Building Momentum for Growth in Areas That Have Shaken Off Poverty

On February 25, 2021, China held a national conference to review poverty alleviation progress and commend those involved. President Xi Jinping solemnly declared that China had achieved a complete victory in the fight against poverty. This victory marked a significant step forward for the Communist Party of China (CPC) in uniting and leading the people toward better lives and common prosperity. However, eradicating poverty is not the finish line but the starting point of a new life and a new endeavor. The question now is how to align our efforts to consolidate and expand poverty alleviation gains with the rural revitalization agenda, and how to prevent large-scale relapses into or occurrences of poverty. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress in 2022 stated that “we will consolidate and expand our achievements in poverty alleviation and help areas and people that have newly shaken off poverty build their own momentum for growth.” This year marks the final year of the five-year transition period to carry out this endeavor. How have the areas and people that have shaken off poverty built their own momentum for growth during this transition? What are the difficulties and challenges that still remain, and how can we address them?

I. Main practices and experience

Helping areas and people that have newly shaken off poverty build their own momentum for growth is essential to consolidating and expanding our achievements in poverty alleviation. For areas that have been lifted out of poverty, developing internal momentum means the intrinsic drive of locals to promote economic and social development and to pursue happiness by leveraging each area’s natural endowments, industrial foundations, and geographical advantages. For people newly liberated from poverty, this self-generated impetus embodies the enthusiasm, initiative, creativity, and sense of agency that underpin all-around rural revitalization and common prosperity. Since the 18th CPC National Congress held in 2012, people have taken active steps to cultivate this momentum. In the process of making notable progress, we have found effective approaches and gained practical experience.

A smart plant factory located in the village of Yongkutongxin in Kuqa City, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, August 13, 2025. The factory is a flagship project under the paired assistance program supported by Ningbo City in Zhejiang Province, as well as a landmark initiative for Kuqa’s protected agriculture sector. It has continued to promote the adoption of agricultural technology, while also creating employment and boosting incomes for local residents. Such east-west cooperation initiatives play a vital role in both building on achievements in poverty alleviation and promoting rural revitalization. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER LIU JIAQI

Upholding and improving the CPC’s leadership over rural work, strengthening solidarity among people lifted out of poverty, and deepening their sense of identity

Strengthening the CPC’s leadership is of fundamental importance to poverty alleviation. Party organizations play a principal role in guiding people from poverty to prosperity, serving as a reliable pillar and significantly boosting people’s collective identity and belonging. For instance, in Yuxian County, Hebei Province, Party organizations in departments directly under the county government and those at the primary level have formed specialized teams to offer talent gathering, industrial support, technical guidance, financial services, cultural outreach, and ecological conservation. By integrating resources and talents across relevant units, strength generated by Party development is transformed into tangible aid and growth momentum. Authorities in Linzhou City, Henan Province, assign county officials to guide the work of “Five-Star” village CPC branches and strengthen weak or lax village organizations. Refined mechanisms—such as Party members guiding assigned households, officials taking responsibility for specific areas, and Party branches holding consultations—have increased villagers’ confidence in primary-level Party organizations. In Xiaoxian County, Anhui Province, village Party organizations are encouraged to form cooperatives that integrate scattered resources and production factors, such as land, projects, and funds, to create an economic link between village collectives and farmers. This approach benefits all parties: Party branches play their roles, Party members help make a difference, land is used more efficiently, residents gain real benefits, and village collectives increase their incomes.

A traditional Miao ethnic minority lusheng dance is performed during the inaugural football match, part of the Village Super League National Final at a stadium in Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province, August 23, 2025. In recent years, rural communities nationwide have driven visitor traffic and economic growth by adeptly marrying competitive sports events with local ethnic culture and tourism. Such efforts have helped fuel rural revitalization. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER YANG WENBIN

Empowering people with economic and democratic rights and strengthening their capacity for self-development, oversight, and decision making

Empowerment is not only a prerequisite for property rights and interests, but also a foundation for preventing disputes, improving rural governance, and strengthening people’s sense of belonging and participation. Empowering those lifted out of poverty involves granting both economic rights, such as rights to manage contracted land, to use residential plots, and to share in proceeds from rural collective undertakings, as well as democratic rights, such as the rights to be informed about, participate in, and make decisions on public affairs. For example, to protect farmers’ rights and interests concerning residential plots, Qingchuan County in Sichuan Province has supported rural collective economic organizations and their members in putting vacant dwellings to good use by operating them themselves, leasing them out, contributing them as shares, or engaging in cooperative ventures, so as to further develop local industries. Ledong Li Autonomous County in Hainan Province has promoted a system of points-based rural governance which specifies villagers’ self-governance behaviors. As primary-level governance in rural areas focuses more on the affairs of every household, people’s enthusiasm to participate in governance has continued to grow.

