Ending extreme poverty, China secures people's right to adequate standard of living: white paper

BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- By eliminating extreme poverty, China has won the biggest and toughest battle against poverty in human history, to the benefit of the largest number of people, said a white paper Thursday.

Titled "Moderate Prosperity in All Respects: Another Milestone Achieved in China's Human Rights," the white paper was released by the State Council Information Office.

Calling poverty the biggest obstacle to human rights, the white paper said the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have directed extra attention to rural poverty, furthering development-driven poverty alleviation and achieving a series of important breakthroughs, and have thus secured the right to an adequate standard of living for all its people.

China has secured the right to food for the poor, said the document. It pointed out that China has resolved the problems of insufficient food and undernutrition, especially that of children, through agricultural means and nutrition programs, and has ensured that all the poor have access to food by increasing their incomes through targeted poverty alleviation.

China has also made tremendous efforts in ensuring safe drinking water for the poor by improving access to safe drinking water for rural people, expanding tap water coverage, and pushing forward the replacement of water sources, water purification, and population resettlement.

To prevent poverty from passing down from one generation to the next, China has also stepped up efforts to provide compulsory education in poor areas, noted the document.

By improving school conditions and education quality, launching programs to improve the teaching workforce in poor rural areas and providing financial aid to students, China managed to raise the compulsory education completion rate in poor counties to 94.8 percent in 2020, the document said.

In providing essential medical services for the poor, China has made continuous efforts to ensure the poor can have common ailments and chronic diseases treated at nearby medical institutions in a timely manner. Also, all poor populations currently have access to basic medical insurance, serious illness insurance and medical assistance, the document noted.

To guarantee safe housing for the rural poor, China has launched programs such as the renovation of dilapidated rural homes and the construction of rural public rental housing, the document said. The central government allocated 284 billion yuan (about 43.79 billion U.S. dollars) between 2008 and 2020 for the renovation of 27.6 million dilapidated homes, helping to guarantee access to safe housing for 80 million rural poor.