Reflections on China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy from the Perspective of Drawing on Advantages and Avoiding Disadvantages in the New Era

Feng KONG

School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Research Center for Emergency Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Meteorological Cadre Training Institute, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China

Abstract The new era has put forward new requirements for targeted poverty alleviation. Coordinating disaster prevention, mitigation and relief and ecological civilization construction to assist targeted poverty alleviation has become an important direction for alleviating poverty from the perspective of drawing on advantages and avoiding disadvantages. The Outline of the 13th Five- Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China has planned and deployed to fully implement the task of poverty alleviation. The current poverty alleviation is extending from fixed- point poverty alleviation to collaborative poverty alleviation and targeted poverty alleviation. Combining the needs of disaster response, climate adaptation, resource utilization, ecological construction, and information utilization in poverty- stricken areas, the role of disaster risk monitoring, forecasting and early warning services is displayed. The disaster prevention, mitigation and relief and poverty alleviation in the new era should be integrated into the national poverty alleviation pattern, actively serve poverty alleviation projects of industry development, relocation and ecological protection, deeply explore the value of disaster risk information and improve the effective supply of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief services, letting disaster prevention, mitigation and relief and ecological civilization construction help the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation.

Key words Targeted poverty alleviation, Drawing on advantages and avoiding disadvantages, Climate change, Ecological civilization construction, Sustainable development

1 Introduction

The current poverty alleviation is extending from fixed- point poverty alleviation to collaborative poverty alleviation and targeted poverty alleviation[1-3]. The main tasks of theNationalComprehensiveDisasterPreventionandMitigationPlan(2016-2020) emphasize the need to promote the renovation of dangerous houses and adobe houses in rural areas with high natural disaster risk, improve the fortification and resilience level of rural housing, and promote the management of key points with high natural disaster risk and the relocation and evacuation of residents combined with poverty alleviation and development[4-5]. At the same time, theWinningthePovertyAlleviationandMeteorologicalSupportActionPlan(2016-2020) deploys the poverty- stricken area in central and southern Ningxia as the national meteorological disaster prevention, mitigation and relief and ecological civilization construction- assisted targeted poverty alleviation demonstration area[6]. This is in line with the trend that the current poverty alleviation and development pays attention to the capacity, rights and welfare of the poor, as well as the gap in their income[7-10]. Disaster prevention, mitigation and relief and ecological civilization construction- assisted targeted poverty alleviation takes into account the "overall linkage" and "highlighting", which is conducive to the realization of equalization of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief services[11-12].

2 Targeted poverty alleviation from the perspective of drawing on advantages and avoiding disadvantages is the inevitable requirement of eradicating poverty

Poverty- stricken areas are limited in resources, fragile in ecology, sensitive to climate change, and low in disaster prevention and mitigation capacity, and they are easy to fall into a vicious circle of poverty, leading to long- term or repeated poverty. The residents of poverty- stricken areas are seriously affected by disasters.

2.1 Targeted poverty alleviation must face the challenges of natural disastersChina is one of the countries with the most serious natural disasters in the world, and more than 70% of them are related to meteorological disasters. Between 1984 and 2017, meteorological disasters cause an average annual economic loss of more than 234.1 billion yuan and average annual deaths of more than 3 970. More than 70% of meteorological disasters in China occur in rural areas, especially in the western region. In recent years, nearly 70% of the administrative villages in the country have experienced various levels of meteorological disasters. Frequent disasters have caused serious poverty- returning phenomenon in rural areas. At the same time, they seriously threaten people’s lives and property. Poverty caused by disasters has become an important factor hindering the current poverty reduction and poverty alleviation process.

2.2 Targeted poverty alleviation needs to face the challenges of climate changeResponding to climate change is one of the unavoidable problems in the construction of ecological civilization.TheIPCCFifthAssessmentReportonImpactsofClimateChangestates that the impacts of climate change will delay economic growth, threaten food security, and increase welfare losses in poor areas, leading to emergence of new poor population, and making poverty alleviation more difficult. In 2015, the World Bank released a report saying that climate change has hindered the pace of poverty alleviation, and if the measures are not effective, the global poverty- stricken population will probably increase by more than 100 million by 2030.

