Chea Munyrith③ | China-Cambodia Collaboration: A Model for Poverty Reduction and Development
- Chea Munyrith
- 3月28日
- 讀畢需時 4 分鐘
Chea Munyrith, president of the Cambodian Chinese Evolution Researcher Association
China’s success in poverty reduction has made a significant contribution to the global effort in fighting against global poverty. It was the first country in the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing extreme poverty by half. China implemented global poverty reduction through sharing the experiences of China’s success through effective program implementation.
Within more than 40 years of its “Reform and Opening up,” China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of extreme poverty and moved the country from a low-income country to a higher-income country, being one of the few countries to have experienced such a fast-track record in the world. Literature links the success of poverty reduction to China’s speedy economic growth miracle. Since 1978, China has achieved consistent and rapid economic growth, with the average GDP rate at 9%, paving the way for China to become the world’s second-largest economy after the US.
Such a remarkable achievement has drawn global attention, especially from developing countries, on how China could manage to achieve its poverty alleviation so rapidly. Literature reviews show various factors that have contributed to this success.
First and foremost is the Chinese leadership’s commitment and political continuity. Since the founding of the PRC, eliminating poverty, improving people's standard of living, and ensuring prosperity for all have been the mission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and are methodically highlighted in the CPC National Congress and other high-level discussions. Such strong leadership at the highest level has set the tone for local governments to follow suit and set goals to accomplish the “war against poverty” in their locality. Many strategies and mechanisms were developed, with China allocating a large amount of funds toward addressing poverty priorities.
Secondly, the success of poverty reduction is to a great extent owed to China’s economic miracle, and the benefits of such growth are wisely and fairly distributed to the whole society, especially to address poverty areas. Since its “Reform and Opening up,” China has managed to follow the path of a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics and build its country into a strong, modern, and civilized nation. Many accounts can be explained for China’s fast economic growth. Successful reforms towards household contract responsibility systems, flexible policies based on market and political developments, the shift from a heavy industry-dependent economy toward a light industry-dependent and green ecology development, the reform toward Township and Village Enterprise (TVEs), the reforms of SOEs toward private-owned enterprises, and the opening up for foreign investments and modern urbanization and infrastructure development are all fundamental factors contributing to the current China exponential growth. At the core, though, is China’s state capacity to put these plans into action, driven by the central government and the CPC at the national level, followed by highly motivated local governments.
Thirdly, China has put forward various programs to directly address poverty issues so that the benefits could reach out to the poor. There is a high concentration of development-oriented poverty alleviation in rural areas. The Outline for Development-Oriented Poverty Alleviation for China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010) and the Outline for Development-Oriented Poverty Alleviation for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020) were developed in the most comprehensive manner, giving clear guidelines for all levels of government to follow. Financial management plays a fundamental role in the government’s poverty reduction scheme, and China’s success in its government-led financial support of the poverty alleviation model has increased year after year. Providing enough food, clothing, safe drinking water, and improving housing conditions are all prioritized poverty reduction action plans that China has managed to achieve successfully.
Fourthly, China prioritized its strategies to focus on the delivery of basic social services, such as better access to education and better access to healthcare services, through adopting various laws and legal frameworks. China also has a social assistance system with subsistence allowances, assistance and support for people in extreme difficulty, disaster relief, and medical, housing, education, and employment assistance.
In recent years, China has offered the Cambodian people various humanitarian projects as part of its soft power and China’s Go Global policy and as part of the BRI’s global effort to promote global humanity with a shared future, which called for joint efforts to advocate respect for the diversity of civilizations, the common values of humanity, the importance of inheritance of civilizations, and people-to-people exchanges. China NGO Network for International Exchange, as part of an exchange program with civil society cooperation, has allowed the China Foundation for Peace and Development (CFPD) to open an office in Cambodia in 2017. Since its inception in Cambodia, CFPD has cooperated with various civil society organizations on various humanitarian work focusing on health, education, agriculture, labor, and rural development as part of a poverty reduction initiative for the Cambodian people. Among them, the Civil Society Alliance Forum (CSAF) had entered into cooperation with CFPD in 2017 to implement both short-term and long-term projects. Already nearly US$3 million was spent covering a period from 2018 till 2023 for projects including school buildings, digging wells, school kits, vaccines, COVID-19 equipment, and other poverty reduction support initiatives in Tanorn village, Dong Commune, Bati district, Takeo province. The China-Cambodia Village for Poverty Reduction project in Tanorn village is a three-year project aiming to alleviate poverty through building physical infrastructure to provide market access to the remote village to connect to town. The project has provided hope to local people to get out of poverty, with good access to the market, solar energy for schooling, and a green environment for livelihood improvement. Once an isolated village with poor access roads, no clean water, electricity, school, or health center, the situation has completely changed after the advent of the CFPD-funded project.
“Now, residents can grow paddy rice twice per year, with proper access roads, and they have access to solar power and clean water, and some have received funds for raising chickens and ducks, or growing vegetables. The project has improved living standards for the villagers from zero to a moderate level” Xinhua quoted the village chief’s statement.
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