Building confidence and capacity for self-reliance, expanding employment support, catalyzing prosperity through hard work, and stimulating people’s enthusiasm to pursue development

Our poverty alleviation efforts should focus on equipping people with both the confidence and capacity to lift themselves out of poverty, shifting from a stance of simply injecting aid into poverty-stricken areas to enabling them to help themselves. This approach can transform fixed mindsets, reduce reliance on external support, and enhance the desire for learning and self-development, thereby boosting internal driving forces toward prosperity. One example is Lingyun County in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where the local government has launched the “Egret Class” training program to support children from impoverished ethnic minority families in improving literacy and vocational skills through paired assistance. They have also formulated the “Dewdrop Plan Plus” to promote employment, strengthen school–industry cooperation, and encourage young people from families that have shaken off poverty to pursue vocational training in colleges or schools. Another development is the “Bagui Brand” and other distinctive labor service programs, which illustrate how the county has carried out industry-specific technical training to continually improve the vocational skills and employment prospects of the workforce. Hengfeng County in Jiangxi Province has worked to ensure that rural residents lifted out of poverty, as well as those at risk of falling back, can find work in their local or nearby areas by creating public welfare positions within villages, building poverty alleviation workshops, developing industrial parks, and supporting people in starting their own businesses.

Integrating ecological and cultural resources and tapping into diverse sources of rural value to develop distinctive local industries

An in-depth exploration of distinctive rural resources and diverse value sources is fundamental to revitalizing rural industries in areas that have shaken off poverty. For example, Luochuan County in Shaanxi Province has promoted integrated development of the apple industry with CPC heritage tourism, Loess Plateau folk culture, and green catering, leveraging historical and cultural assets such as the Luochuan Meeting site and the county’s “first apple tree.” This has given rise to new business forms including leisure tourism, healthcare, and orchard farming experiences. Luochuan Apple Culture Research Associations have been established in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, expanding marketing channels for Luochuan apples through promotional activities centered on the county's apple culture. Raohe County in Heilongjiang Province has tapped its abundant cultural resources and ecological strengths to promote integrated development across primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. By drawing on Hezhe ethnic minority culture, boat songs, ancient jade culture, revolutionary culture, and northeast folk traditions, Raohe has formed an all-for-one tourism development framework featuring a core route from the Wusuli River banks to Dadingzi Mountain. 

Mobilizing a wide range of participants to promote cross-regional and cross-departmental coordination and creating a comprehensive assistance framework

Establishing a comprehensive assistance framework based on the joint efforts of government, society, and the market, and fostering multi-stakeholder participation will help poverty-stricken areas cultivate strengths and inject new momentum for further development. In Guizhou Province for example, Zheng’an County has built an assistance mechanism that coordinates government, market, and social organizations across sectors such as industry, healthcare, and education. In industrial support, technicians are dispatched to help locals upgrade crop varieties, improve farming techniques, and transform production models, fostering brands for distinctive agricultural products like chili peppers, tea, and bamboo shoots. In healthcare, by fully leveraging the role of assistance teams from Zhuhai People’s Hospital, the county has selected key medical staff to receive further training in Zhuhai, set up a mechanism for passing on master physicians, expertise, and provided contracted family doctor services for local people. In education, Zhuhai’s paired assistance programs support self-sustaining development through joint training, “training plus employment” initiatives, and teacher development. Through east–west cooperation, Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in Sichuan Province has formed the “Yuhang-Kecheng-Beichuan supply and marketing alliance” and integrated local tea products into the “Mashanggou” digital platform, linking mountainous and coastal areas. These efforts have accelerated Beichuan’s tea cultivation bases and industrial parks, expanding channels for rural incomes.

