Multi- level Cooperation and Complementary Advantage Poverty Alleviation Model in Poverty- Stricken Counties of Tibetan Areas: A Case Study of Songpan County in Sichuan Province

Institute of Land & Resources and Sustainable Development, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming 650221, China

Abstract Songpan County is a poverty- stricken county in Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province, it belongs to a concentrated poverty- stricken area in China. Through summarizing the specific conditions of multi- level cooperation and complementary advantage poverty alleviation model in Songpan County, this paper analyzed the effect of this model. Through the analysis on the cooperative poverty alleviation model (eastern- western cooperation, provincial targeted assistance, county- wide "four- leading and four- assistance" inner- party assistance, social force "10 000 enterprises helping 10 000 villages", and "visiting every household and keeping every person busy"), it summarized the implementation and actual results of each level. In addition, it summarized the problems encountered in the implementation process of multi- level cooperation and complementary advantage poverty alleviation model and came up with recommendations. With the aid of this successful multi- level cooperation and complementary advantage poverty alleviation model, Songpan County has achieved a decisive victory in the fight against poverty. At the end of April 2019, the poverty rate in the whole region fell to 0.45%, and it successfully took off the poverty hat. This paper analyzed and refined the specific practice, main achievements, successful experience, implications and reference significance of multi- level cooperation and complementary advantage poverty alleviation model, to provide necessary references for innovation of poverty alleviation model in poverty- stricken Tibetan areas, or even other similar provinces and regions.

Key words Multi- level cooperation, Poverty alleviation, Achievements, Poverty- stricken county in Tibetan areas, Songpan County

1 Introduction

At present, China is in a crucial period of building a well- off society in an all- round way, and also in a key period of succeeding in poverty alleviation. Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy and society have entered a rapid development, both industrialization and urbanization are rapidly advanced, but the vast majority of old revolutionary base areas, areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities, border areas, and areas with relatively high incidences of poverty have not gotten rid of the poverty and backwardness[1]. Chinese government has always attached importance to the poverty alleviation, and has issued many policies such asNationalEight-SevenAlleviationProgram(1994-2000),China’sRuralPovertyAlleviationandDevelopmentOutline(2001-2010) andChinaRuralPovertyAlleviationandDevelopmentProgram(2011-2020). With the implementation of these policies, the number of poor people in rural areas has been greatly reduced, infrastructure has been improved significantly, social undertakings have made great progress, and the survival and food and clothing of rural residents have been basically solved[2]. However, at present, China’s economic and social development level is generally not high, and regional development imbalances are becoming more and more prominent. The deep- seated contradictions that restrict the development of poverty- stricken areas still exist. Therefore, China’s poverty alleviation and development is still a historical task that must continue to persist for a long term[3]. Especially, after the current poverty alleviation and development has entered the crucial stage of tackling hard bones and hardships, the problems of increasing the cost of poverty reduction and increasing the difficulty of poverty alleviation have become increasingly outstanding. In view of such situation, thePartyCentralCommitteeandtheStateCouncilissuedanddistributedtheDecisiononWinningtheToughBattleagainstPovertyin November 2015, which clearly determined the poverty alleviation of rural poor people by 2020 as the most arduous task of building a well- off society in an all- round way, and proposed taking extraordinary measures and methods centered on the basic strategy of targeted poverty alleviation[4].

2 General information about the study area

Songpan County is located in the northwestern part of Sichuan Province and northeast of Aba Prefecture. Covering an area of 8 486 km2with the height above sea level of 2 850 m, it governs 4 towns and 21 townships, 143 villages and 4 communities, holds a total population of 76 000. It is one of 14 concentrated poverty- stricken Tibetan areas identified by the State Council and one of 45 deeply poverty- stricken counties in the whole Sichuan Province. As a typical plateau Tibetan county, Songpan has harsh natural conditions and weak infrastructure, backward economic development, relatively backward thoughts, concepts and cultures. Besides, the problem of poverty due to disease, disability, and lack of skills is prominent. As a result, the poverty is deep and wide. All these points lead to the poverty of the whole region. In 2014, it identified 55 registered poverty- stricken villages, including 6 869 people of 2 131 poverty- stricken households, the incidence of poverty was 13.5%. After dynamic adjustment from 2014, at present, there are 2 088 registered poverty- stricken households involving 7 583 people. There are concentrated poverty and scattered poverty. About 54.75% poor people are distributed in 55 poverty- stricken villages, and 45.25% are distributed in 85 non- poor villages. In the whole Songpan County, 599 households with 2 153 people became poor due to disease, accounting for 28.39%; 273 households with 937 people became poor due to disability, accounting for 12.35%; 836 households with 3 213 people became poor due to lack of skills, accounting for 42.37%; 336 households with 1 122 people became poor due to lack of labor, accounting for 14.79%; 44 households with 158 people became poor due to other factors, accounting for 2.08%[5]. In 2019, Songpan County has fully implemented employment poverty alleviation, industrial poverty alleviation, social security minimum guarantee and infrastructure enhancement and upgrading. The recognition of poverty alleviation has reached 99.45%, and the incidence of poverty has dropped to 0.45%, reaching the standard of taking off the poverty hat "one low and three haves" (the incidence rate lower than 3%, having standard central school, hospital, convenience service center). Through acceptance, Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government approved Songpan County to get out of the poverty- stricken counties on April 28, 2019.

