Where are the poor counties that have not taken off their hats?

Less than 9 months are left to fully win the battle against poverty. With the end of February and early March this year, a number of provinces intensively announced the "zeroing" of poor counties, away from the rural poverty under our current standards set in 2015. The population has achieved poverty alleviation, and all poverty-stricken counties have taken off their hats to solve the regional poverty problem.

Removal of all hats in poverty-stricken counties is one of the three goals of poverty alleviation. Although the number of poverty-stricken counties in China has been reduced from 832 in 2012 to 52 at the end of 2019, the removal of hats in poverty-stricken counties is actually only regarded as a "mid-term exam." So, how far is the poverty-stricken counties from the poverty-stricken people's overall poverty alleviation?

In the eyes of many people, the time left for them to win this tough fight against poverty is far less than 9 months, even for many hat-removing counties.

From 832 to 52, how are poor counties determined?

According to Liu Yongfu, director of the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council, at a press conference on March 12, the number of poor counties has decreased from 832 to 52 today.

The list of 832 impoverished counties was determined in 2012.

In that year, the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council issued two lists of key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, and a list of sub-counties in contiguous destitute areas. The former included 592 counties in 22 provinces in the central and western regions, while the latter involved 14 centralized contiguous special Of the 680 counties in difficult areas, 440 counties appeared on both lists at the same time, excluding the overlapping parts, and there were 832 poor counties in the country.

"Among the 14 districts released in 2012, in addition to Tibet, four provinces in Tibet, and the three prefectures in southern Xinjiang, which have clearly implemented special support policies, 11 new districts were divided. Among these 11 districts, the poor counties involved Some are already key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work, and some are previously designated poverty-stricken counties, which have also been confirmed after local efforts, and later collectively referred to as poverty counties. "The relevant person in charge of a provincial poverty alleviation office told China Economic Weekly reporter.

What are the criteria for determining these 832 poor counties?

When the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council announced the list of 14 counties in 2012, the division criteria were explained: based on the per capita county GDP in 2007 and 2009, the per capita county general fiscal revenue, the per capita net income of farmers in the county, and poverty level Highly relevant indicators are the basic basis, considering the requirements for increased support for the old revolutionary base areas, ethnic areas, and border areas.

The aforementioned person in charge told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that in 2001, the state once allocated indicators for poor counties based on factors such as the number of poor people in various provinces, net income per capita of farmers, gross national product per capita, and fiscal revenue per capita. A certain number of poverty-stricken county indicators were allocated to the provinces, and then the provinces determined which counties were the key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work, and then filed at the national level. At that time, because the country gave fewer indicators, a number of provincial Poor counties. "

It was also in 2001 that the State Council issued the "Outline of China's Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development (20012010)", which clearly identified key counties for poverty alleviation and development in four types of areas, namely the central and western minority areas, old revolutionary bases, and border areas where the poor population is concentrated. Areas and extremely poor areas.

After the adjustment of the indicators in that year, all 33 indicators in the eastern region were transferred to the central and western regions. At that time, 592 key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work were identified, which is consistent with the total number of poor counties in the list of key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work in 2012. However, in 2012, 38 counties were adjusted.

In addition to the 14 counties involved in the contiguous areas of special difficulties, the 832 counties identified in 2012 are distributed in 22 provinces, all located in the central and western regions, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Liaoning, Shandong, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu There are no poverty-stricken counties in 9 provinces including Zhejiang and Zhejiang. Of course, the absence of poverty-stricken counties does not mean that there is no poverty-stricken population. For example, Jiangsu has no poverty-stricken counties, but according to the official announcement, as of the end of 2019, there are still 6 households and 17 people in the province who have not escaped poverty.

In 2015, the principal responsible comrades of 22 central and western provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in poverty-stricken counties formally signed a responsibility letter to the central government for poverty alleviation.

Where are the poor counties that have not taken off their hats?

According to data released by the official website of the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council, the number of poverty-stricken counties in 2016 and 2017 were 28 and 125, respectively. At the end of September 2019, Liu Yongfu once said that 436 poverty-stricken counties have been lifted out of their hats, and according to the data he disclosed in March this year, as of the end of 2019, there were only 52 poor counties left.

