China's experience in poverty reduction benefits the whole world

China’s economic growth has left a deep impression on the world, and China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of poverty over the past 40 years. China’s experience in poverty reduction benefits other developing countries, according to Dr. Vincent Martin, the UN FAO Representative in China and DPR Korea, and Dr. Benjamin Davis, Strategic Program Leader and Senior Economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Targeted and Innovative Approaches

Dr. Vincent Martin, Representative in China andDPR Korea, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Vincent Martin uses two key words to describe China’s present phase of fight against poverty: targeting and innovation. “Targeting, making sure that you have a very strong targeting system to make sure you identify the poor, you know where they are, and you can really tailor your systems and strategy to these people particularly,” he said. Innovation, according to him, means trying to be innovative and trying to find new solutions. “One of the examples of innovative solution is “Internet + agriculture” to connect farmers and producers to markets,” he noted, and cited as another example “agriculture + tourism” which he thinks is something that can work very well.

The important thing that Benjamin Davis thinks the Chinese government has been doing is realizing that the nature of poverty changes over time, so the measures that were taken 30 years ago that led to a large reduction of poverty such as the household responsibilities system gave way to a series of other measures in order to address poverty. “And now it needs to be more targeted and focus much more on specific vulnerabilities, so it’s hard to have one policy which can address all of the poverty, but rather it is very specific to regions, and to the particular characteristics of the poor in those regions,” he said.