3 Significance of multi- level cooperation for poverty alleviation

To meet the requirements of the development of the socialist market economy, and make innovation in the assistance development system and mechanism, Songpan County adhered to the combination of external support and self- development capabilities, promote poverty alleviation and mutually beneficial cooperation, and give play to the talents, funds, technology, management advantages and poverty of the supporting units, and the county’s resources, environment, and ecological advantages, broaden the scope of assistance, and innovate cooperation methods, actively explore new ways of open poverty alleviation, and strive to achieve complementary advantages, mutual benefit, and cooperative assistance[6]. With the help of the assistance units, Songpan County adopted more powerful, targeted, direct and effective measures, to strive to to achieve effective results in poverty alleviation by 2020. Besides, Songpan County promoted the advancement of the people’s livelihood, the support of the people’s livelihood, the upgrading of the basic support, the maintenance of the talents, the normal growth of the income of the residents, the overall improvement of the village appearance, and the overall goal of "one product for one village", to promote the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of poverty- stricken areas and achieve the goal of building a well- off society in an all- round way. Songpan County fully undertook the poverty alleviation cooperation between the eastern and the western regions, targeted assistance in the province and fixed point poverty alleviation cooperation in the province, and county- wide "four- leading and four- assistance" inner- party assistance, and enterprise helping villages. Main assistance units took active actions and real help in providing the project funds, intellectual support, labor cooperation, industrial cooperation and social assistance, and formed a multi- level participation, multi- channel assistance pattern of the poverty alleviation. These lay a solid foundation for stabilizing the poverty alleviation of Songpan County.

4 Main practices and achievements

4.1 Eastern- western cooperationIn 2016, in Yinchuan, General Secretary Xi Jinping hosted a meeting on poverty alleviation cooperation between the eastern and western regions. He stressed that the eastern- western cooperation and counterpart support are main strategies for promoting coordinated regional development, collaborative development, and common development. The poverty alleviation cooperation is a major strategic deployment of the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core of poverty alleviation and targeted poverty alleviation. It is an important political task for building a well- off society in an all- round way[7-8]. In 2019, Songpan County and Linhai City and Huangyan District of Zhejiang Province further highlighted the key works of poverty alleviation cooperation between the eastern and western regions. Grasping the opportunity of poverty alleviation cooperation between the eastern and western regions, they comprehensively implemented the 2018-2020 three- year action plan and annual plan of the three cities and counties, and solidly promoted the development of the "one community, two parks and three bases" industrial projects, to strengthen the building of Huanglong Mountain product brand and further extend the industry chain, and increase the added value of products, and effectively transform the resource advantages into the industry advantages. In recent years, Taizhou City has established a port group with Toumen Port area as the core through adhering the policy of three- bay coordination and ecology first. It also developed a port- based industrial cluster dominated by the Taizhou Bay industrial cluster with the coordination of three districts and three cities. The quality of economic upgrading has been continuously improved. Therefore, it has the ability to bring rich poverty alleviation funds and rich industrial technology to Songpan County, thus promoting the rapid economic development of Songpan County. In addition, Taizhou City has intensified the eastern- western cooperation in poverty alleviation, paid more attention to enhancing the self- accumulation and self- development ability of the support recipient. From the actual economic and social development of Songpan County, it has gradually shifted from "simple blood transfusion" to "transfusion" and "blood making". Through continuously deepening and developing the connotation of assisting Tibetan areas, it has input fresh blood for the development of Songpan County. Through the cultivation of Chinese herbal medicines and special agricultural products bases, rural tourism plans,etc., it has built a number of industrial projects to suit local conditions, making local farmers and herdsmen become direct and indirect beneficiary of industrial assistance for Tibetan areas.

4.1.1Building a new model of "co- construction" collaboration. Songpan County has signed a three- party cooperation agreement with Huangyan District and Erdaojiang District. Taking the "reciprocal sharing of resources and mutual support, thus promoting common development" as the goal, three parties would jointly establish a sales platform for the whole industrial chain of high- quality Chinese herbal medicines, thus realizing in- depth development cooperation in smart agriculture, ecological agriculture, and sightseeing agriculture. Besides, through actively exploring the cooperation of the tourism and cultural industries, three areas realized the sharing of customers, markets, information and tourism resources, and enhanced the overall competitiveness of the regional tourism and cultural industries, accordingly to achieve mutual benefit.

4.1.2Extending the new chain for "workshop" type employment. With the aid of the vast labor market in the coastal areas, Songpan County vigorously implemented the "Thousands of Projects", established the "Poverty Alleviation Workshop", accelerated the construction of a diversified labor service system, and continuously improved the quality of employment and starting an undertaking. Songpan County organized more than 1 000 registered poverty- stricken households to carry out labor skills training, improve their employment skills, and guide more than 100 registered poverty- stricken households to work in the enterprises in Linhai City and Huangyan District, All these measures were taken to help the poor people stabilize their employment and increase their income.

4.1.3Expanding the new "sharing" type sales channel. Songpan County organized enterprises including Zangxiangyuan and Danzhu Meiduo to participate in Taizhou Agricultural Fair and Zhejiang Agricultural Fair to promote famous and fine agricultural products of Songpan County. Songpan County has signed agreements with local enterprises in Linhai City and Huangyan District to purchase and sell agricultural and sideline products, to promote the agricultural and sideline products such as Songpan Tibetan pig, cordyceps, and yak meat to enter the coastal market. It has set seven Songpan stores for agricultural products in Linhai City and Huangyan District. These seven stores implemented unified product promotion, and put up the brand of the "Taizhou-Songpan East-West Poverty Alleviation and Collaborative Agricultural Products Monopolized Store", and adopted the unified price.

