In February 2021, China declared that it had secured a "complete victory" in its fight against poverty. And in July, China announced that it has built a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty. All 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages have also been removed from the poverty list.
As one of the deeply impoverished districts in China, Gannan of Gansu Province was once a typical ecologically fragile area and a lagging development area. At the end of 2012, Gannan's regional GDP was only 9.674 billion yuan, with 206,100 people living under the poverty line and a poverty incidence rate of 36.75%.
In recent years, Gannan has been making up for the shortcomings in education, transportation, medical care, water safety, network and other infrastructures, expanding and strengthening characteristic agriculture and animal husbandry, tourism and other industries, restoring ecology and protecting biodiversity, and making its efforts to "leave no one behind" on the journey of building a well-off society, so that 700,000 Gannan people can live a good life with dignity and hope.
Now, the clean and beautiful landscape and grassland, the famous monuments and sites, the rich and characteristic Tibetan customs, the long history and ethnic folk art have attracted tourism enthusiasts from all over the world.
Building a Better Life: Best Practices from China's Gannan aims to share Gannan's experience on poverty alleviation, education, tourism, water reservation and culture protection, and showcase the vivid stories of local development practitioners. The five cases will focus on the poverty reduction practices, education of minority ethnic groups, tourism development such as FAO/GIAHS site Diebu Zhagana agriculture-forestry-animal husbandry composite system, Yellow River source reservation, and Thang-ka culture protection, and the three videos will expand the topics with specific and professional angles.
Building a Better Life: Best Practices from China's Gannan is co-produced by the Government of Gansu and Global Center on Development Knowledge Sharing (a newly established project by CIIC), expected to premiere at this year’s International Seminar on Global Poverty Reduction Partnerships, as a follow-up to last year's seminar held in Gansu.