An explanation of the causes of the awkward practical predicament of accurate Poverty Alleviation

From July to August 2012, the author went to Changwu, Shaanxi Province to investigate poverty alleviation work. One feeling at that time was that the requirement of 70% of the poverty alleviation funds made by the central poverty alleviation department for industrial poverty alleviation was an one-size-fits-all policy that failed to take into account the local reality, and this policy also left local poverty alleviation departments struggling to cope, but the overall effect of poverty alleviation industrial projects was not ideal.

I. the connotation of accurate poverty alleviation

The emergence of the precise poverty alleviation policy, to a large extent, draws lessons from the experience of poverty alleviation work in Guangdong Province [3], from planning to household and responsibility to human development [4] to the current poverty alleviation funds to village to household, the establishment of poverty alleviation task force in villages, and so on. are the concentration of Guangdong experience. According to document (2013) No. 25 issued by the Central Office, accurate poverty alleviation refers to guiding the optimal allocation of all kinds of poverty alleviation resources to achieve poverty alleviation to villages through accurate identification, assistance, management and assessment of poor households and villages, and gradually build a long-term mechanism for poverty alleviation work to lay a solid foundation for scientific poverty alleviation. Accurate poverty alleviation is a way of poverty alleviation by using compliance and effective procedures to accurately identify, help and manage poverty alleviation objects according to different poverty-stricken regional environments and different conditions of poor farmers. [5]

In this sense, accurate poverty alleviation does not exclude various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities from determining specific assistance means for poverty alleviation according to local objective conditions, but in the implementation of specific policies, the central guidance on accurate poverty alleviation has evolved into a high-voltage line that local poverty alleviation cadres cannot touch. On the one hand, this is because local governments do not have a comprehensive and profound understanding of accurate poverty alleviation strategies, and on the other hand, some poverty alleviation workers are unwilling to take responsibility for improving the effectiveness of poverty alleviation. Therefore, it is necessary for us to elaborate on some core concepts of accurate poverty alleviation in order to clarify the relevant concepts and understanding.

1. Accurate identification

The concept of precise poverty alleviation is put forward to solve the problem that the poor population and villages in non-state poverty-stricken counties and concentrated areas can not be identified clearly in the past. From the perspective of reality, it is relatively simple to identify poor villages, but it is not easy to accurately identify poor people. From the overall situation, the poor population in China has basically solved the problem of living and food and clothing, that is, the number of people living in absolute poverty has been greatly reduced, but corresponding to this, there are still a large number of relatively poor people. and the income gap between the relative poor is not obvious, so it becomes very difficult to identify the relative poor beyond the absolute poverty. Precise identification emphasizes the need to identify poor households through democratic, scientific and transparent procedures. The focus here is to identify poor households in relatively poor groups, and to identify the poorest and most needy people under the limited scale of poverty.

2. Precise help

The so-called accurate help is designed for the previous one-size-fits-all, large and comprehensive content and way of help. Consistent with the principle of "focus on continuous poverty alleviation and development, we must pay attention to the uniqueness and differences of poverty in the region, so that we can formulate poverty alleviation strategies with local adaptability and effectiveness" [6]. Assistance under accurate poverty alleviation will fully consider the actual causes of poverty in poor villages and poor households, and on this basis, targeted measures and means will be designed. In the course of assistance, it is necessary to determine the helpers of poor villages and poor households, and concentrate their efforts on helping poor villages and households to shake off poverty and become rich within the scope of human, material, and financial resources that can be mobilized. Precise assistance attaches importance to the special reality of poor villages and poor households, and carries out poverty alleviation work on the basis of respecting the local actual situation, which is also the development of poverty alleviation work methods that used to attach importance to the whole rather than individuality.

3. Precise management

First of all, accurate management means that the information of all poor households and poor villages will be managed by means of informationization. At the same time, through the comparative analysis and statistics of key indicators of poor households, it is found that the key factors leading to the lack of development capacity of farmers or the deterioration of poverty. At the same time, accurate management also means that the support for archival card farmers will be dynamic, when the information system monitoring found that farmers have been out of poverty, the farmers can be transferred out of the category of poor households, and some new farmers can enter again. Finally, precision management is also the supervision and management of poverty alleviation departments, and its main purpose is to promote the progress of its work and to supervise and remind the work of poverty alleviation funds and projects.

4. Accurate assessment

Through the monitoring of the poverty information system, the poverty alleviation departments at higher levels can clearly and accurately find out the accuracy and serious attitude of the poverty alleviation departments at lower levels in the identification of poor households and poor people, can timely check the use and implementation of poverty alleviation funds and projects, and the assessment of local cadres will mainly rely on the contents and indicators of poverty alleviation work. The establishment of accurate assessment will change the formalization of the previous assessment in the field of poverty alleviation in rural areas, and accurately evaluate the effectiveness of poverty alleviation departments at different levels through quantitative assessment, and at the same time, on the basis of the village poverty alleviation task force, accurate poverty alleviation will also establish an incentive mechanism combined with the future development of village cadres, so as to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of village cadres in poverty alleviation work and maintain the necessary pressure of poverty alleviation work.