4.1.4Deepening the new mechanism of "interactive" cooperation. Both parties always adhere to the combination of "blood transfusion" and "blood making". In accordance with the poverty alleviation cooperation agreement between Sichuan and Zhejiang provinces, both parties promoted the implementation of poverty alleviation work in industry, education and medical care, organized more than 100 private enterprises to participate in poverty alleviation cooperation and labor cooperation, established the counterpart assistance relationship between 7 schools and hospitals, carried out cooperation and exchange, and undertook the joint construction of remote education and remote medical care services. Taizhou City’s counterpart support for Songpan County’s poverty alleviation cooperation model has fully utilized the complementary advantages between the two places, accelerated the poverty alleviation in Songpan County, and provided important practical significance for the early realization of common prosperity.

4.2 Provincial targeted assistance in poverty alleviationDue to natural and historical reasons, Songpan County has backward infrastructure, shortage of public services, fragile ecological environment, poor living conditions, weak industrial base, prominent employment conflicts, concentrated poverty problem, and the task of achieving a comprehensive well- off society is heavy and arduous. Through continuous deepening of the Dayi County counterpart assistance, scientific preparation of the annual assistance project plan, overall planning and accurate docking, it ensured the effective landing of the project and achieved practical results of poverty alleviation. Besides, Songpan County undertook the provincial targeted assistance resources, actively combined many assistance units such as Sichuan Provincial Environmental Protection Department, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Chengdu Aeronautic Polytechnic, Tianyi College, Chengfei Hospital, China Railway Chengdu Group Co., Ltd. To carry out deep poverty alleviation assistance, it has prepared theWorkProgramforChengduCityCounterpartAssistanceinPoverty-strickenCountiesinTibetanAreas, and came up with measures including guaranteeing the housing security for the poor, implementing employment support in depth, providing education assistance in depth, implementing medical and health assistance in depth, and improving infrastructure. In accordance with the actual situation that the poverty is large and wide, and the task of poverty alleviation is arduous, Songpan County took the development, people’s livelihood and stability as the three major tasks, focused on cultivating superior industries, building quality tourism, promoting social security, and revitalizing education, enhancing the medical care, improving infrastructure, to give play to advantages, integrate resources, strengthen support, and build a comprehensive pattern of project support, cadre talents, and technical management support to help build a "northwestern ecological economy demonstration area" and "poverty alleviation demonstration county", so as to realize the goal of building a well- off society in an all- round way. Therefore, Songpan County has taken the following measures.

4.2.1Cultivating collective scale economy. On the principles of grazing if suitable for grazing, forestry if suitable for forest, farming if suitable for farmland, and tourism if suitable for tourism, Songpan County analyzed the resource endowment, development foundation and industrial advantages of the county. It has realized the organic combination of ecological environment protection and agricultural industry development, and cultivated and enhanced the characteristic industries of poverty- stricken villages, formed the development model of "one product for several villages, and one product for one village", and developed industrial projects that poverty- stricken households have the operation ability. According to the water and heat conditions, the soil infertility and the characteristic germplasm resources of the "1+9" poor villages, combined with the local germplasm habits and the wishes of farmers, Songpan County strengthened the characteristic industries according to local conditions, supported the development of the collective economy, and fostered new growth points of the rural economy. Dayi County has invested a total of 3.797 million yuan to implement the two types of agriculture and animal husbandry projects. Both could meet the requirements of per capita income increase of poverty- stricken households.

4.2.2Improving the infrastructure support. On the principle of "convenient travel and convenient living", Songpan County focused on improving the living environment, ensuring the needs of production and living, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of infrastructure in poor villages, and comprehensively improving the infrastructure of poor villages. It improved the infrastructure construction in Huoshaotun in Shili Township, 6 poor villages in Xiaohe Township, 3 poor villages in Shijiabao Township, and built rural tourism supporting infrastructure. It invested a total of 14.453 million yuan in implementing three types of infrastructure construction projects, namely traffic roads, water conservancy and other infrastructure. In addition, it established a joint conference system for both parties, and conducted regular exchange of visits between the functional departments of the three industries, to promote cooperation between the two parties in industrial development, and realize the combination of interests and group development.

4.2.3Strengthening cooperation and exchange of agriculture and animal husbandry. (i) Integrating the advantages of both agricultural resources and characteristic agricultural and animal husbandry products, bringing into play the action "1+1" greater than 2, setting up the "Dayi-Songpan" demonstration platform, organizing a delegation to participate in the Chengdu International Urban Modern Agriculture Expo, and establishing a long- term cooperation mechanism to effectively raise the reputation and market competitiveness of agricultural products of both parties. (ii) Guiding the leading agricultural industrialization enterprises to establish production bases in Songpan County and adopting the model of "company+farmers" to develop characteristic industries, so as to increase the income of farmers. (iii) Guiding aquaculture enterprises and experts in Dayi County to establish Hongbiao chicken breeding base and beef cattle breeding base in Xiaohe Township, adopting three business models ("company+farmer", "technology+farmer" and "market+farmer") to develop characteristic breeding industry, to increase the income of farmers. (iv) Establishing a Chinese herbal medicine trading market, using the relationship between supply and demand, and improving the integrity market mechanism of Chinese herbal medicines, to turn the resource advantage into economic advantage. (v) Invite experts to Songpan to carry out demonstrations of new technologies and new varieties, providing assistance in the construction of quality and safety systems for agricultural and livestock products, and carry out agricultural training to promote the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in Songpan County.

