Forum shares poverty fight expertise

After amassing poverty-curbing know-how for decades, China has expertise to share, a panel of global speakers said at a forum that opened in Yunnan province on Tuesday.

Exchanging such knowledge is crucial when the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global resurgence of impoverishment and posed a threat to the zero-poverty goal set by the United Nations for 2030, they added.

The three-day International Forum on Poverty Governance and Development Toward Modernization opened in Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture, a mountainous part of the province.

Organizers said about 150 guests, including government officials, diplomats, scholars, researchers and representatives from businesses and UN agencies, attended the forum.

The isolated prefecture-more than 95 percent covered by mountains and valleys-is a showcase of how road and bridge construction projects and other tailored approaches have eradicated some of China's most entrenched poverty.

Speaking at the forum's opening ceremony on Tuesday, Guo Weimin, head of the China Public Relations Association, an organizer of the event, said what happened in Nujiang was typical in China's poverty alleviation practice and embodied Chinese expertise in the field. He added that China and other countries need to refine the experience and discuss how the world can emulate China's achievements.

"International cooperation needs to be strengthened, and countries need to be actively involved in the UN poverty reduction cooperation mechanism, and contribute to realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Guo said.

On Feb 25, President Xi Jinping declared a "complete victory" in China's fight against poverty through joint efforts. He hailed the success as a miracle that will "go down in history".

Du Zhanyuan, head of the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, another organizer of the forum, said in a keynote speech the success showed the superiority of China's path and system in improving people's wellbeing and promoting common prosperity. Its success had also boosted the global poverty reduction cause.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having thrown a damper on the task, he called on governments to keep sharing poverty relief experiences in the spirit of humanism so the world can have a better understanding of poverty.

"We should draw strength from the effective practices of other countries to promote sustainable development and work together to build a better world," he said.

At the forum, Du's administration released a report titled China's Poverty Reduction: Concepts, Perceptions and Inspirations, which sums up how the country ended rural poverty on schedule.

The report said a people-centered framework, clear-cut standards for tracking progress at the grassroots and an emphasis on improving poor people's work skills and education levels were among the keys.

The World Bank has estimated that the pandemic will push up to 150 million people around the globe back into extreme poverty by the end of this year.

Despite the impact, "China went on in 2020 to execute one of the greatest achievements of economic development in history," Siddharth Chatterjee, the UN Resident Coordinator to China, said in a video speech at the forum.

He said pulling around 100 million people out of poverty over the last seven years "on time and on schedule" demonstrated the importance of the political will showcased by Xi and the Chinese government.