Reuters reports on new efforts by the Chinese government to include NGOs in their poverty relief efforts:
What sets this pilot project apart is that it addresses the need for more nimble efforts to help the 21.5 million people living below the official absolute poverty line of 693 yuan ($90) a year, who are increasingly clustered in hard-to-reach areas.
That’s where NGOs come in. The government increasingly recognizes their strengths in reaching out to disadvantaged groups, and so it is experimenting in Jiangxi with essentially sub-contracting some of its poverty relief work to NGOs, through a bidding process.
The selected NGOs go to their assigned villages to listen to residents about how they want their 500,000 yuan in government aid to be spent. They then help implement the plans. [Full text]
