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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Poverty alleviation part of China’s development strategy: Yao Jing

By Rasheed Khalid
October 19, 2019

Islamabad :Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing has said that consistency in policies, flexibility in developmental frameworks for different regions and putting poverty alleviation central to overall comprehensive development agenda were the three key reasons to help eradicate poverty in China in the past 30 years.

Mr Jing was addressing a special seminar on ‘Celebrating 70 years of China's achievements in poverty eradication’ organised here by China Study Centre of Sustainable Development Policy Institute to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The Ambassador said that in China, poverty eradication was not just an isolated effort of the government, but part of overall comprehensive development strategy. Comprehensive development strategy of China is not confined to growth rate only, but it meant to include education, health, environmental protection, social security and high quality development, he said adding comprehensive development strategy was the key to tackle the major issues.

Mr Jing said that the CPEC has now transformed and entered into a new second phase where both countries are now focusing on industrial cooperation, agricultural cooperation and socio-economic development. He said that under social cooperation, we are focusing on six areas of health, education, water, agriculture, poverty eradication and human resource development and around 27 different projects in these six areas of cooperation will be implemented.

Executive Director, SDPI, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri said that there is a need of shift in our thinking and approach to fight poverty. He said we all need to work together in order to empower our children, their families and communities to help reduce poverty. He observed that our social protection policies should also incorporate the needs of our children, especially the girl children, to help eradicate poverty in a society.

Parliamentary Secretary, Planning, Development and Reform, Kanwal Shauzab said China not only miraculously lifted its large population out of poverty, but also has become a hub of technologies and innovation in the world through educating their people with advanced technical skills and education. There is a dire need to educate and equip our young generation with modern technical skills as per demand of changing development paradigm, she said emphasising that Pakistan also needs a paradigm shift in the education system to help fight poverty, she stressed.

Qazi Azmat Isa, CEO, The Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, said that under the CPEC both countries must ensure that the local people along the route of the CPEC should get the benefit, as mostly the local communities are marginalised and living under poverty line.

Dr Hina Aslam, Head of China Study Centre, SDPI, said China's industrialisation and modernisation process started in the 1950s and since then it has made remarkable achievements in poverty reduction. She said that in the past 70 years, China has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty, contributing more than 70 per cent to global poverty reduction endeavour thereby giving us a great learning opportunity to lift our people out of poverty.

Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, Executive Director, Zalmi Foundation said that China’s inclusive decision-making through engaging local communities and making them part of development strategies help China eradicate poverty. He said Pakistan should develop its own long-term development strategy as per ground realities to fight poverty and achieve sustainable growth and development. To tackle the regional development and security challenges, China, Pakistan and India should form a group where China should take the lead, he concluded.