DM Monitoring
VIENTIANE: “Learning from to China’s poverty reduction experience, we did not simply bring money and project here like blood transfusion, but have been carrying out more effective and sustainable ‘hematopoietic poverty alleviation’ in the project villages,” Fan Xining, a Chinese director told Xinhua in northern Laos’ hilly Ban Xor village.
“Hard methods” like building the visible roads, bridges, greenhouses and schools as well as “soft methods” to support the project like training, visits and exchanges were also included, Fan said.
He is leading a team of Chinese experts engaged in a China-Laos joint poverty alleviation project.
Under the pilot project to reduce poverty in East Asia, namely the China-aided Laos Poverty Reduction Demonstration Cooperation Technical Assistance Project, the Chinese team selected Ban Xor village, some two hours’ drive on the bumpy roads to the north from Laos’ capital Vientiane, and another one in Luang Prabang, to apply China’s experience in shaking off poverty since September 2017.
Among the 407 households, or 2,007 residents in the Ban Xor village, half live in poverty with an annual per capita net income less than 700 U.S. dollars. However, in the past three years, the demonstration projects have brought remarkable results in the infrastructure construction, public service improvement, livelihood development and capacity building, to the village.
A modern bridge built with Chinese aid is about to be completed in Ban Xor. The 49-year-old Deputy Village Chief Khamchan Boudvinai told reporters by the bridge that the old wooden bridge in the village was decayed, and people could only bypass the upper reaches to cross the river in rainy seasons.
“However, the cattle-raising and corn-growing projects supported by China are across the river. After the new bridge is built, we need not go around the mountains and cross the waterway,” Khamchan said.
The official visited China twice to exchange poverty-alleviation experiences in China. “We have applied China’s experiences to our village. Now we have set up production teams, organized to raise cattle, grow corn and weave traditional dresses. We are gradually accumulating experience and then will expand the scale of the production teams,” Khamchan told Xinhua. – Agencies