2.3 Targeted poverty alleviation requires the comprehensive utilization of natural resource endowmentsThe natural resource endowment largely determines the productivity pattern of a region. It is highly binding on increasing residents’ income and reducing poverty, and is also one of the important causes of poverty. In China’s densely populated or ecologically fragile poverty- stricken areas, simply relying on increasing the per capita arable land area cannot effectively alleviate poverty or improve agricultural production efficiency. Instead, it may damage the ecological environment, and further aggravate the contradiction between population and resources in poor areas. Advancing targeted poverty alleviation requires a balance with "green". However, the production and consumption structure in poor areas is characterized by high carbon rigidity. To transform poor areas from traditional fossil energy structures to low- carbon green renewable energy structures is inseparable from policies, funding and technical support. Improper guidance may increase poverty.

2.4 Targeted poverty alleviation needs to strengthen ecological protection and constructionSome poor areas have fragile ecological environment and difficult production and living conditions. The tasks of poverty alleviation and development and ecological construction are not only highly overlapping, but also extremely difficult. According to the statistics, 95% of the poor and most of the poor areas are located in ecologically fragile and sensitive areas and key protected areas. There is a large amount of "green paradox" between ecological protection areas and poor individuals in the region. Industrial policies for poverty alleviation and development may directly or indirectly damage ecological protection. For example, hydropower is a green energy source, but too many hydropower stations may cause damage to the ecological environment. Therefore, the emergency management department and the poverty alleviation department should play a synergistic role in coordinating poverty alleviation, improving the ecological environment and achieving sustainable development.

2.5 Targeted poverty alleviation from the perspective of drawing on advantages and avoiding disadvantages requires the release of informational dividendsInformation network technology and e- commerce have brought new opportunities for poverty alleviation and development. Information- assisted poverty alleviation has entered the stage of emphasizing information application from emphasizing capacity building and network coverage in the past. In recent years, China’s informatization construction has made remarkable achievements. The "digital divide" between urban and rural areas has shown a bridging trend, and the basic conditions for information- assisted poverty alleviation are already in place. E- commerce has driven the rapid development of the agriculture- related e- commerce industry. Rural e- commerce has become more and more related to the central work of government such as "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", employment, economic transformation, improvement of people’s livelihood, public expenditure and even new urbanization, and has become more and more comprehensive and strategic. In the field of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, some provincial disaster prevention, mitigation and relief departments have built bridges for agricultural services through the construction of "agricultural network", laying a good foundation for information- assisted poverty alleviation and e- commerce- assisted poverty alleviation.

3 Disaster prevention and mitigation and disaster relief and ecological civilization construction help targeted poverty alleviation

3.1 Ensuring disaster risk monitoring accurate to township/townTownships are the basic unit of disaster risk monitoring in underdeveloped areas. Taking meteorological disaster monitoring as an example, the current coverage rate of automatic weather stations in townships has exceeded 94.0%. Among the 592 national key poverty alleviation and development counties, there are 570 counties equipped with national- level ground meteorological observatories, accounting for 96.3%. Although meteorological monitoring has basically achieved full coverage of townships, there are still some prominent issues such as incomplete monitoring coverage and factors, low informatization and sharing level and unsatisfactory monitoring data quality. Therefore, to achieve "monitoring accurate to township/town" also needs to further integrate multi- source observation data of meteorology, agriculture, ecology, hydrology, transportation, environment, geology,etc. combined with the needs of disaster risk forecasting services in poor areas to gradually realize the three- dimensional monitoring of sky- air- ground combination, create intelligent monitoring information acquisition, and promote the comprehensive utilization of natural monitoring information and social monitoring information, providing a reliable basis for targeted poverty alleviation and weather services.

3.2 Ensuring disaster risk forecast accurate to villageThe village is a settlement where the villagers live and engage in various productions. Accurate disaster risk prediction to the village is the need for targeted poverty alleviation, and is also the value embodiment of modernization of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief. In the forecast of meteorological disaster risk, after years of development, China’s provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have basically established a precise forecasting technology system, and formed a province- city- county level intensive forecasting business platform, with the ability to publish forecasts for refined elements of administrative villages. However, in some remote and impoverished areas, there are still problems such as coarse time resolution, long forecast interval, and few forecasting factors in the forecasting products of villages. Therefore, it is also necessary to focus on promoting refined grid forecasting, and strengthen the ability of severe weather forecasting such as strong convection to achieve seamless and accurate weather forecasting, and improve the ability of medium and short- term forecasting of severe weather.

