Some Reflections on Doing a Good Job in Targeted Poverty Alleviation
Poverty is a long-standing worldwide problem. Whether in developed countries in Europe and America or in the vast number of developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the challenge of poverty is unavoidable. The Party and government of our country attach great importance to poverty alleviation and development work in rural areas. Since the reform and opening up, our country's poverty alleviation and development work has continuously deepened. In particular, in October 2013, when General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward the concept of "targeted poverty alleviation" during an inspection tour in Xiangxi, it marked that our country's poverty alleviation and development had entered a new stage.
I. Difficulties Faced by Targeted Poverty Alleviation
Targeted poverty alleviation emphasizes precision. On June 18, 2015, during a discussion in Guizhou, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the "six precisions" and "four practicalities," setting out specific requirements for targeted poverty alleviation work. At present, governments at all levels across our country are continuously advancing targeted poverty alleviation work. In particular, Guizhou and other places have achieved good results in practice, but there are also some problems, such as difficulty in identifying targets, scattered poverty alleviation resources, lagging infrastructure, weakened grassroots organizations, and so on.
1. Difficulty in Identifying Poverty Targets
Although many places, when identifying poverty targets, start from multiple aspects such as living conditions, economic income, labor capacity, educational burden, and social security, and exercise control at every level through the methods of household application, group deliberation, village selection, township (town) review, and county approval. In order to ensure the fairness and justice of identification, the "nine prohibitions" principle has also been proposed, and so on. However, due to constraints such as working away from home and diversified sources of income, it is difficult to accurately calculate rural household income. Moreover, because poor households can obtain hidden benefits such as national policy funding support, this makes the identification of poverty targets difficult. In some places, there has even been the phenomenon that "some poor households were made poor through fights."
2. Poverty Alleviation Resources Are Relatively Scattered
The scattering of poverty alleviation resources is an important factor restricting the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation. Judging from the implementation of current poverty alleviation projects in our country, there are more than 10 departments directly involved in the allocation and management of poverty alleviation funds, including the Development and Reform Commission, finance, agriculture, water conservancy, forestry, education, health, the Poverty Alleviation Office, the Energy Office, transportation, land and resources, and grain. Although governments at all levels will coordinate and integrate to a certain extent in consideration of the current situation of scattered poverty alleviation resources, objectively it is very difficult to concentrate limited funds into one industry or project. Therefore, it is difficult to make limited poverty alleviation resources produce the greatest benefits.
3. Infrastructure Construction Lags Behind
Lagging infrastructure construction is a common problem faced by poor areas and is also a "shortcoming" that must be made up, as it determines whether targeted poverty alleviation can be smoothly advanced. Convenient transportation and communication conditions are the first issues to consider in developing industries. At present, many poor areas still commonly face problems such as difficulty for the masses to travel, difficulty in farming, expensive electricity, unsafe drinking water, poor living conditions, and inconvenient communications. To a large extent, this not only affects the masses' production and life, but also restricts the development of village-level industries. This is a fundamental issue that must be resolved to advance targeted poverty alleviation.
4. Grassroots Organizations Are Relatively Weakened
Rural grassroots Party organizations play a vital role in advancing targeted poverty alleviation. The strength or weakness of rural grassroots Party organizations has a very important impact on the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation. At present, in rural areas, especially in poor villages, the construction of grassroots Party organizations is relatively lagging. Because most young people go out to work and have little willingness to join the Party, it is relatively difficult to develop Party members at the rural grassroots level, and it is difficult to form a stable reserve force of Party members. Most rural areas generally face the weakening of grassroots Party organizations and problems such as the relatively advanced age of Party members, the relatively low educational level of Party members, and the unreasonable age structure of Party members.
II. Suggestions for Advancing Targeted Poverty Alleviation
1. Improve the Mechanism for Poor Households to Enter and Exit
Only by improving the mechanism for poor households to enter and exit can the orderly entry and exit of poor households be ensured. This requires that the identification of poor households must be done well, carefully, and solidly. Specifically, town and village cadres must truly go deep into farmers' homes to understand the situation in detail, including housing, income, health, education, and other aspects, and accurately calculate farmers' household income, so that farmers who do not meet the poverty standards voluntarily withdraw from the ranks of poor households. Phenomena such as separating households, splitting households, and merging households in order to obtain poverty alleviation policies and funds should be cleaned up, thereby ensuring the precision of identification and finding and identifying the causes of poverty. Only in this way can a foundation be provided for precise policy implementation.
2. Integrate Scattered Poverty Alleviation Resources
Targeted poverty alleviation is a comprehensive project, while limited poverty alleviation resources are scattered among different government departments. Restricted by departmental and regional segmentation, it is difficult to effectively integrate them, which seriously affects the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation. This requires that scattered poverty alleviation resources must be integrated. Specifically, it is necessary to strengthen leadership and reinforce the leadership responsibility system for targeted poverty alleviation; at the same time, governments at all levels should establish unified leading bodies to coordinate, plan as a whole, and integrate the funds, projects, and policies scattered across departments such as poverty alleviation, finance, agriculture, forestry and water conservancy, and education. Only in this way can a synergy of resources and a clustering effect be formed, ensuring the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation.
3. Strengthen the Construction of Grassroots Party Organizations
Whether rural areas are rich or not depends critically on the branch. The strength or weakness of rural grassroots Party organizations determines the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation. This requires that the construction of grassroots Party organizations must be strengthened. First, it is necessary to strengthen the building of the grassroots Party member team and actively develop and cultivate young, educated, and knowledgeable people such as economically capable individuals, science and technology demonstration households, veterans, and people returning from work outside to join the Party, continuously optimizing the structure of Party members and expanding the Party member team. Second, it is necessary to strengthen education and training for Party members, not only Party spirit education, but also skills training. Third, according to the requirement of precisely assigning people based on village conditions, it is necessary to increase efforts to dispatch first secretaries to serve in villages.
4. Form a Broad Pattern of Social Poverty Alleviation
As a government-led action, targeted poverty alleviation cannot rely solely on government policies and funding. It is necessary to innovate poverty alleviation ideas, create a social environment of broad mobilization and participation by all people, and form a broad pattern of social poverty alleviation. First, it is necessary to give play to the principal role of poor households. By increasing skills training, selecting suitable industries and projects, and encouraging poor households to participate with poverty alleviation funds, land, and other forms of shareholding, their willingness and motivation to escape poverty should be enhanced and their income increased. Second, it is necessary to explore diverse poverty alleviation methods. In addition to work teams stationed in villages to provide assistance, develop e-commerce poverty alleviation, mobilize cadres and entrepreneurs from the village working elsewhere to return home to provide assistance, and so on. Third, it is necessary to give play to the role of enterprises and other social organizations, so that enterprises can offer suggestions for the development of village-level industries and form new poverty alleviation mechanisms such as "company + farmers" and third-party participation.