From the end of February to the beginning of March this year, provinces such as Hebei and Shanxi intensively announced that all poverty-stricken counties would remove their hats. For example, on March 2, Hunan Province issued a reply to the last 20 counties and cities in the province to get rid of poverty and remove hats, and agreed to Shaoyang County and other 20 counties and cities to get rid of poverty. So far, all 51 poverty-stricken counties in Hunan have taken off their hats.

"In 2018, 18 poor counties were planned to take off their hats. After weighing, one of the counties was left to take off their hats in 2019. In this way, the number of poverty-stricken counties in Hunan's last batch of hat-removing is 20." The person in charge told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that this time point on March 2 is only the approved time. The time for the 20 counties and cities to really get rid of poverty and take off their hats should be based on the acceptance time. The acceptance has been carried out at the end of 2019. The province is responsible, and the country will conduct spot checks appropriately.

"It's like the time to join the party is not counted from the time approved by the higher party committee, but from the time when the branch general meeting accepts you to join the party after discussion." The person in charge of a provincial poverty alleviation office explained to the reporter of China Economic Weekly, " The application of hat removal in poor counties is implemented in different years, and the approval time may be later. The year of completion of hat removal is still included in the previous year. "

"The last batch of poverty-stricken counties in the province are indeed more difficult to get rid of poverty. From the national level, the deepest poverty-stricken areas are mainly 'three districts and three states' (Editor's Note: 'three districts' refer to Tibet and Xinjiang's southern Xinjiang four places" States and Tibetan areas in four provinces; "three states" refers to Linxia Prefecture in Gansu, Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan and Nujiang Prefecture in Yunnan). In combination with the actual situation of poverty alleviation in Hunan, we also identified 11 deeply impoverished counties, such as the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. There are 7 deep poverty counties in 8 counties and cities under jurisdiction, and the last 20 poverty-stricken counties in the province include these 11 deep poverty counties. "The relevant person in charge of Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office submitted to China Economic Weekly The reporter said, "Generally speaking, it is more difficult for deep-poverty counties to get rid of poverty and take off their hats, and it takes a long time."

So, as of the end of 2019, where are the 52 poor counties that have not yet taken off their hats?

In an interview with China Economic Weekly, Wang Sangui, a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation and Development of the State Council, said that poverty-stricken counties and villages that have not yet taken their hats are mainly distributed in the deep-poverty areas or deep-poverty counties in the west. There are "three districts and three states" in deep poverty areas at the national level, and there are also deep poverty counties in some provinces. For example, although Guizhou does not have deep poverty areas at the national level, there are still deep poverty counties in the province that still have not escaped poverty; In addition to Nujiang and Diqing (three provinces in Tibet) that belong to three districts and three states, Yunnan also has poor counties that have not escaped poverty.

The Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council released news that the country implemented listing wars in 52 poverty-stricken counties that had not lifted their hats. Some of the counted counties include Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Gansu, Ningxia, and 7 provinces and autonomous regions in Xinjiang.

Source: Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council

According to the statistics of a reporter from China Economic Weekly, these 7 provinces all report to the outside that there are still poverty-stricken counties that have not yet been removed, and many of them are in contiguous destitute areas.

For example, the Wumeng Mountain area is one of 14 concentrated contiguous areas with special difficulties. There were originally 38 impoverished counties. At least 13 impoverished counties have yet to remove their caps, of which 7 are located in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan, and Sichuan has not yet applied for cap removal. It is these seven poor counties. Another example is that among the 10 poor counties in Xinjiang that have not yet been lifted out of poverty, 5 are located in the Hotan region and 4 are located in the Kashi region, all within the three regions and three states in Xinjiang.

What is the relationship between hat removal in poor counties and the poor

As mentioned earlier, provinces without poor counties do not mean that there are no poor people. Correspondingly, after removing hats from poor counties, it does not mean that there are no more poor people in the county. This involves the standard of removing hats from poor counties.

