A villager ploughs land in a Tibetan and Chinese medicine base in Lhasa, Tibet, Sept 27, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Livilihood: Experience improving quality of life provides valuable lessons

By Zhao Lei and Hu Meidong

The world will benefit tremendously from China's efforts to alleviate poverty, improve public services and protect the environment, according to experts and observers.

In the report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping, also the country's president, said the Party and the government will ensure that by 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line will have been lifted out of poverty and that "poverty alleviation should reach those who truly need it and deliver genuine outcomes".

Xi said the Party is determined to create more jobs and maintain a steady rise in the people's income. He pledged to invest more in rural schools and ensure every child has access to equal, quality education.

Li Yunlong, a researcher at the Institute for International Strategic Studies under the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said that China lifted more than 60 million people in its less-developed regions out of poverty during the past five years, so it is not an exaggeration to call China the biggest contributor to global efforts in poverty alleviation.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 shows the percentage of poor in rural China dropped from 60 percent in 1990 to about 4.2 percent in 2014, and China has contributed over 70 percent to global poverty reduction.

Liao Hong, an expert on agricultural resources and environment at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University and a congress delegate, said China's experience could serve as a good reference for the world, particularly developing countries, on how to achieve food security and environmental protection at the same time.

"Many developing nations have been facing food shortages and some of them may overuse fertilizers and pesticides to increase the yields," she said.

"China has amassed expertise and experience in balancing agricultural growth and protection of soil, water and air. Rigorous measures in the sector have been adopted in the past few years. Our knowledge and skills can be helpful to developing countries."

Liao said China helps train agricultural professionals from around the world to help them better preserve their environments while obtaining good harvests.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said he sees China as "an indispensable part of the solution to the world's most pressing challenges".

"China has a unique combination of technical expertise and recent experience with rapid development, and so it is a unique resource to developing countries everywhere," Gates said.

"There are lots of areas where we could be doing even more to apply China's experience to global problems. China's experience of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty obviously holds many lessons for other developing countries."