Over forty years of deliberate and organized large-scale poverty reduction efforts in China have culminated in the nation's experience becoming a vital international public good.

This year marks four decades of China's planned and organized large-scale poverty alleviation and development, as well as thirty years of its east-west poverty alleviation collaboration. On May 27th, at the 2026 High-Level Forum on Poverty Reduction and Development, China, along with 53 countries and 9 international institutions, jointly initiated the establishment of the Global Partnership for Poverty Alleviation and Development. This represents a significant stride forward for global poverty reduction efforts and the latest practical step in jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind, free from poverty and dedicated to common development.

Poverty is a persistent affliction of human society, and combating it has always been a major task of national governance. Since the new era began, China has directly confronted the global challenge of poverty reduction, delivering a performance that has satisfied its people and drawn worldwide attention. This edition invites experts and scholars from multiple countries to discuss China's poverty reduction practices, showcasing how its experience contributes wisdom and strength to global poverty governance.

Innovative Philosophy: From 'One-Way Transfusions' to 'Systematic Self-Sufficiency'

Hassan Dawood Butt: In recent decades, China has achieved an unprecedented feat in the history of human poverty reduction, lifting over 800 million people out of poverty. Adhering to a people-centered approach, China has forged a distinct path of poverty alleviation that differs from traditional Western aid models. China's victory in the fight against poverty is not only a major economic achievement but also an outstanding human rights practice, enriching and perfecting the connotation of human rights with its unique philosophy of poverty governance. By eliminating extreme poverty, China has achieved comprehensive improvements in food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, healthcare, and employment for hundreds of millions of people. This has not only raised living standards but also enhanced national dignity, stimulating people's initiative to participate in economic and social development. The process of poverty reduction itself is a process of solidly safeguarding and deepening public awareness of human rights. Today, a consensus has formed in the international community, especially among Global South countries, that national development and human rights protection are mutually reinforcing.

Chea Munyrith: China's anti-poverty theory has achieved a philosophical innovation, shifting from "one-way transfusions" to "systematic self-sufficiency." It insists on combining poverty alleviation with fostering motivation and intelligence, breaking the cycle of welfare dependency often found in traditional poverty reduction models. Impoverished individuals have transformed from passive recipients of development assistance into active participants in self-development. The "modernization of people" is the core innovation of China's poverty reduction. Concepts like "a weak bird must take flight early" and "constant dripping wears away a stone" profoundly illustrate the crucial value of internal motivation in poverty alleviation practice. These provide important insights for global poverty reduction: poverty reduction cannot rely solely on external aid; it requires building long-term mechanisms that stimulate individual initiative and activate local vitality. This offers a new approach for other developing countries to escape the dilemma of "poverty alleviation year after year, poverty return year after year."

Lin Zhanxi: A key lesson from China's poverty reduction is the full respect for and activation of the principal role of impoverished people, enhancing their capacity to participate in, share in, and drive development, ensuring they are both beneficiaries of poverty reduction and contributors to development. China's application of Juncao technology in international poverty reduction similarly adheres to the self-sufficient development model of "stimulating endogenous motivation," promoting sustainable poverty reduction by cultivating the self-development capabilities of impoverished groups. To date, Juncao technology has been directly taught to over ten thousand international trainees and translated into 18 languages for global dissemination. It has become a model of China's foreign aid—"small yet beautiful, quick to yield results, and beneficial to people's livelihoods"—bringing technology to local areas and conveying the concept of sustainable development.

Evandro Carvalho: China has a profound understanding that poverty stems from multiple factors including weak infrastructure, education, healthcare, and market systems. Adopting a systems-thinking approach is a major reason for China's successful escape from poverty: it does not treat poverty as an isolated issue but implements comprehensive measures targeting various interrelated causes. It consistently upholds dialectical thinking, balancing the relationships between assistance and development, urban and rural areas, among others. The key to China's victory in the fight against poverty lies in elevating poverty reduction to a national strategy and exerting force simultaneously in industrial development, regional coordination, and civilizational construction.

Thomas Heberer: China's poverty reduction is a process characterized by both long-term commitment and complexity, rooted in sustained and rapid economic growth. The most prominent advantage of China's poverty reduction is the governance capacity to concentrate resources to accomplish major tasks, specifically manifested in infrastructure investment, targeted assistance, and strict supervision. China has built the world's largest high-speed rail network; many districts and counties have leveraged improved transportation to drive labor mobility, agricultural product circulation, and tourism development. In poverty alleviation practice, measures such as relocation for poverty alleviation, support for characteristic industries, and microcredit for impoverished families have been implemented efficiently.