The “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Winning the Poverty Alleviation” issued in 2015 put forward, “emphasize the development of strict, standardized, and transparent exit standards, procedures, and verification methods for key counties in national poverty alleviation and development.”

Prior to this, the number of poverty-stricken counties remained unchanged for many years, and even increased: in 1986, China identified 331 poverty-stricken counties for the first time. After the first adjustment in 1994, the total number rose to 592. After 2001 and 2011, After two adjustments, the number of national key counties for poverty alleviation and development was always 592. In 2011, 680 counties in 14 contiguous poverty-stricken areas were added to the list of poor counties. Excluding the overlapping parts, the number of poor counties in 2012 was determined to be 832.

On September 30, 2017, the "Implementation Measures for Exiting Special Evaluation and Inspection of Poor Counties (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as "Implementation Measures") began to be implemented. The person in charge of the poverty alleviation office of a province in the central region told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that the poverty identified County exit criteria can be summarized by "three rates and one degree".

"The so-called 'three rates and one degree' is the comprehensive incidence of poverty, the rate of failure, the rate of missed reviews and the recognition of the masses." The person in charge told reporters, "The comprehensive incidence of poverty should be reduced to less than 2%, and the mass recognition reached 90 More than%, the control of the error rate and the rate of missed reviews is very strict, and in principle it cannot be. "

Taking the comprehensive poverty incidence rate of 2% as the criterion for whether a poverty-stricken county can remove the hat, this is for the central region, the implementation method puts forward: "For the comprehensive poverty incidence rate higher than 2% (western region higher than 3%), Proposal not to withdraw from that year. "For poor counties with a retreat rate of over 2%, or a missed review rate of the poor population of over 2%, or a mass recognition level of less than 90%, the provincial level The Leading Group for Poverty Alleviation organized rectification and reported the implementation of the rectification to the Leading Group. The leading group organizes a review in due course.

In addition to the "three rates", the person in charge of the Poverty Alleviation Office of a province in the central region told reporters, "Some indicators are not emphasized at the national level, but in terms of actual work, for example, our province also determines that all poverty-stricken villages are excluded from poverty. The premise of the hat is that 'zeroing' in impoverished counties also means that there are no more impoverished villages. "

"Removing hats in poor counties does not mean that all poor people are out of poverty, but it means that 97% and more than 98% of the poor people are out of poverty." The aforementioned person in charge told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that it was still possible to leave a little bit left when declaring the removal of hats. This is to prevent the population from getting rid of poverty to prevent both "irritability" and "procrastination disease." Take off your hat, so you have to plan for each year. "

Although the removal of hats in poor counties does not mean that all the poor people in the county are out of poverty, in the eyes of the relevant person in charge of the Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, this does mean that the majority of poor people are out of poverty.

According to Liu Yongfu's introduction, the rural poverty population under the current standard decreased from 98.99 million at the end of 2012 to 5.51 million at the end of last year, and the number of poor counties decreased from 832 to 52.

Specifically in Hunan, there were 7.67 million poor people in 2012, with a poverty incidence rate of 13.4%. There are two of the 15 contiguous areas in the country that are particularly poor. However, by the end of 2019, the remaining poverty population in Hunan was 199,000, and the poverty incidence rate dropped to 0.36%.

"Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the People's Republic of China, the number of poor people in Hunan has decreased by more than 7 million, and the incidence of poverty has dropped to less than 1 percentage point. Isn't that the solution to the problem of poverty alleviation for most of the poor?" Tell the reporter.

A person in charge of the provincial poverty alleviation office also introduced to the reporter of China Economic Weekly, "The poverty phenomenon in China has a characteristic. At the national level, the poor population is concentrated in 14 areas. Overall poverty, of course, also includes a smaller concept, that is, poor villages. Taking off hats in poor counties means that the regional overall poverty problem is better solved. "

"Finished" can't wait until the end of the year, what about the remaining poor people?

Since the removal of hats in poor counties does not mean that all poor people are lifted out of poverty, even those provinces that have declared “zero-clearance” in poor counties have not yet lifted out of poverty.

