Targeted poverty alleviation cannot remain merely in plans; it must be put into practice.

Nowadays, enthusiasm for targeted poverty alleviation is running high across various places, with poor households being precisely identified and poverty alleviation plans formulated by category. However, does one policy per household equal “targeted”? It still depends on whether that “policy” is grounded in reality and can produce real results.

Visiting a poverty-stricken county, the poverty alleviation plan had already been refined down to each household. For example, for poor households with labor capacity, a targeted goat poverty alleviation project was mainly promoted, supporting 10,000 households to escape poverty over 3 years. With government subsidies, bank loans, enterprise services and insurance as a fallback, a county official said, “As long as the family has labor, stable poverty alleviation is nothing to worry about.” But good projects are not necessarily accepted by all. Some poor households, though included in the plan, said outright that they could not do it. One poor household said that with a child in university and elderly family members sick year-round, the family needed cash every month, while raising goats would only generate income at the peak sales period 3 years later. Others said that with young children and elderly family members facing inconvenience in daily life, they were willing to raise sheep but simply did not have the time……

The diverse causes of poverty and overlapping multiple needs precisely reflect the complexity of the current poverty situation. “Whom to support?” “Who will provide the support?” “How to support?” Solving these three major questions well is the key to achieving targeted poverty alleviation. At present, many places have identified the truly “poor” and grasped the true “bottom of poverty” through precise identification and registration, and the question of “how to support” has begun to emerge. In some places, poverty alleviation plans are listed in tables but do not fit the actual circumstances of poor households, and farmers do not buy into them. In others, poverty alleviation industries are launched and people plunge in before the market is clearly understood, only to find the measures do not adapt, and the investment is washed away, “rushing in together the first year, scattering apart the next.” In the final analysis, these problems stem from work that is not solid and not meticulous.

As poverty alleviation and development enters a new stage of storming fortifications and capturing strongholds, the reason the “hard bones” are “hard” is that the remaining more than 70 million poor people have a poor foundation and weak development capacity. Relying on the past approach of “one move that always works” and “one single model” is very difficult to make work; it is necessary to base efforts on reality and adapt measures to each household. Conventional inclusive policies will probably also become very difficult to make effective in the later stage, and there is a need to eat the “special meal” of preferential policies. The further along this goes, the harder poverty alleviation becomes, and the more it is necessary to be problem-oriented, apply scientific measures, and avoid “grabbing eyebrows and beard all at once”; instead, one must “use one key to open one lock.” Only by truly going down to the countryside and exploring new paths of targeted poverty alleviation through multiple channels and diversified approaches can no one poor household be left behind on the road to moderate prosperity in all respects.

Bring out “unconventional” methods. Poverty alleviation is not about seeking a temporary removal of the label, but about achieving stable poverty alleviation. To transform traditional poverty alleviation methods, it is necessary to change ways of thinking and go deep into thousands of households. Only by understanding the real situation can one prescribe the right remedy, supplement whatever is lacking, and make poverty alleviation plans reasonable and key measures well-targeted. New paths should be sought through reform. Some places have explored asset income models, converting project funds into shares and tilting them toward poor households. Others have used property rights reform to allow poor households to contribute land as shares and share in the value-added income from agriculture.

⟦NL> Have “unconventional” actions. Real poverty is not frightening; what is frightening is fake poverty alleviation and nominal poverty alleviation. Poverty alleviation is a “field of responsibility,” and there must be a contingent of officials who can go down to the grassroots and truly grasp and do solid work. Grassroots officials must dare to take responsibility, not haggle over conditions, and “wear out their legs” for the family affairs of poor households, unblocking the “last mile” of poverty alleviation, so as to submit a qualified answer sheet on poverty alleviation.

Have “unconventional” systems. Improve the baton of the assessment mechanism, link the actual effectiveness of poverty alleviation to assessment, and squeeze out the water from poverty alleviation. Whether poor households have escaped poverty cannot be decided by one-sided claims; local people should be allowed to evaluate it themselves, more should be heard from farmers, accounts should be calculated together with the people, and the people must acknowledge the accounts.

Achieving poverty alleviation for the rural poor by 2020 is the “most arduous task” in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. We believe that by working harder on the word “real,” and applying more targeted efforts, even the hardest bone can certainly be gnawed through.