Strengthening diverse innovation and unleashing development drivers through policy, business models, and modern production factors

The support from government policy, different forms of business, and technology is the key force driving the optimization and upgrading of poverty-stricken rural economies and unlocking broader rural development potential. For instance, Zuoquan County in Shanxi Province has leveraged central special lottery public welfare funds to support old revolutionary base areas and attract non-government investment. Its rural revitalization demonstration zone hosts projects such as the North China International Plein Air Base, walnut and forsythia processing lines, and rural revolutionary heritage experience centers, promoting the integration of agriculture, culture, and tourism, developing premium agricultural brands, and transforming the value of revolutionary culture. Longnan City in Gansu Province has created the Longnan Rural Big Data platform to develop the digital economy and explore forms of business featuring cross-sector integration such as “E-Commerce Plus.”

II. Difficulties and challenges

In recent years, areas and people that have shaken off poverty in China have undergone great changes and transformed into a completely new shape. However, there still exist problems, such as the generally low development quality of industries receiving assistance and insufficient momentum for sustainable development, that hinder high-quality development and income growth in these areas. As the five-year transition period to align poverty alleviation with rural revitalization nears its end, urgent action is required to help formerly poverty stricken areas build their own momentum for growth.

Insufficient accumulation of human capital in rural areas

Rural residents are increasingly migrating to cities, and rural population aging is becoming more serious, posing major challenges to sustainable development in areas lifted out of poverty. Research shows that in 2021, China’s total rural human capital was 372.7 trillion yuan, accounting for only 11% of the national total. The average schooling length for the rural labor force was 9.24 years, 2.45 years lower than for urban workers. Educational levels among rural workers remain relatively low, and gaps in infrastructure, public services, and opportunities for career development between rural and urban areas fuel brain drain to cities. As a result, expanding the rural talent pool in formerly poverty-stricken areas lacks sustainable momentum.

Shrinking employment opportunities for rural labor

As China pursues high-quality growth, the industrial structure and urban-rural relations are changing rapidly, resulting in significant shifts in the demand for rural labor across both urban and rural areas. On the one hand, rising investment pressures in labor-intensive industries and declining labor demand in traditional sectors have been accompanied by a reduction in labor-intensive jobs due to the increasing adoption of machinery and artificial intelligence technologies as the “technological dividend” gradually supplants the “demographic dividend.” On the other hand, the demand for high-skilled labor is increasing, constraining opportunities for low-skilled workers. Many rural migrant workers who have been lifted out of poverty struggle to find suitable urban jobs and thus return home, intensifying competition for jobs between returning workers and the local stay-behind rural labor force. This leads to unemployment and underemployment in some poverty-alleviated areas.

Underdeveloped rural collective economy

In poverty-alleviated areas, rural collective income mainly comes from contracting out collective assets or leasing policy-assigned assets. In some villages, collective returns are limited and dividends are meager. Benefits to poverty-alleviated households from cooperatives vary widely. Some cooperatives require minimum land shares, entrusted management areas, or capital contributions, excluding smallholders. Other cooperatives manage at a limited capacity too small to effectively unite and benefit rural households. Their relationships with poverty-alleviated households are predominantly market-based, only consisting of transactions such as agricultural product sales, land leasing, and temporary employment. Deeper engagement, such as land equity cooperation, financial collaboration, contract farming, and surplus profit distribution, remains rare. 

Insufficient development and utilization of ecological and other key resources

Most poverty-alleviated areas, particularly the key counties receiving assistance for rural revitalization, are situated within key national ecosystem service zones. These regions serve as the primary custodians of green mountains and clear waters and constitute major arenas for realizing the market value of environmental goods and services. Yet turning ecological advantages into economic gains remains challenging. Local officials and residents often lack specialized knowledge to recognize the potential value of key local resources. Some areas rely on a single sector, with weak integration among agriculture, industry, commerce, and tourism, leading to homogeneous development. Additionally, inadequate infrastructure and insufficient resource development capabilities in some regions hinder balanced conservation and development.