II. The practical dilemma of accurate poverty alleviation

In this part, we will combine the research materials to show you the difficulties and puzzles faced by Lanxian County in Ningxia in the practice of accurate poverty alleviation, which can also reflect some shortcomings of the accurate poverty alleviation work itself or areas that need to be improved.

1. Lack of peasant household participation in accurate identification.

Poverty alleviation identification is the basic work of precise poverty alleviation. Its purpose is to find out the poor objects, avoid the deviation and leakage of poverty alleviation resources, and enable the individuals who really meet the assistance policy to be effectively supported. [7]The director of the Lan County Poverty Alleviation Office told us that "the filing of the card is also the poverty identification work mainly done in the village, there are corresponding procedures, and publicity is also required." There are regulations on the district that five categories of people cannot enter (if there are financial support personnel and preferential treatment objects in families). Each area shall report through the information management system of poor people. After entering, the filing card households shall not be changed for a certain period of three years. The filing card holder shall be responsible by the village, which shall be publicized according to the procedure, and the list shall be reported after publicity. Now the common people don't care much about this either. They don't think it matters, and they don't pay. It doesn't matter much to me if I'm not sure or who I'm sure." It is this kind of situation that makes us find in the investigation that some farmers have not heard of filing cards at all, whether in poor households or non-poor households. Without the full participation of farmers, accurate identification is difficult to achieve.

When investigating in Lan County and Xincun, a villager surnamed Zhang said: "I have heard about filing cards, but I don't know exactly how to do it, because I often go out to see a doctor with my daughter, and the situation in the village is not very clear." As for what poverty alleviation projects there are in the village or how they are implemented, I am not sure myself, nor can I say." "It is difficult to investigate the causes of poverty among poor households, understand household income and dynamically manage their information." [8]This is the first situation encountered by precise poverty alleviation. The really poor farmers are relatively indifferent to public affairs, and because of family difficulties, they either go out to work, or they are physically disabled or ill and have no intention of asking questions. Therefore, the work of precise identification can only be done roughly.

2. Lack of difference in accurate help

Because of the different causes of poverty, poor households have different needs for help, such as production assistance, academic assistance, serious illness assistance, housing reconstruction, subsistence allowance assistance, agricultural practical technology, guaranteed loans and so on. [9]Accurate poverty alleviation requires corresponding poverty alleviation measures to be formulated according to the specific conditions of poor villages and poor households. However, in the survey, we can see that village-specific and household-specific poverty alleviation measures have not appeared. Poverty alleviation measures for some poor people who are eager to develop and have certain skills should be different from poverty alleviation measures for lazy and idle poor people, but in fact, poverty alleviation measures for the two are no different. He Xincun village director is also more worried about this point, he said: "Now the Communist Party's policy is good, but some farmers who are being helped do not know how to be grateful, for poverty alleviation funds, they all think that they do not take white, wait, rely on, have serious thoughts, there are some people who are poor because they are lazy and unwilling to work and fall behind, give them some subsidies, take the money to eat, drink and play, and even play mahjong gambling." Therefore, poverty alleviation should also be supported by diligence rather than laziness. Some people are really not worth helping. I remember consoling poor households during the Spring Festival in 2014. We carried grain, oil and meat to a poor household's home. It was more than 10 a.m. and we still slept late at home. It made you angry when you looked at it. What do you mean by helping this kind of person?

In addition, try not to give cash. You can give some help with production materials according to the situation, such as fertilizer, production tools, or other things. You can give them after you have done it. If you give cash, just like what I said, you can use the money to do something else instead of developing production and operation." Although only a small proportion of poor farmers are poor due to laziness and lack of proper work, the use of poverty alleviation materials and funds by these people really makes poverty alleviation work encounter great justice challenges, and the negative benefits of supporting such people also damage the fairness and justice of poverty alleviation work. For such poor households, the primary task of poverty alleviation is not to give money in kind, but to change their thinking and understanding.

3. Accurate allocation of poverty alleviation funds is easy to trigger petitions

In the investigation, deputy secretary of Hua Village told us: "The 'double arrival' funds were available in our village in 2012 and 2013, and the village did not want the money in 2014. The reason for not wanting it was that all of them were out of poverty, and support in this area was no longer needed." In fact, it is not easy to distribute the funds, because there are a total of 30 quotas, and there is not much difference between them, so it is not easy to distribute them to whom they are not given. In addition, this fund can only be used for farming and breeding, and it won't have much effect."

