Leaving no one behind

China's experience in poverty alleviation provides a valuable reference for Latin America. Its success, to a great extent, is due to a consolidated governance system that treats poverty alleviation as a State matter under the leadership of the State Council Leading Group on Poverty Alleviation and Development that formulates principles, policies and plans for impoverished regions. It oversees specialized offices at the provincial, prefecture, county and town levels. The Leading Office is the core for the implementation of long-term policies and works side by side sharing political responsibility for meeting poverty alleviation goals in all administrative levels with Party secretaries at the levels of province, city, county, town and villages across China.

This poverty alleviation governance system is one that Latin American countries should learn from to reduce poverty.

It is impossible for Latin American countries to draft long-term poverty alleviation policies because of their lack of strong and stable specialized poverty alleviation governance systems. As seen through China's experience, important areas of poverty alleviation work depend on the capacity to support and sustain policies. The construction of infrastructure, housing and health facilities and industrial and agricultural development are clear examples of naturally long-term poverty alleviation policies that delivered results in China, and which entailed not only a long-term vision and sustained execution, but the power of allocating continual funds.

This is such a simple lesson, but one with a profound influence and impact. If there is one feature common to countries in the region it is their failure to allocate long-term budgets that finance enduring poverty alleviation policies.

Adaptability is also a key element of poverty alleviation policies. According to what is happening in China, long-term policies in the field always require adjustment according to the changing conditions. China's policymakers never rule out the necessity to review their long-term policies according to new findings, acquired knowledge, foreign experience or even failure. With information and knowledge now easily shared and speedily incorporated, China's governance system has shown a clear understanding of how this can be harnessed as a natural part of the policy review process. Designing long-term poverty alleviation policies does not mean petrifying them, but rather letting them evolve to suit their purpose.

Latin American countries have a long history of failed policies and projects. The path in the region to fulfill the sustainable development goals has left a long trail of well-financed, but flawed poverty alleviation programs. The lack of a long-term vision, sustainable policies and a faulty identification of the impoverished population are the fundamental reasons for this.

This probably is the most difficult issue that policymakers face. China has also encountered challenging issues in this regard that have required President Xi Jinping to personally address them, formulating in 2015 the need for "six precisions" in poverty alleviation work: precision in selecting beneficiaries, precision in project arrangement, precision in the utilization of funds, precision in tailoring measures to households, precision in sending the right personnel to poverty-stricken villages and precision in poverty elimination outcomes. He said people should be lifted out of poverty in five ways: through industrial development, through relocation, through ecological compensation, through education and through the social safety net.

Although this specific policy setup may not be completely suitable for Latin America's specific circumstances, it sheds light upon the difficulties of poverty alleviation work and the significance of targeted policies. Latin America would particularly benefit by learning from China's experience of developing mechanisms to precisely select the beneficiaries of poverty alleviation policies and tailoring the measures specifically for them.

The first major step that Latin American policymakers should take, in order to ensure that no one is left behind is identifying those who are living in poverty. Latin American governments should also understand that this is a dynamic process because of the success in lifting people out of poverty but also because families may fall into poverty because of accidents, health issues and natural disasters, for example.

Latin American countries also need to establish enforceable accountability systems for high-ranking poverty alleviation officials. The region's agencies dealing with poverty are subject to the outcomes of electoral politics. As such, the high-ranking officials in charge of poverty alleviation policy design and execution are usually neither well versed in poverty alleviation nor accountable to the administrative bodies given the fact that they are not career officials, but politicians.

The accountability of poverty alleviation officials is weakened by the diffusion of responsibility among an array of ministries, agencies, municipalities and other local authorities. This consequently results in poor performance in the battle against poverty.

China has understood that making officials accountable for the outcomes of their poverty alleviation responsibilities is crucial to realize the set goals. Accordingly, it has enforced a system in which designing and executing suitable policies is the least expected of officials, which are all career public officials. Critical for their professional upward pathway is the assessment of the effects of the policies carried out by them. Thus, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development has been given the authority to conduct inspections and annual evaluations throughout China's hierarchy, from the provincial to town level officials, rewarding accomplishments and punishing irregularities. It relies on advances in technology (standardized statistical cross-evaluation systems between provinces, an app-wide data collection system and big data evaluation platforms) and on third-party organizations－such as research institutions and social organizations－to verify the results.

In this way, a strong sense of responsibility has been inculcated in officials involved in poverty alleviation at all levels. This is an important part of the Chinese system's success. The concepts of career professionals, responsibility, accountability, inspection and results evaluation must be carefully considered and adapted to its own institutional reality by Latin America's poverty alleviation governmental organizations.

The author is former minister counselor and head of the Economic and Trade Department of the Embassy of Chile in China. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.