UN official calls poverty victory 'China example'

International Exchanges

China's achievements in poverty alleviation have created a "China example of poverty reduction," a United Nations official said Tuesday.

XinhuaUpdated: March 4, 2021

China's achievements in poverty alleviation have created a "China example of poverty reduction," a United Nations official said Tuesday.

Lenni Montiel, deputy regional director of UN Development Programme's Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, made the remarks at a briefing on China's achievements in poverty reduction by China's permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun in New York.

China has made "the most significant and substantive effort on poverty reduction in all the history of the planet, creating a fundamental contribution to the global poverty alleviation," said Montiel.

He noted that China's poverty reduction experience "unquestionably" offers an important source of information to UN agencies, funds and programmes in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

From China's experience, the UN official said he has found three elements fundamental for developing countries. "These are the precision of policy efforts, the national information systems, and the targeted efforts."

"Poverty alleviation is possible only with precision of policy efforts," he said.

China reduced poverty so significantly because of a national information system that allowed the specific targetting of populations in need, "and that guaranteed policies implemented were tailored to the specific cases in terms of geography or location, population specificities as well as causes of poverty," added Montiel.

The UN official suggested China's experience in poverty reduction can be shared with other countries and via south-south cooperation to ensure the success of the 2030 Agenda.