4.2.4Enhancing industrial cooperation and exchange. Relying on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau agricultural and animal products processing concentration zone, it has established a mechanism of provincial counterpart support units and Songpan Park to help and share the enterprise service platform. Through attracting and inviting investment, it supported and guided enterprises in the province and even enterprises across the whole China to invest in Xingpan County, and made effort to introduce enterprises that meet the development of Songpan industry to invest in the industry and help develop the market of Songpan County. Besides, it took advantage of the park website to publicize the Songpan resources and investment environment, promote the sales of more agricultural products in Songpan County in the e- commerce platform of Dayi County, promote the transformation of resource advantages into economic advantages, and accordingly truly benefit the people.

4.2.5Enhancing cultural tourism cooperation and exchange. (i) With the aid of the tourism portals of the counterpart units in the province and the self- media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, it regularly sends information on tourist attractions, folk customs and culture of Songpan County, to expand the influence of Songpan tourism. In addition, with the aid of the related propaganda platform, Songpan County issued the information on activities such as tourist attractions and tourism festivals within the provincial counterpart assistance units. (ii) In the main hotels, major farmstays, tourist centers, and hotels in the tourist attractions of both parties, it directly released the other party’s promotional materials to demonstrate the tourism resources of both parties and expand their influence. (iii) Establishing a mutual promotion mechanism for tourism brands. Through integrating the tourism routes of both parties, it took advantage of the provincial counterpart assistance units to participate in the promotion of introduction activities such as the China Tourism Fair and the Sichuan Tourism Expo, and develop a cooperative marketing model to promote common development of the tourism of both parties. (iv) Through the travel agencies of provincial counterpart assistance units, it set up special travel routes of Songpan, guided the residents in the province to help the residents to travel to Songpan, promote the economic development of Songpan tourism, and realize the combination of interests and group development.

4.3 County- wide "four- leading and four- assistance" inner- party assistanceThe "four- leading and four- assistance" started an innovative poverty alleviation model. Due to restrictions of subjective and objective factors such as location, climate, and terrain, Songpan County has long exhibited strong development and rich life of townships and towns in the Chuanzhu Temple, Songcheng and Zhenjiang areas along the National Highway 213, while in areas of Xiaohe, Maoergai and Rewu, development of township industry is backward and lags behind and the people’s life is relatively poor. In order to break the unbalanced development pattern of the county, and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in the towns and villages along the roads, Songpan County assessed the situation, increased the pressure, made innovation, vigorously promoted the pattern of "four- leading and four- assistance": strong villages leading weak townships, rich villages leading poor villages, advanced villagers leading backward ones, and departments leading villages, party construction assistance, intellectual assistance, project assistance, and fund assistance. Songpan County promote organizational co- construction, economic co- planning, development co- cultivation, practical cooperation, resource sharing, difficulty assistance, and contradiction co- resolving, guided the strong townships and rich villages and various departments to take the assistance work as a family business and inside matter. By this manner, it successfully explored new practices in county- wide assistance, and mutual learning, to make effort to promote the rich to lead the poor, and ultimately achieve the goal of common prosperity.

4.3.1Strong townships leading weak townships, and intellectual assistance to remove puzzlement of poor people. Songpan County comprehensively established an "N to 1" group- based joint assistance mechanism, and built a friendly and cooperative pair of townships and towns with better economic conditions and poverty- stricken villages to achieve a "one- on- one" group assistance. Every quarter, it organized and held one time of experience exchange meeting to teach how to get rich and stimulate the enthusiasm of the people to participate in poverty alleviation. Besides, it regularly organized the assistance recipients to go to the assistance points to visit and learn. Through the on- the- spot teaching and the "first- line" experience exchange, it promoted the transformation of the practical technology of the assisted agriculture and animal husbandry. Taking Songcheng area and the Chuanzhu Temple area as the main part, through holding the special deployment meetings of employment of hotels and restaurants, it fully understood the employment needs within the jurisdiction, and provided employment information to Rewu area, the towns and villages of Maergai area, so as to promote the stable employment of 400 poor people in the county and Chuanzhu Temple Town.

4.3.2Rich villages leading poor villages, and solving the difficulty of economic development through project assistance. Through the "branch+cooperative" model, it helped 55 poverty- stricken villages to determine demonstration projects with "blood making function", strong radiation- driven ability, and high participation of poor people. Besides, it regularly convened the two committees and party members and cadres of the assisted villages to hold exchange meetings, jointly discuss the starting points of assistance projects, help poor villages to make project planning, and take full advantage of the rich experience of rich villages in the process of development, and gradually help the assisted poor villages to establish excellent mechanism for self- development. For example, relying on the the development experience of cooperatives, Chuanpan Village of Shuijing Township guided Kalong Village of Yanlong Township to establish a benefit cooperative mechanism of "cooperatives+village committees+farmers", effectively promoted the circulation of 23.93 ha of land, established 23.93 planting base, and promoted annual increase of every planting household in Kalong Village up to 1 675 yuan.

