WFP to end 26-year-long food aid to China

China has officially moved from being an international aid recipient to become a donor nation now that it no longer requires assistance from the United Nations' World Food Program (WFP).

At a news briefing here Thursday, James Morris, WFP executive director attributed the end of the food aid program in China to the "Chinese government's tremendous success in alleviating hunger".

For 26 years the United Nations's World Food Program (WFP) provided food aid to China's poorest people. The last shipment of WFP food aid arrived at Chigang Port in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province on April 7th this year.

The shipment contained 43,450 tons of wheat, worth nearly 7.2 million U.S. dollars. It was transported far inland to Gansu, Guangxi, Ningxia and Shanxi for local poverty reduction programs.

Morris said China's accomplishments in alleviating hunger were a tribute to the commitment of its leaders and the diligence and dynamism of its people.

Since 1986, the Chinese government has worked to reduce poverty through developmental schemes with Chinese features. Stressing governmental leadership and social participation, the initiatives are designed to help the poor feed themselves.

In China's western region the government has replaced direct monetary grants to the poor with incentives encouraging them to make better use of local resources, enhance local infrastructure and productivity and develop a market economy.

A key objective of the current 10th five-year blueprint has been to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas where the majority of the Chinese poor live.

The government plans to make a bigger contribution to agriculture, farmers and rural regions in the hope of building a "well-off and harmonious society".

According to official statistics, China invested a total 102.6 billion RMB (or 12.71 billion U.S. dollars) in poverty reduction programs between 1980 to 2003. Some 65 percent of the investment was used to improve production and training. The remaining 35 percent went to infrastructure projects such as irrigation, roads and drinking water supply.

China considers people with an annual income of less then 668 yuan or 82.8 U.S. dollars to be living in poverty. International income standards for those living in absolute poverty are set at 365 U.S. dollars a year.

According to the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, China's had a total of 26.1 million living in poverty at the end of 2004.

The WFP first opened its Beijing office in 1980. It has assisted some 30 million Chinese, mostly in remote central and western China. It helped to meet their immediate food needs and facilitated the creation of community-level assets through food-for-work and food-for-training programs.

The total food aid it provided is worth almost 1 billion U.S. dollars. The infrastructure programs helped build roads, irrigation systems and drinking water facilities.

As China's need for food aid has been reduced, its donations to other countries through the WFP have increased.

China offered 1 million U.S. dollars in canned fish to victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and more than 5 million U.S. dollars in total to the WFP over the past four years.

"China has increased its donations and is becoming a stronger donor in our global fight against hunger".

Morris acknowledged the world is faced with huge challenge of tackling hunger and poverty. Around the world more than 850 million people suffer from chronic hunger and the number is increasing.

He struck an optimistic note on the prospect for poverty reduction, saying "The WFP knows the problem of global hunger can be solved because it has been addressed so impressively here in China."

Source: Xinhua