely alleviate poverty, and thoroughly transform the blood-transfusion function into a blood-generation function. Poor areas must dig deep into local potential and catch up quickly, and at the same time must truly implement all poverty alleviation policies and funds into specific projects and into every poor household, never allowing poverty to be passed down from generation to generation.