The World Bank announced Wednesday its decision to provide 100 million US dollars in loans with 32.45 million US dollars in grant from Britain to help the poorest people in south and southwest China.

The bank said the project, known as the Poor Rural Communities Development Project, involves some 1,063 rural villages in remote

mountainous areas in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south China.

The villages will benefit from agricultural support through activities aimed to improve and diversify productive activities, develop farmer-to-farmer services and provide training and technical support, according to a statement made public Wednesday by the bank.

Although China's achievements in poverty reduction are widely recognized, the decline in poverty has been uneven over time, across locality, and between social groups, and the rural poor are heavily concentrated in natural resources deficient mountainous areas of the central and western provinces, the bank said.

Basic infrastructure will be constructed and improved in the these villages including access roads, potable water supplies for human and livestock, small water conservancy works, rural electrification and communications networks, and household energy and sanitation facilities, according to the statement.

Assistance will be provided to improve access to basic education including adult literacy education, and to basic health services with specific objectives of reducing maternal and infant mortality and some key infectious diseases in the project areas, said the bank.

"The project will also help strengthen the grassroots capacity in managing community development activities by training poor farmers and community leaders in various basic skills and participatory approach methodologies, so as to ensure project implementation effectiveness and sustainability."

As people with disabilities are often the poorest of the poor in China, the project has a special activity in Yuexi County in Sichuan to assist poor people with disabilities through community based rehabilitation and other measures, it said.

Alan Piazza, World Bank Task Manager for the Poor Rural Communities Project, said "This is a very exciting poverty reduction project with outreach to the poorest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in China."

Through the participatory approach, the Wa people in southwestern Yunnan, the Yi people in the Liangshan region in southern Sichuan, the Maonan people in north-central Guangxi, and other ethnic minority groups will be empowered to design, implement, and evaluate their own project."

The World Bank loan of 100 million US dollars will be blended with a 32.45 million US dollar grant by Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) to reduce the effective interest rate on the Bank's 20-year loan.

Holger Grundel, DFID lead adviser for the project, said the department is focused on supporting the Chinese government efforts to achieve three key off-track Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in basic education, health, and water sanitation.

"The project will include investments in all three areas, focusing on some of China's poorest and most remote communities.

Through close collaboration with relevant agencies at all levels we will aim to ensure that the innovative approaches to poverty reduction tested in the three project provinces are fed into the Chinese government own poverty alleviation programs," said Grundel.

The bank said China has introduced a number of new initiatives including greater reliance on the participatory approach and an increased role for civil society organizations in its latest "Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Program: 2001-2010".

China's other poverty reduction initiatives are better targeting, more effective assistance for ethnic minority groups and people with disabilities, improving access to basic education and health, improving productivity of mountain agriculture and rural infrastructure.

Source: Xinhua