Cooperation on poverty alleviation needed in B&R countries
China has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty since its reform and opening-up nearly 40 years ago. It vows to eliminate rural poverty by 2020 through targeted poverty alleviation. It is exploring the practices of green poverty alleviation, a combination of green development and poverty alleviation--both targets set by the United Nations in its sustainable development agenda for 2030.
The green poverty alleviation, if well implemented, can lay a solid foundation for construction of a human community with shared destiny, and the Belt and Road Initiative offers China rich opportunities to test and better its green poverty alleviation methods.
China prioritizes environmental protection and ecological preservation in its poverty alleviation efforts, and endeavors to allow poverty-stricken people to benefit from the ecological construction and restoration of their hometowns.
In many remote inland areas, the governments invest huge amounts of money in protecting grasslands, forests, wetlands and dealing with desertification, by employing the poverty-stricken local inhabitants to take part in these projects.
The money spent on ecological preservation also creates reliable income sources and stable jobs for the poor people living there.
Most countries along the Belt and Road routes are developing countries, and poverty alleviation remains a common and pressing challenge for these countries. Environmental degradation and ecological deterioration are also practical problems hindering their development.
China’s exploration, if successful, in green poverty alleviation can prove that a good environment and poverty reduction do not conflict with each other. Instead, if well managed, there can be mutually beneficial win-win interactions between the two endeavors.
If green poverty alleviation is successfully implemented in the countries along the Belt and Road routes, their natural, ecological and cultural resources can be better used and protected for the benefits of local inhabitants, creating business opportunities for investors.
Under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, China can organize some training activities to encourage countries in the same region to carry out the green poverty alleviation projects.
Researchers from the countries along the Belt and Road routes can also cooperate with each other to help innovate the green poverty alleviation model according to their own practical national conditions, so as to make it more applicable to diversified conditions in different regions.
It is suggested that a Belt and Road international poverty alleviation forum should be organized from next year to serve as a platform for cooperation in this regard.
Zhang Qi is a researcher on poverty alleviation at Beijing Normal University. Feng Danmeng is a researcher of countryside development with the Ministry of Agriculture. The article is first published by the China Economic Times on Nov. 1. The translator is Li Yang.
