China's rural poverty reduction satisfactory: IFAD

Rural poverty in China has reduced satisfactorily under programs funded by a United Nations agency, but insufficient management is hampering progress.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a financial institution under the United Nations aimed at eliminating rural poverty and increasing food safety in developing countries.

In 2013, the Independent Office of Evaluation of the IFAD undertook the first Country Programme Evaluation (CPE) of China, assessing the IFAD-China partnership over the period of 1999-2013.

The CPE assessed 13 projects with IFAD lending amounting to 434 million US dollars (about 2.69 billion yuan). The money was received by local governments to help poor farmers and ranchers.

The CPE concluded the projects to be "satisfactory".

Programs demonstrated innovative agricultural methods. Village Livestock Service Stations in Inner Mongolia involved training vets and setting up facilities for artificial insemination to increase the number of sheep.

However, technologies could not be used across provincial borders as regional government financing and implementation discourage the use of one area's resources to benefit another.

The CPE said IFAD-China cooperation should be improved and focus more on targeted strategies to ensure more poorer people benefit from schemes.

The findings also stated that more plans and budgets are needed to support policies, knowledge management, partnership building (including both private and public institutions), and promotion of innovation and the scaling up of such innovation.

China is the second largest borrower from the IFAD with 46.27 percent of the rural population and 9.5 percent of the whole population living below the national poverty line.

The findings were presented on Thursday at the CPE of the People's Republic of China National Round-table workshop.