4.3.3Advanced villagers leading backward ones, and solving the problem of weak organizational construction through the party construction assistance. It guided advanced party organizations of 15 prefectures and counties with good party construction and high ability of double leading teams to cooperate with 15 party organizations in Songpan County with weak cohesion and slack organizational ability, and helped them to take control of the team, lead the team, strengthen the organization, promote the income increase and get rich. It implemented the party building co- construction system, and regularly held a joint meeting for helping the village party building to ensure that the problems of the weak and scattered party organizations could be accurately searched and rectified, and to explore the development path that meets the actual situations of the poverty- stricken villages. Taking the method of "promotion, assistance, and leading", it annually organized main responsible people in two committees of Rewu area and Maoergai area to learn experience in Chuanzhu Temple area, to promote experience exchange. Besides, it guided 111 advanced party members to help 111 poor party members, and solved their actual short- term and long- term difficulties through providing material assistance, service assistance, and development guidance.

4.3.4Departments leading villages and using fund assistance to solve the difficulty in development financing. It steadily implemented the four- one assistance activity: assisting one batch through paired co- construction, guiding one batch through leader contact, dispatching one batch through sending cadres, and assisting one batch through project funds. Songpan County arranged financial funds of 21.45 million yuan, set up targeted poverty alleviation loan guarantee funds and risk compensation funds, and provided poverty- stricken households in 55 poor villages with a minimum of 50 000 yuan in development industry, and a three- year credit loan, and implemented annual minimum 500 000 yuan of discounted funds. The developed rural areas guided the rural areas to explore and implement the new development model of "village branch+specialized cooperatives+company+farmers". The company and the village committee set up production development funds to reward farmers with good industrial development. For example, Hongxiang Company in Chuanzigou Village provided 10 000 yuan production and development funds for Kaya Village in Yanyun Township, to help them sell more than 100 pieces of handicraft, which stimulated the enthusiasm of villagers of Kaya Village to make traditional handicraft.

4.4 Social force "10 000 enterprises helping 10 000 villages"

Songpan County organized the enterprise assistance project, encouraged enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities and actively participate in the fight against poverty, and make due concentration to the poverty alleviation. It accelerated the urban and rural coordinated development, to promote Songpan County comprehensively realize the poverty alleviation of poverty- stricken households, exit of poverty- stricken villages, and poverty- stricken county taking off the poverty hat. In the form of contract signing and village- enterprise co- construction, the county’s enterprises have been mobilized to apply voluntarily and actively participate in assisting poor villages. Besides, Songpan County extensively mobilized social forces, determined an enterprise to help the remaining 33 poverty- stricken villages, and fully implemented the enterprise assistance agreement, to give full play to the advantages of enterprises and the natural resources of poor villages, develop characteristic industries according to local conditions, solve the problem of employment, and realize win- win of enterprises and villages. In addition, Songpan County further mobilized private enterprises and business associations to participate in the "10 000 enterprises helping 10 000 villages" targeted poverty alleviation action, focusing on industrial assistance, identifying resource advantages in poverty- stricken areas, establishing a long- term mechanism for cooperation between villages and enterprises, and exploring new road of "targeted poverty alleviation+rural revitalization strategy", so as to promote the improvement of quality and efficiency of the "10 000 enterprises helping 10 000 villages" project. All townships and enterprises should choose specific ways in accordance with actual situations, to help according to local conditions, and make clear the responsibilities of enterprises, strengthen the management of enterprises, give play to the strength of enterprises, and help the county get rid of poverty.

4.4.1Industrial poverty alleviation. Songpan County guided enterprises to base on the superior resources of poor villages, and promoted the development of a number of characteristic industries in accordance with the economic development rules.

4.4.2Employment poverty alleviation. Songpan County guided enterprises to actively play the role of the main channel of employment, solve the employment of a number of poor households, and achieve stable income growth through the recruitment of poor laborers.

4.4.3Public welfare poverty alleviation. Songpan County encouraged enterprises to make direct donations, set up poverty alleviation public welfare funds, and carry out public welfare poverty alleviation. Besides, Songpan County carried out poverty alleviation activities such as infrastructure construction, donation of poor students, medical assistance, and life assistance to poor households.

4.4.4Talent poverty alleviation. Songpan County actively provided employment skills training to help the poor to grasp employment skills, enhance employment ability, enhance employment competitiveness, stimulate their own motivation, and achieve poverty alleviation through self- employment.

4.5 "Visiting every household and keeping every person busy" type poverty alleviationTaking "visiting every household" as the effective carrier of full coverage of paired poverty alleviation, and taking "keeping every person busy" as the time call of gathering the broad masses of cadres and the masses in the county to not forget the original intention and boost the spirit and strive for progress, Songpan County asked the cadres to get busy, guided the masses to get busy, to solve the problem that the traffic is convenient but the distance to villagers is far; the communication is developed, but the exchange between cadres and masses is less; the educational level of cadres is high, but the ability of the mass work is low; the policy is preferential, but the complaints of the masses are more; the frequency of the cadres going to the grass- roots areas is high, but the actual effect is weaker. Through solving these problems, it is expected to ensure the transformation of work style to field work and the service for the people is available at any time.

4.5.1dropping the pretentious airs and safeguarding the benefits of the masses, to change the post- treatment to active handling. Songpan County established 147 grassroots work teams, 39 county- level leaders took charge of townships, 95 departments for villages and 3 566 cadres and workers to contact 17 780 households and 64 037 farmers and herdsmen, and successively contacted more than 6 000 person- times. These promoted "making clear of five aspects" including village conditions and community conditions, household conditions, expectations and hopes, problems and difficulties, and handling conditions. Besides, focusing on the people’s livelihood, engineering projects, and people- benefiting measures, Songpan County carried out the review of the previous projects and conducted a return visit of the complaints of the masses, collected problems of the masses with high concern and complaints, made detailed records, and made clear of handling opinions, undertaking units, and responsible people, to ensure the rectification of every problem, implementation of every matter, and reply of every inquiry.