Governance Excellence: Precisely Identifying Impoverished Households and Tailoring Assistance Measures

Thomas Heberer: In China's poverty reduction practice, the approach of having party secretaries at the five levels of province, city, county, township, and village jointly taking charge is particularly impressive. Practice has proven that this mechanism possesses strong administrative mobilization and execution efficacy, with its advantages being especially prominent in large-scale, time-bound major tasks like poverty alleviation. Guizhou is a typical example. Having conducted field research there multiple times, I observed clear delineation of responsibilities at all levels, with provincial leaders signing responsibility agreements with grassroots cadres, county and township cadres being assessed based on quantifiable poverty reduction outcomes, and villages implementing paired assistance. The core strength of this mechanism lies in the vertical integration and layered enforcement of responsibilities, accurately translating central decisions into local measures and grassroots actions.

Hassan Dawood Butt: Targeted poverty alleviation is a major innovation and distinctive feature of China's poverty reduction. It is data-driven, precisely identifies impoverished households, tailors assistance measures, focuses on improving employment, education, and healthcare for the impoverished population, and is supported by a robust monitoring mechanism to ensure the efficient use of poverty alleviation resources and quantifiable results. Another major innovation in China's poverty alleviation is breaking the urban-rural dual structure through large-scale infrastructure development, integrating rural areas into the national overall development plan. Relying on logistics networks to bring agricultural products nationwide has helped many rural areas form characteristic industries and achieve self-reliant poverty alleviation. Infrastructure and technological empowerment have enabled remote healthcare, distance education, and other services to reach rural areas, continuously improving people's livelihoods. Furthermore, China places great emphasis on vocational training, having built the world's largest vocational education system, practicing the concepts of "fostering motivation before alleviating poverty" and "alleviating poverty must involve fostering intelligence," enhancing the dignity and confidence of the impoverished population.

Chea Munyrith: China's whole-chain poverty reduction management of "precise identification, targeted assistance, and accurate exit" reflects the modernization of national governance capacity. Establishing a dynamic monitoring mechanism to prevent a return to poverty is a highly targeted long-term mechanism in China's poverty reduction practice. Through routine inspections, precise early warnings, and timely assistance, it transforms the long-term understanding of poverty governance into actionable, implementable practical steps, effectively preventing "poverty backsliding" and solidifying development gains. In field research, the role of grassroots cadres is most striking. Their deep-rooted presence on the front lines, characterized by precision, pragmatism, and service to the people, is the core code to the effectiveness of China's poverty reduction path.

Felix Dapare Dakora: I have conducted in-depth research in rural Hebei and deeply felt that China's poverty reduction is by no means merely an economic issue; it is a vivid practice of the people-centered development philosophy. Grassroots governments, in collaboration with villagers, have established agricultural cooperatives, integrating scattered smallholder farmers to achieve unified purchasing, sales, and income distribution of agricultural products. Simultaneously, they have cultivated formats like rural tourism and agricultural product processing, broadening income channels and strengthening rural economic resilience. A large number of university-graduate village officials have taken root in the countryside, empowering the grassroots with professional knowledge and modern governance thinking, driving industrial upgrading.

Evandro Carvalho: Cross-regional assistance is one of the most original mechanisms in Chinese governance, with "Fujian-Ningxia Collaboration" being a typical demonstration. Paired assistance involves not only fund transfers but also comprehensive capacity building covering technology, management, markets, and skills training. Additionally, China insists on combining industrial poverty alleviation with aid assistance, focusing on cultivating local industrial chains and transforming local resources into economic value. Currently, China routinely carries out monitoring and assistance to prevent a return to poverty or falling into poverty. Based on the dynamic nature of poverty issues, China relies on the coordinated efforts of state and social forces, using institutionalized measures to consolidate poverty alleviation achievements and advance comprehensive rural revitalization, demonstrating characteristics of precision, pragmatism, long-term effectiveness, and service to the people.