3.3 Ensuring disaster risk warning accurate to farmerFarmers are the main bearers of disaster losses. Although China has basically realized the full coverage of the early warning information release in townships, the coverage in poor areas is still relatively low, and effective utilization of early warning information is also low. Helping the poor to receive and use disaster warning information in a timely, convenient and effective manner concerns the safety of life and property of the poor. To promote disaster prevention, mitigation and relief- assisted poverty alleviation, we should further deepen the cooperation between disaster risk management departments and departments such as land, water conservancy, transportation, environmental protection and poverty alleviation, vigorously promote immersive development, promote the national emergency information release system for public emergencies, realize the connection with the national "poverty alleviation cloud", explore the new poverty alleviation model of "Internet +", and expand the coverage of disaster risk information using the increasingly complete network infrastructure resources in poverty- stricken areas to enable early warning information to be transmitted to every poor household.

3.4 Ensuring ecological civilization construction services accurate to industryPromoting ecological civilization construction and industry- supported poverty alleviation is an effective way to targetedly alleviate poverty. Agriculture and animal husbandry is the basic industry in the vast number of poverty- stricken areas, and it is also the most productive industry that directly benefits the poor. Currently, agricultural enterprises, cooperatives, family farms, large households and other new agricultural business entities are changing the traditional agricultural production organization, the agriculture- related e- commerce is developing rapidly, and the traditional agricultural industry system is changing. The past agricultural services of relevant departments had defects such as low targetedness, low scientific and technological content and poor connection with the farmers, and they were difficult to meet the needs of the targeted poverty alleviation under the new situation. In addition, the ecological civilization construction- assisted targeted poverty alleviation faces the new demand of poverty- stricken areas for targeted and professional services in forestry, photovoltaic, tourism, electric power, transportation, logistics and warehousing. Therefore, it is necessary to further fully exploit and exert the value of "big data", build an open service- oriented platform, establish a development model based on "Internet+all walks of life", and make full use of social resources to develop personalized, interactive and accurate services, and build a new type of ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics of wisdom, intensiveness, pluralism, standardization and long- term development as an agricultural service system.

4 Policy recommendations

In the new era, targeted poverty alleviation from the perspective of drawing on advantages and avoiding disadvantages need to adhere to the principles of inclusiveness, basic protection, equalization and sustainability, start from solving the most concerned, most direct, and most realistic problems in poverty- stricken areas, enhance the basic supply capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, and innovate the co- building ability and sharing level of ecological civilization. (i) The disaster prevention and mitigation management department should actively integrate into the national poverty alleviation pattern of special poverty alleviation, industry poverty alleviation and social poverty alleviation to integrate poverty alleviation forces and coordinate social resources with the help of the poverty alleviation pattern and establish a mutual assistance and cooperation mechanism for poverty alleviation, thereby promoting the sharing of infrastructure resources and the sharing of basic materials. (ii) The construction of ecological civilization should actively integrate into all kinds of poverty alleviation projects at all levels. It should integrate into the "one village, one product" industry promotion action in poor villages, strengthen the construction of ecological civilization to serve the national natural assets poverty alleviation projects such as photovoltaic poverty alleviation project, strengthen the application of satellite remote sensing and communication technologies in poverty- stricken areas, and carry out demonstrations of high- scoring poverty alleviation applications. (iii) We should do a good job in disaster monitoring and impact assessment of out- migration areas and resettlement sites, carry out feasibility evaluation of ecological environment carrying capacity, provide scientific support for the overall planning of resettlement, promote the establishment of national and local climate adaptation mechanisms, promote ecological environment protection and construction in poverty- stricken areas, assist the government in the rehabilitation and management of areas with severe ecological degradation, and coordinate the development and utilization of resources. (iv) We should also improve the effective supply of disaster prevention, mitigation and relief services, integrate disaster prevention, mitigation and relief into the basic public service system of all levels of government, clarify central and local projects and standards and integrate into the national basic public service list, and incorporate into relevant plans.