4.5.2Uniting the masses and leading the masses to change from "individual work" to "team work". Taking the whole region assistance as the overall plan, Songpan County promoted the "Nine Action Plans" for poverty alleviation and taking off the poverty hat, coordinated the implementation of 82 targeted projects and 280 upgrading projects, and coordinated the promotion of poor villages and non- poor villages, poor households and non- poor households, poverty- stricken households and non- poor households, to realize every household has assistance. In the face of the "June 25" and "July 8" heavy downpour and floods, the county cadres moved together, put in place of "early warning and prevention, overall coordination, disaster relief, propaganda and guidance, assuming the responsibilities, and engineering management", did a good job before, during and after the floods, realized the zero casualty of disaster occurrence, zero accident of the disaster relief, and zero distance of serving the masses, which narrowed the distance between the cadres and the masses and won the trust of the masses.

4.5.3Winning the support of the masses and changing the concept of "doctrinal instilling ideas" to "salutary influence of education". Songpan County coordinated the theoretical and policy propaganda team and other five teams including the rule of law, scenic spots, temples, groups, and resources of various departments, to learn in- depth the party’s 19th National Congress, the spirit of the provincial party committee, the state party committee, the county party committee and carried out the "grateful unity and forging ahead" education 272 times, covering more than 40 000 person- times. With the aid of Weibo, WeChat and news client, Songpan County propagated the poverty alleviation and typical village assistance more than ten times, and invited successful villagers to talk about their poverty alleviation experience, so as to form the common understanding of "every person serving Songpan and Songpan serving every person". Besides, Songpan County established the agricultural technology tour service team and the team members went to the field. Besides, Songpan County held 25 times of training classes, trained more than 3 000 person- times of farmers and herdsmen, which effectively stimulated the enthusiasm of the masses for starting an undertaking and getting rich and well off.

5 Difficulties in the implementation of multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation and recommendations

5.1 Main difficulties

5.1.1The local talent resource reserve is very scarce. Restricted by objective factors such as regional economy and natural conditions, highly educated and high- quality professional and technical personnel are unwilling to work in Songpan County, which leads to the bottleneck of talent technology, accordingly the professional management and technology and inter- disciplinary talents are scarce. At present, there are only 147 senior professional titles in Songpan County, accounting for 9% of the total number of professional and technical personnel in the county, 483 with intermediate titles, accounting for 30% of the total number of professional and technical personnel in the county. The high- level professional and technical personnel are very scarce and the problem is prominent. In addition, uneven distribution of industries has also become an important bottleneck restricting the economic and social development of Songpan County, and it has also hindered the efficiency and smoothness of the multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation model.

5.1.2Policies related to the cooperative work are less mandatory. At present, the eastern- western cooperative poverty alleviation is carried out in the form of policies. In the "Notice" and "Opinions" and other forms of documents, the central government has asked local governments to carry out the eastern- western cooperative poverty alleviation, which makes the poverty alleviation cooperation and counterpart support related work become a political task. This political mobilization type multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation cooperation is not favorable for the control of various poverty alleviation projects according to local conditions, and is not conducive to the standardization and rationalization in the process of poverty alleviation, accordingly influencing the leading role of the both sides and so their attitudes toward work are different. Such situation has also greatly reduced the legality constraints of all levels of poverty alleviation cooperation policies, leading to no mandatory restriction of the supporting government, no guarantee for the enthusiasm for counterpart support, and posing risks for targeted use of project funds due to lack of effective supervision of the assisted government.

5.1.3Policies related to the cooperation lack sustainable operation mechanism. Starting from the problems in the implementation of the policies of eastern- western cooperative poverty alleviation and counterpart support, it can be seen that the both lack the sustainable operation mechanism. Take the problem of the poverty alleviation funds as an example. As we all know, poverty alleviation cooperation is a systematic project and needs sufficient financial support. The source and use of funds are the driving force for long- term operation of counterpart support. All funds used for poverty alleviation and cooperation are free of charge, and some of the financial resources of the support units are transferred to the recipient areas without compensation. After all, the free investment is limited in poverty alleviation cooperation in poverty- stricken areas. Without a complete investment mechanism, it is unrealistic to guarantee long- term large- scale investment. Therefore, to deepen multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation and development, it is required to establish a sound mechanism to promote the cooperative poverty alleviation.

5.1.4Policies related to the cooperation lack necessary supervision system. The poverty alleviation cooperation project construction units lack supervision and management, so the selection of poverty alleviation goals deviates from the principle. In the specific implementation process of the project, due to the unreasonable planning of some poverty alleviation projects, the assistance recipients lack initiative and enthusiasm in the implementation process. In the subsequent maintenance management of the project, due to the lack of supervision and management mechanism, the unreasonable mode of management part has led to limited effectiveness of many poverty alleviation projects.

