Chronicle Editor
Mercy Nyoni
Zimbabwe and Africa have been facing chronic poverty for decades. Many people, especially in rural communities where the majority lives suffer poverty and depend on donor aid in between agricultural seasons that have become unpredictable and harsh due to climate change.
In urban areas, the poor live under harsh conditions, which have in turn led to social ills.
In Zimbabwe, various interventions have been instituted, the latest being cash transfers to most vulnerable households. However the model has not worked due to a number of operational and logistical challenges, poor targeting and high inflation.
At this rate, it will require ages to lift people out of poverty on the basis of State benevolence and social welfare. What then, could be the solution to turn around this situation amid demands and a world that is developing at a fast pace, threatening to leave millions behind?
Chinese President Xi Jinping and the ruling party, Communist Party of China (CPC), have a blueprint that is working and has seen millions of Chinese being saved from poverty. Latest statistics show that up to 700 million people in
China have been uplifted from poverty in the last 40 years.
A programme of alleviating poverty in Zimbabwe could be driven by both Government and the ruling party.
This should be based on sustainable solutions having at first set clear priorities and tight internal logic and initiate the process of ending poverty by way of identifying those living under the poverty line, helping them escaping poverty, and carrying out poverty alleviation projects, grassroots governance and management in poor areas.
According to President Xi, in China under his leadership, first Party secretaries and resident working teams are deployed to impoverished villages, and government officials have been trained to produce competent people working in the countryside. These officials work hard to bring happier lives to the poor, and some have given their lives to the cause.
President Xi’s philosophy is that the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects conforms closely to the characteristics of China’s development in the new age.
The CPC’s model is workable since it provides a strong institutional guarantee to back up the fight against poverty.
The most fundamental element of this framework is a working mechanism whereby the central leadership makes overall plans, provincial authorities take overall responsibilities, while local authorities take charge of implementation – authorities at all levels sign written pledges so that clear goals are set, accountability is ensured, and implementation measures are adopted.
These strategies have improved the working and living conditions of poor areas and poor people in China.
China set records in the history of poverty reduction with the rural people living under the current poverty line fell from 98.99 million at the end of 2012 to 30.46 million at the end of 2017, a decrease of 68.53 million and about 70 percent.
The incidence of poverty fell from 10.2 percent at the end of 2012 to 3.1 percent at the end of 2017, a decrease of 7.1 percentage points.
The average annual decrease was 13.7 million in the five years, which is more than double the annual decrease of 68.53 million during the Seven-year Priority Poverty Reduction Program (1994-2000) period.
If African countries follow such a noble strategy, they will surely succeed in ending poverty as shown by the data above.
• Mercy Nyoni is South Africa-based writer and student of international relations at one of the institutions of higher learning.
Online Reporter