The reporter noted that since this year, some provinces have not only covered the poverty-stricken counties that have not removed their hats, but also some hat-removed counties with a large number of remaining poor people. For example, the scope of Sichuan "listed to supervise wars" includes not only The 7 unremoved poverty-stricken counties also include three uncapped counties (districts) with more than 10,000 poor people.

At present, there are still 199,000 poor people in Hunan, of which the total number of poverty-stricken people in the 51 counties that have taken off the hat is 116,000, accounting for 58% of the total number of poor people in Hunan.

"For poverty-stricken counties whose hats have been removed in 2017 and 2018, we have told them that removing hats is only equivalent to the" mid-term exam ", and there is also a" final exam "in 2020." The person in charge of the Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office told According to a reporter from China Economic Weekly, the so-called "final exam" refers to the census of poverty alleviation to be carried out this year.

On March 12, Liu Yongfu had revealed, "In order to test the authenticity and accuracy of the poverty alleviation results, the country decided to carry out a poverty alleviation census this year. This work has already been deployed and will be completed in the second half of this year and early next year. jobs."

"The census will begin in July this year, and it will serve as a data support for the announcement of a comprehensive victory in the fight against poverty." The person in charge of a poverty alleviation office of a province revealed to the reporter of China Economic Weekly that all the work will be completed in the first half of this year. The poverty-stricken people get rid of poverty. "How else would you meet the census? This is equivalent to not finishing your homework. How to check it?"

The person in charge of the Hunan Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office also said, "The remaining 199,000 poor people must not wait until the second half of the year to get out of poverty."

The reporter noted that some provinces also made it clear that they would complete the task of poverty alleviation by the poor in the first half of this year. For example, Guizhou put forward: take the village into the household, screen by village, household by person, and item by item, to ensure that the first half of the year is comprehensive To eliminate absolute poverty, we will further investigate vacancies and make up for leaks in the second half of the year so that no one household or one person will be left behind.

In this way, only a few months are left for the remaining poor to get out of poverty.

"The remaining poor population in the poverty-stricken counties that have been decapped are composed of two parts. One part needs to rely on the bottom of the pocket to get rid of poverty, and the other part can help get rid of poverty through help. It is really more difficult to help get rid of poverty through help. By the way, about half of the remaining poor people need to get out of poverty through pockets. "The relevant person in charge of a poverty alleviation office in a central province told reporters. "To be honest, it is not a problem for the remaining poor to get out of poverty, and there will be no difficulties in pocketing. If it is not possible, all pockets will be able to get out of poverty." The person in charge of a provincial poverty alleviation office told the reporter of China Economic Weekly, "The pocket is If you are still 200 yuan away from the poverty alleviation standard, would n’t you get rid of poverty by giving you 200 yuan? So judging from the current number of poor people remaining, it is certainly not a problem to complete the task, but in general we first have to help. "

"For the poor people who need to get out of poverty, some of them have already been covered before, and some have not, so there will be left. There may be severely ill households, severely disabled households, or weak labor conditions, such as some places where serious illnesses are rescued. The measures have not been put in place, resulting in poor people not getting out of poverty. "The person in charge of a provincial poverty alleviation office told reporters.

On March 12, Liu Yongfu once introduced the income standard that needs to be achieved to get rid of poverty. "The national income standard is the per capita annual income of farmers at constant prices in 2010. According to price and other indices, the current price was 3,218 yuan by the end of last year. We plan to This year is about 4,000 yuan. According to the information we have established, the per capita income of the people who have been out of poverty is above 9,000 yuan, and the per capita income of the remaining poor people is above 6,000 yuan. "

A grassroots poverty alleviation cadre told the reporter of China Economic Weekly that, in accordance with the requirements of the State Council ’s Poverty Alleviation Office and the Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, in order to prevent some localities from assaulting poverty and digital poverty alleviation, the bottom line is to ensure that poor households cannot, in principle, get out of poverty in advance. Announcement of poverty alleviation in the year ending in 2020 will enable the bottom-line protection target to truly escape poverty and do practical poverty alleviation work.

"China Economic Weekly" reporter Chen Weishan Guo Zhiqiang Wang Hongru | Beijing report