Staff Reporter
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Yao Jing on Thursday said over the past 30 years, consistency in policies, flexibility in developmental frameworks for different regions and putting poverty alleviation central to overall comprehensive development agenda were the key three reasons to help eradicate poverty in China.
He was addressing a special seminar titled “Celebrating 70 years of China’s achievements in poverty eradication” organized by the China Study Center (CSC) of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
Yao Jing said that in China, poverty eradication was not just an isolated effort of the government, but part of overall comprehensive development strategy. “Comprehensive development strategy of China is not confined to growth rate only, but it meant to include education, health, environmental protection, social security and high quality development” he said adding comprehensive development strategy was the key to tackle all major challenges of China.
While commenting on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Yao Jing said that the CPEC has now transformed and entered into a new second phase where both countries are now focusing on industrial cooperation, agricultural cooperation, and socio-economic development. “Under social cooperation, we are focusing on six areas including health, education, water, agriculture, poverty eradication and human resource development”, he said adding around 27 different projects in these six areas of cooperation will be implemented.
Executive Director, SDPI, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, while highlighting the theme of International Day for the Eradication of Poverty said that there is a need of shift in our thinking and approach to fight poverty. “We all need to work together in order to empower our children, their families and communities to help reduce poverty”, he said adding our children are our future, therefore, every single child should have access to quality education, health and a peaceful and secure environment, where he/she could grow without fear of any coercion. He underlined that our social protection policies should also incorporate the needs of our children, especially the girl children, to help eradicate poverty in a society.