Underdeveloped market mechanisms and systems

Poverty-alleviated regions still depend heavily on government-led support and product-purchasing programs, with market mechanisms not fully utilized. Some areas have underdeveloped production-factor markets, hindering the transfer and transformation of rural land. In some regions, the development of agricultural brands continues to lag behind, production and sales coordination is inefficient, and a mechanism to ensure high prices for quality products has yet to be established. Moreover, shortages of branding and marketing talent, combined with limited adoption of digital technologies, constrain the reach and competitiveness of local specialty products. Consequently, the potential of local specialty industries to drive local economic growth and increase incomes for formerly impoverished populations remains constrained.

III. Recommendations for helping people in poverty-alleviated areas build their own growth momentum during and beyond the transition period

Economic development relies on the interplay of internal and external factors, with internal momentum serving as the fundamental driver of growth. Endogenous momentum is characterized by sustainability, strength, and self-reinforcement. Beyond the transition period, poverty-alleviated areas must prioritize strengthening their own momentum for growth to achieve comprehensive rural revitalization and progress toward common prosperity. This requires a synergistic, self-reinforcing development paradigm in which internal dynamism and external support mutually reinforce one another.

Children play under their teacher's guidance at Zhaomei Community Kindergarten in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, April 21, 2025. Educational support is a fundamental policy for breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, and more crucially, a strategic support for building endogenous development momentum. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER YIN HENG

Empowering poverty-alleviated people with stronger development rights and interests 

Empowerment of rights and interests is the core mechanism for strengthening endogenous development drivers, with economic and democratic rights particularly important. By granting greater development rights and interests to poverty-alleviated counties and households, their development agency will be significantly enhanced. Actions should include reforming policies to empower poverty-alleviated counties and strengthen governance, granting greater autonomy in resource integration and in the use of fiscal support funds and social assistance funds, and deepening efforts to streamline administration, delegate powers, improve regulation, and upgrade services in these counties. Responsibilities and tasks should be clearly specified, with parallel delegation of power and resources. Work should be done to link transfer payments with the amount of land designated for urban development and with the number of urban residency approvals granted by local governments. More efforts should be made to promote the independent cultivation of business entities in these counties. We should ensure that people who have been lifted out of poverty enjoy broader development rights and protections for their property rights, including rights to contract and use rural land, to use residential plots, and to share in proceeds from rural collective undertakings.

We should guarantee that village collectives and individuals who have been lifted out of poverty have access to information, participation, and decision-making in rural development, construction, and governance; strengthen oversight of the consolidation and expansion of poverty-alleviation outcomes and the advancement of comprehensive rural revitalization; protect their entitlement to equitable distribution and benefits from rural development dividends; and uphold their right to effective participation in rural governance.

Enhancing a sense of identity and belonging to encourage initiative 

A sense of identity is a foundational driver of proactivity. We should strengthen collective identity, belonging, and pride among populations lifted out of poverty to stimulate proactive engagement. This includes expanding education and guidance on poverty-alleviation concepts, promoting aspirational norms, and establishing role models to advance the principles of “prosperity through contribution” and “prosperity through hard work,” while preventing relapse into a poverty mindset. Other measures include establishing an honor system to cultivate proactive development and progressive rural customs, creating cultural and moral banks, and launching recognition programs such as “Development Pioneer Households” and “Civility Model Families” to reinforce a sense of honor. We should also implement streamlined, actionable support measures to strengthen individuals’ confidence in development and ensure inclusive progress toward common prosperity.

Stimulating active participation by mobilizing the proactive agency of the people lifted out of poverty 

Participation is a critical component of development. We should uphold the central role of people lifted out of poverty by increasing both their willingness and capacity to participate in development. This entails enhancing incentive and guidance mechanisms to promote proactive participation, fostering an enabling environment for civic engagement, and implementing the “4+2” framework to empower people to discuss, deliberate, and take ownership of local affairs. We should refine incentive-based support measures, improve the mechanism for integrating farmers’ interests with those of the agricultural industry chain, and strengthen the motivation and capacity of individuals lifted out of poverty for self-directed development. The practices of rural governance such as points-based mechanisms and list-based governance and effective utilization of economic incentive instruments should also be leveraged. Other measures include launching targeted programs to accelerate rural development initiatives, which will help integrate the participation of individuals lifted out of poverty as a core component, and organizing initiatives such as “I Contribute to My Hometown's Development.” We should enhance the principal role of villagers and the functional role of village committees in village planning processes, respect and take into account farmers, preferences, and facilitate their active participation in rural development initiatives. In regions previously classified as poverty-stricken, it is necessary to advance the universal access to senior secondary education and special needs education, improve employment services and skills training systems, expand routine health screenings and free medical outreach programs for individuals lifted out of poverty, and pilot an annual health examination subsidy mechanism.