5.2 Recommendations for multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation in Songpan County

5.2.1Establishing the promotion mechanism for poverty alleviation cooperation. And connecting the comprehensive policy communication mechanism. (i) Improving the mutual visit system. It is recommended to continue to share the responsibilities and give full play to the enthusiasm of both sides, strengthen mutual visits, and ensure that relevant personnel will exchange visits at least twice a year to Songpan County, promptly communicate and resolve major issues, and make full use of their respective advantages. Besides, it is recommended to make full use of poverty alleviation cooperation policies, formulate poverty alleviation cooperation plans, and promote poverty alleviation cooperation projects. (ii) Actively promoting exchanges and contacts between the two sides. It is recommended to carry out various forms of activities, vigorously promote exchanges between the region and the nationality, encourage the younger generation to carry out paired activities, and carry out "sending warmth" activities to the poor, grassroots cadres, workers, and veteran cadres. (iii) Stressing cultural exchange support. Taking advantage of the characteristic culture of Tibetan and Qiang in Songpan County, through cultural activities such as cultural visits, it is recommended to strengthen the promotion of minority cultures and plateau cultures in the assisted counties, strengthen cultural visits, organize exchanges between literary and art organizations and medium organizations, and promote exchanges between cultural departments and groups, implement a number of cultural projects to promote the standardization of communication between cultural departments and groups.

5.2.2Exploring and establishing the horizontal financial transfer payment mechanism. Songpan County is a forest and biodiversity ecological function protection zone in Sichuan and Yunnan. It is also the source of the Min River and Fu River. It is an important biodiversity conservation area and bears an important ecological barrier throughout the whole Sichuan Province and China. According to theMeasuresforNationalKeyEcologicalFunctionalZoneTransferPayment, the central government’s annual funds allocated under the current standards are limited and insufficient to improve the basic public service support capacity of local governments in the western region. Thus, to ensure the safety, openness and transparency of special funds for poverty alleviation cooperation, standardize and improve procedures, bring benefits, operate effectively, it is necessary to establish and improve a coordinated management mechanism for poverty alleviation cooperation funds, and refine the source and growth mechanism of funds, scope of use, management authority, approval process and distribution procedures.

5.2.3Establish pilots of the economic compensation mechanism for supporting party. According to the current situation of counterpart support for poverty alleviation cooperation in Songpan County, in the past, in the unilateral counterpart support level of the supporting party, it still has not established a deep cooperation between the supporting party and the support receipt. This will easily lead to the imbalance of economic benefits between the two parties. From the perspective of traditional public management thinking, it will inevitably dampen enthusiasm of the supporting party to carry out poverty alleviation cooperation. To change such situation, it is necessary to establish the economic compensation mechanism for supporting party. At present, the economic development in the eastern region is relatively high, and various economic indicators have a relatively high foundation for many years. To a certain extent, the eastern regions face the problem of sustained and rapid economic growth and lack of vitality. On this basis, regional economic growth is accompanied by the poverty alleviation cooperation arranged by the central government and the investment of a certain amount of financial funds for the "political task". In order to obtain additional compensation and realize the mutual benefit and win- win, it is necessary to guarantee the enthusiasm of the supporting party for carrying out the poverty alleviation cooperation.

5.2.4Improving the talent guarantee mechanism for poverty alleviation cooperation. Taking poverty alleviation cooperation as a platform, it is recommended to gather outstanding cadres and talents of supporting units, break the bottleneck of talent technology control in Songpan County, adhere to hierarchical screening, take strict control, and select high- quality professional personnel. It is recommended to train in a batch of technical, management, and compound talents that are not afraid of difficulties, full of vitality, and having achievements as the counterpart support cadre talent team, to provide intellectual support for effective, orderly and efficient promotion of cooperative poverty alleviation. It is recommended to accelerate the integration of vocational training resources in the two places, strengthen the vocational skills training of people with employment difficulties in Songpan County, build a platform for talent demand information in the two places, and promote the two- way flow of talents in the two places. Besides, it is recommended to actively implement the employment policy and take effective measures to actively guide college students to "return" after graduation and make positive contributions to their hometown.

5.2.5Establishing and improving a long- term mechanism for poverty alleviation cooperation. Poverty alleviation cooperation is a long- term, complicated and arduous task involving the whole province and even the whole country. In order to realize the leap- forward development of the poverty- stricken areas and the long- term stability of the society as soon as possible, both the party and government systems should adhere to overall coordination and correctly handle the relationship between the five- year plan for poverty alleviation and the long- term development plan of the cities and counties of both parties. It is recommended to establish and improve long- term interactive cooperation mechanism, change the "blood transfusion" to "blood making", from teaching and medical assistance to multi- aid assistance, internal cooperation to opening up, government assistance to social assistance, and ensuring long- term sustainable development of multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation.

6 References in the methods and paths of the multi- level cooperative poverty alleviation model in Songpan County

6.1 Taking the poverty alleviation as the key pointCombined with the actual work of Songpan County, the counterpart support units should focus on poverty alleviation cooperation, stress the key points of poverty alleviation, take local party committees and government subjectivity as the key points and concentrate on supporting poverty alleviation. It is recommended to introduce advanced institutional concepts of advanced concepts, technologies, management and resources to Songpan County. On the principles of grazing if suitable for grazing, forestry if suitable for forest, farming if suitable for farmland, and tourism if suitable for tourism, Songpan County made effort to realize organic combination of ecological environment protection and agricultural industry development, promote the cultivation and enhancement of the characteristic industries of poverty- stricken villages, make overall planning of village collective scale economy, to form the development model of "one product for several villages, and one product for one village", and developed industrial projects that poverty- stricken households have the operation ability, and cultivate new growth point for rural economy. In 2019, Songpan County would realize the goal of getting rid of the poverty and taking off the poverty hat.

