Why poverty alleviation cannot be solved by simply handing out money

Su Guoxia, spokesperson for the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development and director of its Department of Policies and Regulations, said that another tendency has emerged in some places: instead of making great efforts to help the poor lift themselves out of poverty through their own efforts, they calculate roughly how much money to give them to reach the poverty line. "We worry that once they are covered by subsidies and declared out of poverty, they will no longer be helped." (October 13, 2016)

Since the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the battle against poverty has been in full swing and has yielded abundant results. However, in carrying out poverty alleviation work in some places, no proper entry point has been found, the measures treat the symptoms but not the root causes, dealing with the symptom rather than the disease, the causes of poverty have not been accurately identified, and money is simply handed out. Poverty alleviation is regarded as holiday visits, as giving money and goods, as charity, or as building infrastructure.

Haste makes waste. Winning the battle against poverty is not a matter of a single day or night; it requires extraordinary perseverance, firm confidence in victory, and practical, workable poverty alleviation measures. Admittedly, for poor households that have lost the ability to work due to illness, disability or other reasons, the subsistence allowance policy is indeed needed as a fallback, along with relief from civil affairs departments and society. But for those poor households with development potential, it is necessary to cultivate their confidence and determination to get rich through hard work, help them devise plans, formulate poverty alleviation plans and develop production. If money and goods are given according to poverty alleviation standards without distinction, the poor households still will not have found a way to develop production, and once the money is used up they will be poor again. How can such short-lived poverty alleviation pull out the roots of poverty? How can it ensure that poor households do not fall back into poverty?

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The reason this "one-off deal" phenomenon of simply handing out money appears in poverty alleviation is that some Party members and officials are eager for quick success and instant benefits, treating poverty alleviation as a "campaign" to be launched with a rush and won quickly, as if poverty alleviation work could be completed overnight. It is because some Party members and officials hold an incorrect view of political achievements, showing off poverty alleviation results as their own merit and treating them as a ladder for promotion. It is because some Party members and officials are bureaucratic and pleasure-seeking, preferring to stay in their offices, not contacting poor people, and not doing their utmost to find paths and set measures for poor households to escape poverty, but instead just going through the motions to finish the task.

How can poverty alleviation work truly help the poor, truly alleviate poverty, and truly lift people out of poverty? In my view, in addition to strengthening the work style of officials, tightening supervision of poverty alleviation work, and doing a good job in targeted poverty alleviation, it would be advisable to introduce a lifelong responsibility system for poverty alleviation. At the same time, no matter where one is transferred or to what level one is promoted, this responsibility system should always follow like a shadow, depriving those who like to simply hand out money of the illusion that they can muddle through, so that they devote themselves wholeheartedly to poverty alleviation work.