For absolute poor households in the village, villagers can form a unanimous opinion. Supporting poverty alleviation funds for such farmers will not cause dissatisfaction among villagers. However, if some relatively poor households are supported as filing card households, this will cause dissatisfaction and competition for poverty alleviation funds. Some villagers will blackmail village cadres through petitions. For this point, Lan county poverty alleviation office deputy director also mentioned,"Some farmers are used to laziness, accustomed to the government and society, Development rich initiative is insufficient, Big pot rice thought is serious, To whom file card they don't care, As long as involved in money and goods everyone will have a share, Don't give trouble, Many things can not be done." It is also based on these factors that poverty alleviation funds are regarded as hot potato by some cadres, and sometimes they become "management wisdom" if they do not strive for poverty alleviation funds and projects.

In order to reduce conflicts, the farmers enjoying the "double-arrival" funds in Hua Village in 2012 and 2013 are not exactly the same, which is not only a reflection of the dynamic changes in the poverty status of farmers, but also to reduce the occurrence of petitions by expanding the coverage of poverty alleviation funds.

4. Limited funds for precise poverty alleviation

Precision poverty alleviation "It is far from enough to rely solely on the special poverty alleviation funds of the central finance. Therefore, we should widely absorb the support of social forces." [10]A villager surnamed Guo in Hexin Village told us,"For poverty alleviation funds, I think the government can give a few counts, and there is no such thing." Actually, even if the township and village give some financial aid, 1,000 or 2,000 yuan won't solve any big problems, so it doesn't matter whether there is any."

The deputy secretary of the party committee in charge of poverty alleviation in Zhongliang Town told us, "A total of 951 poor households have been identified in our town, and the poverty alleviation fund received in 2014 is 800000 yuan. According to the standard of 2000 yuan per household, this money can only support 400 households. With such a standard and the amount of funds, it will take at least three years for all poor families in the town to set up archives and establish cards. This means that a considerable number of households with archives and credit cards can only enjoy 2,000 yuan "double to" poverty alleviation funds once in three years, and they will be lifted out of poverty in 33 years in accordance with the requirements of their work. 2,000 yuan of aid-the-poor funds really do not play any role, and it is of little significance to farmers.

The villagers in this town mainly come from the Hui immigrants in Liupanshan area, who have the habit of raising beef cattle. For raising beef cattle, 2000 yuan can not solve any production problems at all, and they can buy some feed at most; on the other hand, the villagers have a serious idea of eating in a big pot. I have to have you. More than 900households have been identified in the town, but this year's funds are only enough for 400households, and it is difficult to determine who will not give them, and there is a great contradiction. "

The limited poverty alleviation funds are an important factor restricting the accurate poverty alleviation work. For the vast western regions, local finance is very difficult, and they are unable to raise funds from their own financial revenue for poverty alleviation. Therefore, the amount of poverty alleviation funds allocated by superiors will directly affect the effect of accurate poverty alleviation. The question of the amount of poverty alleviation funds mentioned here, how to maximize the effectiveness of poverty alleviation funds or to meet the most urgent needs of poor households is also worthy of our deep consideration.

5. the precise poverty alleviation policy is rigid.

In the survey, many cadres and personnel of poverty alleviation institutions questioned the current accurate poverty alleviation policy. The deputy director of the Lanxian Poverty Alleviation Office said, "the existing accurate poverty alleviation policy card is so dead that the poverty alleviation funds can only be used to set up archives and set up credit cards, which are unable or unwilling to do so, and non-file holders are willing to do so but do not meet the policy requirements. Such supportive policies are too rigid and dogmatic and should be adapted to local conditions. The situation in each place is different, and the situation at the grass-roots level is complicated. If we do not take measures in accordance with local conditions, there will be no effect.

In fact, it is better to support the industrialization of non-archival card holders or large growers in the village who are willing to engage in agricultural projects and have the ability to develop, their driving ability and demonstration effect will be stronger, and the use of poverty alleviation funds will be better. Many development projects are risky, and the ability of poor households to cope with these risks is very weak, and if large households take the lead in pilot agricultural projects, other farmers will learn or follow suit after success. " In view of this, the deputy secretary of the party committee of Liangzhen is: "with regard to the use of poverty alleviation funds, we should focus on strengthening and improving infrastructure construction and basic industries, such as ditches, canals, roads, water and other production and living facilities in rural areas." for example, the basic cow and breeding parks, or industrial management organizations, which are closely related to the fattening of farmers' beef cattle, will benefit everyone and benefit everyone's development. It can also reduce conflicts. In addition, those who focus on supporting the desire to develop and become rich in the agricultural and animal husbandry industry have a skill and drive, and when they grow up, they can also drive some people to work, and they can also absorb farmers' local employment and increase their income.

At present, a considerable number of the identified poor households have the ability to work but lack the desire and motivation for development, and they are relatively lazy. In the present way, they are actually sprinkled with pepper, which is meaningless. It is best to invest in infrastructure and some projects that can benefit everyone, especially those with long investment periods and slow returns. " In essence, the lack of flexibility of precision poverty alleviation is that "in many places, there is surprise short-term behavior in the implementation of precision poverty alleviation, and it is more common to emphasize blood transfusion rather than hematopoiesis." [11] it is necessary to improve poverty alleviation in this way.