Global Benefit: Theory and Practice Continue to Benefit Developing Countries

Hassan Dawood Butt: China achieved the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda poverty reduction target a decade ahead of schedule, contributing over 70% to global poverty reduction, and has become a benchmark for global poverty governance. China has made significant contributions to global poverty reduction and sustainable development both theoretically and practically, continuously benefiting developing countries. China's poverty reduction offers two important insights for Pakistan: first, maintaining the continuity of poverty alleviation policies, transcending political cycle limitations, involving enterprises, and stabilizing poverty reduction outcomes through industrial development; second, learning from China's east-west collaboration model, integrating remote areas into the national development layout, and coordinating the balanced allocation of poverty alleviation resources. The establishment of the Global Partnership for Poverty Alleviation and Development is a milestone in the global poverty reduction process. Driven by China, the poverty reduction endeavors of developing countries are gradually forming a global synergy. In the future, the alliance will establish an efficient cooperation platform, promoting regular exchanges of poverty reduction experience, practical technology, and personnel training. Global poverty reduction cooperation is expected to become increasingly close, and China's poverty reduction experience will further reach the world through this. The establishment of this alliance fully demonstrates that eliminating poverty and improving people's living standards is a common cause for all humanity and an essential path for developing countries to break through development bottlenecks and promote social stability and harmony.

Lin Zhanxi: In 1995, China's first international Juncao technology training class opened at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, officially launching Juncao technology as part of foreign aid. In 2017, Juncao technology was included as a key project of the China-UN Peace and Development Fund and has now been promoted to over a hundred countries and regions worldwide. In Juncao technology international cooperation, we promote the localization, simplification, and standardization of the technology, enabling local impoverished people to conveniently participate in development. Related cooperation closely aligns with development goals like poverty reduction and employment, tangibly improving local people's livelihoods, and is widely recognized by developing countries. The global dissemination of Juncao poverty reduction experience contributes Chinese wisdom and solutions to global poverty reduction, building green bridges, development bridges, cooperation bridges, and bridges of friendship connecting various countries.

Felix Dapare Dakora: China continuously shares poverty reduction experience with Africa in various ways, deepening practical cooperation. Taking Juncao technology as an example, it has been implemented in multiple African countries including Lesotho, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. It can be used to cultivate edible fungi, produce animal feed, and ecological restoration materials, helping farmers increase income and improve the ecology. China has established over 20 agricultural technology demonstration centers in Africa, promoting more than 300 agricultural technologies, and conducting activities like improved seed popularization, agricultural machinery application, and technical training. China and Africa have also innovatively created poverty reduction demonstration villages, holistically planning infrastructure construction, industrial development, and public services to form replicable and scalable poverty reduction models. The China-Zimbabwe Agricultural Cooperation Demonstration Village launched in 2024 helps impoverished villages stabilize production and increase income through solar irrigation, improved seed promotion, and integrated planting and breeding. In 2024, the China-Africa Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Alliance was jointly established, focusing on the joint research, development, demonstration, and promotion of technologies like high-yield crops and water-saving irrigation, strongly supporting Africa's agricultural transformation. China has not only forged an effective path for poverty reduction but has also transformed its experience into an important international public good, contributing to global poverty governance and the common development of humanity.

Chea Munyrith: The establishment of the Global Partnership for Poverty Alleviation and Development demonstrates the firm resolve of developing countries to deepen South-South cooperation and jointly address poverty challenges. Currently, many countries still face development difficulties such as widening urban-rural gaps, which are difficult to solve effectively by individual countries alone. The alliance provides a new multilateral platform for parties to engage in policy exchanges, technology sharing, and capacity building. The alliance focuses on advancing "small yet beautiful" cooperation projects covering areas like agricultural technology, infrastructure, and vocational education, which align with the actual needs of developing countries. These can quickly benefit grassroots populations and continuously enhance local self-development capacity. Cambodia-China cooperation is a model of "teaching people to fish": the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone provides tens of thousands of Cambodian youth with high-standard vocational skills training and stable incomes; the Cambodia-China Friendship Poverty Alleviation Demonstration Village project has tangibly improved rural livelihoods in Cambodia through deep collaboration... Through support like agricultural technology transfer and vocational training, China effectively enhances the agricultural productivity of other developing countries, strengthens their capacity to participate in the global market, and boosts their confidence in self-reliant development. China's proposal and promotion of the Global Development Initiative will help achieve more equitable and sustainable global development.