Mining, a model town set up by Xi Jinping, China’s president, has paved the way for new poverty alleviation plans focused on poor individuals and the skills they can bring to the table. For many years, aid for the poor has grouped individuals together to streamline aid processing. However, this type of aid does not take into account the individual and can actually end up costing more for the sake of simplicity.

This new method focuses on the interests, skills, environment and situation of every individual. Personalized poverty alleviation plans ensure that the poor will be helped better than assisting with the general development of poor areas in the hopes that wealth will trickle down to the poorest.

In Mining, without help, around 400 citizens would live under the poverty line, which is listed as 2,300 yuan a year. The poverty alleviation scheme worked through a complex system where Mining listed all the problems and requirements for all the poor. The government used this to determine the most efficient way to approach and help these citizens. Skills were taken into account to best match individuals with jobs in order to reduce frictional unemployment and provide the poor with jobs.

Although 46% of the poor in Mining has mental or physical disabilities, creating personalized plans allows for individuals to be supported by the government, rather than be lost or ignored by individual hiring practices resulting in unemployment and poverty.

China has been known as a leader in poverty reduction. Since 1980, about 700 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty. The country has been able to reduce poverty in cities and decrease the number of rural people living below the poverty line.

China has also incurred successful economic growth based on job generation through the poorest citizens, and the poverty alleviation scheme has allowed for China’s poorest towns to flourish.

Mining is an example of one method of government intervention-based poverty alleviation that the rest of the world can learn from. This project also preaches the value of each citizen and individuality.

World leaders may not be aware that personalized projects like this cost more time than money. Individualizing poverty reduction efforts on a massive scale can lead to higher employment and less poverty on a smaller budget.

China’s poverty alleviation scheme is an impressive example of poverty reduction and shows that large-scale personalization could be key to reducing poverty around the globe.

– Francis Hurtado Rodriguez

Photo: Flickr