UNDP China Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development Project Final Review Meeting Sharing Project Results and Experiences
On June 25th, China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE) and UNDP China co-held the final review meeting of the project—Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development in China(PASDC) in Beijing. Altogether 50 representatives, including officials from the Ministry of Commerce, The National Administration for Rural Revitalization, All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, the local governments of the three project demonstration counties (Chengbu County in Hunan Province, Guangan District of Guangan City and Yilong County in Sichuan Province), experts from research institutions and some project staffs from the three counties, participated the meeting.
Mr. Zhang Yi, Deputy Director-General of CICETE, stated that during 2017-2021, CICETE has been cooperating with UNDP China to carry out the PASDC project according to the general arrangements of the central government for winning the battle against poverty and the poverty alleviation plan organized by the Ministry of Commerce. With a total investment of over RMB 23 million yuan, the project has established and consolidated comprehensive service platform for development of farmers' cooperative organizations - Minfu Rural Sustainable Development Service Centers, which have fostered and supported 208 compliant and effective professional farmers' cooperatives, and established seven farmers' cooperative unions. These cooperatives have directly helped nearly 3,000 farmers lifted themselves out of poverty, making practical contributions to explore ways to consolidate the achievements of poverty elimination and effectively link up the rural revitalization. By innovatively establishing the service platform and a set of serving mechanisms, the project achieves to provide effective solutions for the common problems existing in cooperatives development for a long time. The mechanism has encouraged more farmers to join cooperatives, increased the scale-up, standardization and intensification of agriculture production.
Zuo Ting, the leader of project evaluation team and vice president of the Rural Revitalization Research Institute of China Agricultural University, highlighted that the goal of the project is not to directly help the poor, but to establish a mechanism and platform to help the 'small farmers' move towards the' big market'. The objective of the project- effectively connect poverty alleviation to rural revitalization was set at the start-up stage, and it is also the inevitable requirement of realizing agricultural and rural development under the background of socialist market economy.
During the meeting, UNDP and CICETE issued the Letters of Thanks to the three counties’ governments and the outstanding project staffs for their great efforts and contributions to the implementation of the project.