6.2 Strengthening the industrial cooperationSongpan County stressed the change of the "blood transfusion" industry of the people’s livelihood to "blood making" function, the change of one- way assistance to two- way win- win, and combined the advantages of funds, talents and markets of relevant support units to promote the development of of "blood transfusion" industry. Through exploiting the advantages of Songpan County’s characteristic resources, labor force and land space, Songpan County developed cooperative development of special agricultural products, medicinal materials and ethnic characteristic commodity processing, tourism services and cultural industries. Songpan County should make effort to promote cooperation in industrial development between the two sides, to achieve two- way interaction, interest linkage, and coordinated development, so as to provide effective experience for the province’s and even the country’s overall poverty alleviation cooperation.

6.3 Developing the ecological poverty alleviationIn order to give full play to the important role of ecological protection and construction in the targeted poverty alleviation, both parties should conscientiously implement the decision- making arrangements of theEcologicalPovertyAlleviationWorkPlanand effectively utilize the national key ecological function areas transfer funds and forest ecological benefits, compensation subsidy funds and a new round of grassland ecological protection subsidy funds. Besides, it is required to focus on major ecological engineering construction projects such as natural forest protection, returning farmland to forests, returning grazing to grassland, and take the well control of desertification. In addition, it is necessary to further strengthen the compensation for ecological protection. On the basis of continuously improving the existing vertical financial transfer payment system, it is necessary to establish a financial system and mechanism for the cooperative entities in the eastern and western regions participating in the poverty alleviation. Furthermore, it is necessary to effectively implement ecological protection, ecological restoration and ecological industry development projects, and gradually improve the beneficiaries’ ecological compensation benefits, so as to make the beneficiaries obtain the ecological compensation. As the compensation for the ecological cost of ecological protection, it will effectively adjust and improve the per capita disposable income of poor farmers and herdsmen, so that the poor will get more benefits from ecological protection and recovery, and realize poverty alleviation and win- win goal of the ecological civilization construction.

6.4 Attaching importance to the livelihood securityIt is necessary to give priority to the people’s livelihood, attach importance to the assistance projects and funds to incline towards the grassroots, agricultural and pastoral areas, poor villages and people. Songpan County should grasp the market economy operation rules, give full play to the leverage of support funds projects, build platforms and innovative mechanisms to promote the sustainable development of Songpan County and income increase of the poor people. Taking the implementation of educational support projects and medical and health assistance projects as main points, according to the situation of schools, kindergartens, teachers, facilities and equipment of Songpan County, in line with the principle of "focusing on practical results and helping a place to promote the whole county", Songpan County should break through the educational support and focus on Chengguan kindergarten, Chengguan primary school, and middle school. Besides, Taizhou medical and health institutions fully rely on the counterpart support mechanism, regularly organize counterpart support for Songpan County medical and health institutions, organize experts to carry out technical services to Songpan County Health and Family Planning Organization to carry out operation demonstration, patrol inspection, medical record review, special lectures, and gradually establish the remote consultation and regularly conduct remote teaching activities. Through counterpart support, Songpan County would help build a number of key specialties and strengthen the construction of public health systems such as disease prevention and control in the county.

6.5 Organizing labor cooperationSongpan County integrated vocational training resources, strengthened the vocational skills training for people with employment difficulties, helped poor people to find jobs, and made effort to obtain at least one employment skill for poor laborers with employment intentions. Besides, Songpan County made effort to broaden employment channels, to absorb a certain proportion of local labor force, and strengthened production skills training and transfer employment capacity of farmers and herdsmen to change employment concepts and raise the employment ability. In addition, Songpan County should further implement the entrepreneurial leadership plan for college students, promote entrepreneurial employment through innovation, promote positive interaction between economic development and employment, and accelerate the construction of youth entrance for college students. For example, it has built electronic entrepreneurial park and incubator park to tackle the problem of employment difficulty. Songpan County planned to set up "9+3" vocational education and training assistance zone, so that children of farmers and herdsmen have the opportunity to receive vocational skills education in coastal areas, and have the opportunity to find jobs in local areas after graduation.

6.6 Strengthening the talent supportSongpan County streng- thened the allocation of poverty alleviation cooperation forces to cultivate and train talents in poverty alleviation cooperation. Through giving full play to the advantages of the cadres of the supporting unit, it actively selected outstanding party and government cadres and professional and technical personnel to help Songpan County, and teach advanced development ideas, management experience and professional and technical personnel, as well as government cadres and the professional technical personnel. In the form and content of the training program, it is necessary to boldly innovate and explore new ways to combine both long and short term plans and make internal and external complement each other, and further improve the education, medical and scientific and technological levels in the counterpart areas.

6.7 Mobilizing the whole society to participateIt is necessary to expand the scope of poverty alleviation cooperation, continuously deepen the three- dimensional poverty alleviation cooperation model of "government- led, social support, and enterprise participation", and establish a multi- level and all- round poverty alleviation cooperation support model. Besides, it is necessary to improve the organization mobilization mechanism, further expand the transparency of government affairs, promptly disclose the related policy information, set up social participation platform, improve the policy support system, and create favorable social atmosphere. Also, it is necessary to give full play to the roles of market entities, social groups, and social organizations, to promote the cooperative poverty alleviation through donation, voluntary service, and mutual assistance. Finally, it is necessary to encourage superior enterprises to provide cooperation in the development and construction, constantly raise the industrial cooperation level, strengthen the blood making function of Songpan County, and realize complementary and counterpart support advantages.