In November 2020, China’s southwestern province of Guizhou announced that its last nine impoverished counties have been lifted out of absolute poverty, which translated that all registered impoverished counties and areas in the world’s most populous country have shaken off the pangs of poverty. This is 10 years ahead of the UN hypothetical deadline for lifting all humanity out of poverty outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The average annual net income of the formerly extreme poor people in these counties was reported to have risen to about $1,740, well above the national poverty line. 

Hard-earned achievement 

China’s poverty alleviation measures and drive toward the end of poverty was not simply built on raising the incomes of poor people but in giving them a solid foothold to meaningful livelihood. In designing the pathway to poverty elimination, the governing Communist Party of China (CPC) has outlined "two no worries" and "three guarantees," which spelt out that the fundamental criteria to measure poverty elimination work should consist that poor people must not worry about food and clothing ("two worries") and should be guaranteed compulsory education for their children, basic medical care and safe housing accommodation (three guarantees). 

The core criteria for assessing poverty elimination means that in addition to having sufficient income, China does not consider people to be out of poverty until they have enough food and clothing, guaranteed basic health care, access to compulsory education, and safe housing. Against the background of these vital fundamentals, the end of poverty in China acquires immense global significance and more especially for Africa, where poverty remains the most existential and potent threats to social and political stability. 

The feat of China in eliminating absolute poverty is even more significant. The final battle against the scourge was launched in 2013, when about 100 million Chinese people were still mired in extreme poverty. One third of President Xi Jinping’s provincial visits were reported to be to the villages and communities most ravaged by poverty and talking to poor people himself and engaging Party cadres, and government officials were deployed to oversee the poverty reduction and elimination drive. On average about 10 million and more people were lifted out poverty since 2013 every year, and at the start of 2020, only about 5.3 million people were still under the pangs of poverty. Even with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, Xi, who has always insisted that "poverty relief work" should be as "meticulous like doing embroidery", rather than akin to "killing fleas with a hand-grenade,"restated the Party and government’s abiding and solemn commitment to eliminating absolute poverty before the end of 2020. 

The final push to end absolute poverty actually commenced in 2013, when Xi went to Shibadong, a village of mainly Miao ethnic minority in the mountains of central China’s Hunan Province. There, he outlined the framework of targeted poverty alleviation. Following this, a national road map and an action plan were worked out, which includes identifying all impoverished people and writing down the factors that led to their poverty. 

Under the action plan, each household or individual has been given a customized poverty-relief solution which consisted in getting help to start a small business, relocating families from inhospitable mountainous areas and receiving training to find job in the cities. And to accomplish this, a national system to keep track of progress and ensure the measures were having the desired effect was designed. To ensure that the broad roadmap and specifics of the national poverty relief did not derail, the whole country was mobilized. Nearly 3 million CPC cadres and public sector officials were sent from the cities and towns to villages to fight poverty at the frontline. Xi said that the achievement is the result of the "largest and most vigorous battle in human history against poverty."

China still has some acute challenges to resolve, especially caused by inadequate and unbalanced development, and also has the onerous task to improve follow-up support for people minted freshly out of absolute poverty to ensure that these people are able to settle down, stay employed, and become wealth creators. 

A reference for Africa 

The key implications of the end of absolute poverty in China for the rest of the world, especially for Africa, is that poverty is not a destiny to be accepted as faith but a social scourge that can be eliminated with requisite political will, focused and consistent policy framework. China’s poverty-relief trajectories and triumph might be a tough act to follow, as they were made possible by a disciplined Party of integrity, unwavering pursuit for the historic mission of “serving the people whole-heartedly” and an abiding commitment to “putting the people first.” Nonetheless, the core category of policy instrument of sustainability and consistency, in addition to popular mobilization, can serve to enrich the anti-poverty policy platforms of various governments in Africa. 

To relieve poor people of the scourge is not a humanitarian gesture but an existential social policy articulated from serious interrogation of specific national condition and social reality and driven by the indomitable political will of serious leadership. Such policy options that can drive poverty-relief plan must enjoy reasonable and broad consensus and, in the case of Africa, be inclusive of both ruling and opposition parties and broad range of stakeholders. 

The first step in the drive for poverty relief in Africa is to shatter the myth sustained through some customary and religious practices that poverty is a kind of destiny that some people must accept to live with. Africa may not need to travel through the trajectories of modern China but there are basic essentials that are inevitable in any meaningful roadmap to alleviate poverty. 

In his work The End of Poverty published in 2005, Jeffrey Sachs noted "when the preconditions of basic infrastructure (roads, power, ports) and human capital (health and education) are in place, markets are powerful engines of development. Without those preconditions, markets can cruelly bypass large parts of the world, leaving them impoverished and suffering. Only collective action through effective government provision of health, education, infrastructure,… underpins economic success."

Africa now has the added arsenal of leveraging China’s experience in ending poverty, which is to drive its homegrown policy platform to bring relief to the poor people and also turn them into a new army of wealth creators for a renascent Africa. China has shown the way that poverty can be ended. 

(The writer is director of the Center for China Studies in Abuja, Nigeria)