Practical move to get NGOs to play bigger role in poverty alleviation work

THE STATE COUNCIL, China's Cabinet, recently issued guidelines for governments at all levels to encourage social organizations to more widely participate in the ongoing poverty-alleviation work, so as to finish the job of lifting all poor people out of poverty by 2020. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Social organizations have always played a prominent role in China's poverty-alleviation efforts by providing funding and other assistance to those living in poverty. Especially, since the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) was released, social organizations focusing on poverty alleviation have proliferated in China. By the end of 2016, the number of such organizations specializing in poverty alleviation exceeded 700,000, and the accumulated donations of enterprises and individuals had reached 130 billion yuan ($19.6 billion).

Social organizations can do the job that the local governments cannot do, because in some aspects they are more efficient. For example, in certain regions where the ecology is fragile, some social organizations use experts to help the local residents increase their incomes during the process of protecting the local ecology. That's more accurate and problem-oriented than many governmental programs.