Exploiting resources and refining mechanisms to realize the market value of production factors

Resources form the material foundation of economic development. By leveraging the resource endowments, industrial bases, and geographical advantages of poverty-alleviated regions, we can translate resource advantages into sustainable economic gains. Building on the distinctive ecological, historical, and cultural resources in counties that have shaken off poverty, we should integrate rural collective assets to develop agrarian culture- and creativity-based projects that reflect contemporary characteristics, thereby promoting the integrated development of agriculture, culture, and tourism. We should implement programs that empower rural revitalization through cultural industries by identifying, cultivating, and recognizing rural artisans, intangible cultural heritage practitioners, and other cultural talents, while establishing a diversified mechanism for developing, retaining, and utilizing rural cultural human resources. We should also accelerate the development of economic compensation mechanisms to address institutional barriers to environmental resource development in formerly impoverished areas. Efforts should encourage households lifted out of poverty to develop courtyard economies by effectively utilizing available household space to establish small-scale, distinctive enterprises such as specialty agriculture and animal husbandry, folk handicrafts, and leisure tourism, thereby expanding income channels.

Promoting cooperation and establishing a mutually beneficial mechanism for integrating farmers’ interests with the agricultural industry chain

Cooperation is an effective path to mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. By encouraging and guiding market entities, social organizations, and other stakeholders to participate in the development of poverty-alleviated areas, broad-based collaboration can be fostered with rural collective economic organizations and households that have been lifted out of poverty, forming a robust mechanism that aligns farmers, interests with the agricultural value chain. Focusing on key counties receiving national assistance for rural revitalization, efforts should strengthen paired support, paired assistance, and inter-regional collaboration. Fully unlocking the potential of poverty-alleviated areas to absorb relocated industries, co-develop cross-provincial cooperative industrial parks, and establish primary agricultural processing bases are key objectives. In regions that are geographically adjacent, share similar resources, align in industrial structure, and are functionally interconnected, joint development zones should be established in a clustered model. Targeted policies will support the development of comprehensive industrial chains across broader spatial scales, promoting coordinated advancement of regional branding. We should accelerate standardization of government service lists and operating guidelines in poverty-alleviated areas to stimulate investment and entrepreneurial vitality. All market entities should be encouraged to engage in order-based procurement and explore effective cooperation models that leverage land, labor, and government-supported resources of those lifted out of poverty.

Encouraging innovation and exploring new business models, new trade forms, and new mechanisms

Innovation is the primary driver of development. We should introduce modern production factors, optimize the policy framework, and promote transformation in development models and structures, thereby leveraging local specialty resources to foster new growth. We should encourage and support poverty-alleviated areas to adopt modern production factors—such as agricultural science and technology and data—and integrate them with distinctive local resources to unlock the integrative innovation potential of models like “Agriculture Plus,” “Ecology Plus,” “Culture Plus,” and “Digital Plus.” This approach will upgrade traditional industries and catalyze new business forms. We should maximize the catalytic role of leading enterprises operating in poverty-alleviated areas and advance efforts to cultivate “pioneers” within characteristic industrial clusters. Work should be done to bring in professional teams and qualified managers to conduct planning, design, and operational management, facilitating the outward promotion of high-quality rural products and cultural services. We should leverage product-purchase assistance to explore a subscription-based model for agricultural products, including fruits, vegetables, livestock, and land resources. Another avenue is to establish a cross-regional cooperative mechanism for allocating and utilizing rural construction land indicators between underdeveloped and developed regions to jointly develop industrial parks. We should also create a dedicated fund to support industrial development and talent cultivation in villages with weak rural collective economies within poverty-alleviated areas.

This article was written by Chen Jie, He Anhua, and Ni Kunxiao.

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 18, 2025)