ADB to help tap potential of NGOs to fight poverty in China

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will help the Chinese Government to tap the potential of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) to boost state-led poverty reduction efforts, through a technical assistance (TA) grant for 1million US dollars.

The grant, from ADB's Poverty Reduction Coordination Fund, financed by the Government of the United Kingdom, will support the design and demonstration of models for NGO participation in government-funded poverty alleviation efforts at the village level, the bank said in a statement made available to Xinhua Thursday.

The TA will build a comprehensive framework for mainstreaming NGOs into national poverty alleviation efforts. It will pilot test new mechanisms for competitive selection of NGOs and support capacity building for local officials and NGOs to engage in partnerships in village-level poverty work. It will also involve rigorous monitoring and evaluation of NGO-implemented pilot projects.

While the analysis and policy recommendations generated will extend to the national level, Jiangxi Province was selected to host the pilot test because of its strong support and capacity for policy experimentation, and its persistent pockets of poverty in rural areas.

Christopher Spohr, an ADB Social Sector Economist, said that following remarkable progress against poverty, China now faces a new poverty context, with poverty increasingly concentrated in hard-to-reach groups.

In view of the recent deceleration in poverty reduction despite growing public investment, the Chinese Government has recognized the need to develop better targeted, innovative, and new approaches to address persistent absolute poverty, as well as the vulnerability of a much larger low-income population living at the brink of poverty, said the expert.

To date, state-funded poverty alleviation efforts in China have generally been planned, administered, and monitored by local governments. However, evidence from various countries suggests that NGOs may have, or be able to develop, comparative advantages in areas such as project design, management, and monitoring and evaluation.

"The project builds on strong foresight and support from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP), Ministry of Finance, and partner agencies in Jiangxi Province, who increasingly view NGO participation in poverty reduction as a means to address certain systemic flaws and inefficiencies," said Spohr.

The Chinese Government will clearly maintain a key guiding role in poverty reduction in the country, but international experience shows that government-NGO cooperation can tap important complementarities, based on each partners' strengths, the bank said.

The technical assistance program builds on and complements ongoing and planned ADB technical assistance programs to explore new models for rural microfinance and alternative rural livelihoods. It will also link to poverty monitoring work in Jiangxi supported by Germany and to broader work by the World Bank, Department for International Development, and other organizations on assessing poverty and poverty reduction efforts in China. The program will be implemented through October 2007, with LGOP acting as executing agency. Total cost of the TA is about 2.1 million US dollars, of which the Government will finance about 1 million US dollars' equivalent, and the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation will contribute 100,000 US dollars' equivalent as another key project partner.

Source: Xinhua